Trying something new

We just wrapped up a series of messages on being a 'true community of faith' for our high school students. Inspired by what our students are teaching me, what I am learning from the emgerging church thing and a book I recently read called Experiential Storytelling, I set out to deliver a message series without ever gving a traditional message, i.e., for 3 weeks I did not get up front and use some clever central analogy try to get kids to understand what I deemed important about a piece of scripture.
Instead, we tried different stuff each week to get them to live the passage, to experience it, rather than have it taught at them. Then afterwards, in smaller groups we tried to help them process what it was they experienced and what it might mean for their lives outside of Sunday evening.
The last message was on growing our community. I chose Mark 2:1-12 the healing of the paralytic. We sent kids to the far end of our building (which happens to double as a YMCA) and told them at the opposite end of the building in a kitchen that is about 8x10 were snacks and soda. The catch was they could not use their legs to get to kitchen. So one by one they were allowed to set out dragging themselves across the building. After about 15 feet, four of our bigger guys showed up with a 'mat' or stretcher we had made out of duct tape and PVC pipe and carried each student to kitchen where there was indeed Honey BBQ Fritos and Yodels ( or HoHos depending on where you are from) waiting for them. There was also a crowd noise soundtrack playing. The room filled up very quickly and became quite warm. The best part may have been a mistake I made though. We made the stretcher too wide so we had to flip each student on their side to fit them through the door; not quite being lowered through the roof but in mid-flip the kids on the stretchers definitely got an experience.
When everyone was in the 8x10 kitchen, about 25 of us, we played a CD of a dramatic reading of the passage. The light bulbs blinked on for some students, others were caught up in how hot it was, others were still eating, some were trying to listen over the background noise.
It was a cool night. Only time will tell what stuck and what our students got out of it but I think it was worth the risk.