Youth Group's Who Pray (And Slay Demons) Together...

The 90s Youth Group that I was a part of didn’t have any Jesus-freak vibes. We’d meet some of the super-serious kids from time to time, and we were always nice to them, but then we’d get back into our church van, make our Adam Sandler jokes, and pick up our discussions about horror movies, alternative rock bands, and our favorite Beastie Boys lyrics.

We were friends outside of the group too, which helped, because it made the youth group just another excuse to hang out with each other. The parental sanctioning of it all didn’t hurt either.

And, because we were all teenagers of various ages, we were deep into figuring out who we were, individually and as part of this group too. The group helped. It was separate from our school, sports, and other activity cliques (and their hierarchies/clique-dynamics) which gave us each at least one more sub-group to experiment in.

This is essential pre-amble to why, when I heard Jordan Morris telling Jesse Thorn about the graphic novel he just published about demon-slaying 90s youth groups, I immediately went to Amazon and clicked “buy now.”

We didn’t slay any external demons, but my group of youth group friends definitely overcame plenty of internal ones. If somebody else got that experience and wanted to play with the variables around it, I’m in. The book delivers.

If you were a youth group kid, you need to check this out. You owe it to yourself. If you’re not, here’s a passage that I think captures the essence of what Jordan Morris wrote and Bowen McCurdy beautifully rendered:

It’s equally important to strengthen our faith in ourselves and those we love.

Let that sink in.

For all the churchiness that comes attached to telling people about my experience, Morris understands the essence.

Believing in a higher purpose is valuable. But putting the effort, work, and time into strengthening our faith in ourselves and those we love is essential.

I love this book. Thank you Jordan Morris and Bowen McCurdy for creating this.

ps. Here’s the Bullseye interview where I heard it, and, shoutout to Jordan, Jesse GO! which I love as well.