As prom season is upon us, below are a few ways we as Young Life leaders can serve our high school friends, parents, and school administrations.
PRE-PROM
Prom-posals
Some of your high school friends are beginning to ask dates to the prom and would love your creative help thinking of a fun promposal idea.
One of my high school friends wrote a letter to Roy Williams, coach of the UNC Tar Heels basketball team. He asked him to write a letter to the girl he wanted to ask to prom. Roy did it!
Dress/Tux Shopping
Go shopping with them. Do you think your high school friend would rather go to Men’s Warehouse with his YL leader or his mom? It’s a toss up, but for female YL leaders it’s a great contact work opportunity!
Pimp That Ride
Offer to pimp out your Rav-4 and dress up as a limo driver to escort your high school friends and their dates to dinner and prom. Maybe even check with committee folks or adults at your church who have nice vehicles they’d be willing to let you borrow.
Chef-Boy-R-Prom
Offer to cook/serve an elegant candlelight dinner for your high school friends. Do it at your house, their house, the YL house, or outside at a park. It’ll be much cheaper than a steakhouse and much more memorable!
Post-A-Pic
Show up at the pre-dinner photo spot with a super-nice camera that you borrowed from your rich uncle. Take pics, edit them, post them on social media and tag your high school friends. They’ll appreciate having some good pics!
Pray
This is a night full of regrets for many of our friends. Let’s beg God to protect them and to give them courage and wisdom when making tough decisions.
Prep
Help your high school friends think through the evening ahead of time. Tell them you know the temptations they will face. Tell them Jesus knows those same temptations (Matthew 4). Tell them to look for a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13), because Jesus always provides one. Who else is having these important conversations with them? It’s one of the reasons we work so hard to earn the right to be heard.
DURING-PROM
Volunteer
You might be surprised how grateful the high school administration will be to hear an adult ask if they can help supervise the prom. It’s not like a ton of adults are lining up to referee boogie-dance wrastlin’.
Prom Alternative
Some of your friends didn’t get asked to the prom. They say it’s not a big deal, but no one enjoys being left out. Imagine how excited they would be if you offered them another hangout option during prom. You could do something low-key or even create an event like “MORP” (Prom backwards.) Instead of the dance you could create an evening of a fancy meal followed by video scavenger hunts, rolling houses, ice blocking, movies, and even your own little dance party. That’s the stuff memories are made of.
AFTER-PROM
If your high school puts on an After-Prom event, volunteer to help. A few years back our YL team would film music videos of kids during the event. We used the YL skit closet and had kids dress up and lip-sync the song of their choice. We got some construction lights and designed a lil stage. After we shot the music videos we uploaded them on the YL YouTube page for kids to view. It was a big hit. If your school doesn’t offer an After-Prom consider offering your friends a late night alternative.
Do you have other ideas that have worked for you? Email us here and we’ll add them to the post.
