Sunday afternoon, instead of having a normal meeting of dinner, worship and study, the middle and high school students went to the Susquehanna Valley Mall for lunch, a bit of shopping and a movie.

We left church and gathered at the mall’s unofficial food court, an area where there’s an Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, Bavarian Pretzel, Subway, Arby’s and a local pizza restaurant, Villa Teresa. We split up, letting the kids eat where they liked, but each group had to have a leader with them. After a quick bite to eat, we split into two groups: the boys with one leader and the girls with two leaders (including myself) and went shopping for about an hour and a half before heading to the movies.

At the movies, the parents of one of the high school girls joined us so that we’d be able to split up and see two different shows (safe sanctuary policy requires at least two non-related adults with youth at all times). Again, the boys and girls split up, the boys choosing to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, while the girls saw August Rush; I chose the latter.

Despite some poor reviews (primarily that it’s too fanciful and requires the viewer to go way beyond the usual suspension of disbelief), I really enjoyed the film.  Sure, it was silly and required lots of coincidences for things to fall into place, but it was far better than most of the junk Hollywood releases these days.

While seeing a movie doesn’t allow for a whole lot of interaction among the youth and leaders (and it put us back another week in our study series), it was a great change of pace from our regular Sunday meetings.