Several weeks ago, I mentioned that I serve as a leader of a group of 13 young men (ages 16-18) in my local church group. But, technically, that wasn't quite right.

Actually, I am not supposed to be the leader of this group. Rather, one of the boys is selected as the leader. This is supposed to be a boy-run program. My official title is "Advisor." And, as an Advisor, I am supposed to advise and guide the young men but not do everything for them. This is their quorum and these are their activities.

So, ideally, rather than telling the boys what we're gonna do each week for our Wednesday night activity, the boys are to plan the activities and we, as "Advisors" are there to simply keep them pointed in the right direction.

As every parent knows, most of the time, it's much easier to actually just do a task yourself than to let your kids do it because it's going to take the kids twice as long and they're probably gonna screw it up.

Well, it's the same with these young men. If you want to have a good Wednesday night activity, the quickest and easiest way to have a successful experience is to simply plan the dang thing yourself.

But, quickness isn't really the goal and even if the activity is a bust, if a boy learned something or gained something from the experience, then it wasn't a failure. The goal, therefore, is to help the young men learn and grow and sometimes that means letting them try and fail.

So, every three or four months, we gather for a planning session in which we brainstorm different ideas of things we can do for our Wednesday activies.

What I've discovered, over the years, is that, when the young men actually come up with the idea and plan it and make it happen, they're much more likely to come to the activity each week and to engage and participate. In other words, it's easier to get "buy-in" if they planned it.

And, the funny thing is that, many times, they come up ideas that are WAY better than anything we, as adults, could have come up with!

Scribs is a perfect example.

One time, during our brainstorming sessions, one of the boys said "hey...I have an idea. Why don't we gather on Wednesday to eat BBQ ribs...but before you can eat a rib you have to share your favorite scripture first and tell everyone why it's your favorite." One of the other boys said "yeah! We'll call it Scribs (scriptures/ribs == scribs)!"

Well, needless to say, Scribs was a hit! What a genius idea!! Ever since that first Scribs night, the boys have planned Scribs at least once every six months since then.

Here are a couple photos from our last Scribs activity in March:

Later, after the success of Scribs, one of the boys came up with the idea for Weeds. Share a good Deed that you've done in the last week and you can eat a Wing (Wing/Deeds == weeds).

Obviously, the boys were thinking of excuses to eat some delicious snacks. But, if it motivates them to go out and do some good deeds during the week...I'm game!

This week was Weeds night and since I was running to Costco anyway, I offered to pick up the wings. I figured, I'll just grab some wings, pop them in the oven, and run them down to the activity on Wednesday night. Easy peasy!

But, Wednesday afternoon, I started thinking about it and I wondered "hey...how do you actually cook Wings?" I asked Kathy and she said "wait...what? You got raw chicken wings?" Apparently, I was supposed to buy seasoned ones from the frozen food section. Whoops! I said "yeah...how do you make them? What do I do with this?" She said "I don't know. I've never made them before."

So, I used Cook'n to look up some good chicken wing recipes but I wasn't happy with any particular one. So, I took ideas from several different recipes and combined them to make my own.

By the way, Cook'n was a HYOOOOOGE help in this regard because I was short on time and I didn't want to waste time sifting through all the pop-up ads and I didn't want to waste time reading the person's whole life story while hunting for the doggone recipe on the page either. Sheesh! This is getting ridiculous! Finding the actual recipe on some of these recipe web pages is like playing a game of "Where's Waldo!" Instead of playing that game, I pretty much just Captured every recipe and then examined it to see if it was good or not which was a HUGE help. Thank you, Cook'n!!

So, I combined several different recipe ideas to make my own. My ideas seemed to make sense but, since I had never done it before, I was really beginning to wonder if this was going to turn out good at all.

First, I found this rub that sounded pretty darn good consisting of:

• 3 tablespoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

I mixed that up in a bowl easy enough. But, I had to figure out how to actually get it onto the wings.

I didn't want to "rub" it on each wing with my hands one-at-a-time. As Pappy O'Daniel would say, I didn't want to "press the flesh". We ain't one-at-a-timin' here.


I needed to find a way to MASS apply it!!

So, I put 7 or 8 wings in a large bowl, sprinkled some of the rub over them, and then stirred until they were well coated. I dumped the bowl out on the baking sheet and repeated the step several times until all the wings were covered with the rub.

Note: Since I had never made these before, I wasn't sure if the rub was going to be good or too powerful or what. So, as you can see in the photo below, I lightly coated the ones on the left and heavy coated the ones in the middle. And, just in case the rub was a total bust, I soaked the ones in the right in teriyak sauce. As it turned out, the best ones were the heavy coated ones in the middle.

I covered the baking sheet with tinfoil to make it easier to clean-up when I was done. And, I put a grill grate over the top of the baking sheet so the Wings weren't sitting in a pool of grease.

I baked them at 250° for 20 minutes (don't ask me why...that's what the instructions in one of the recipes said to do) and then turned the heat up to 425° and baked them for 40-50 more minutes.

The wings finished baking right at 7:00. So, I threw them in the back of the car and ran to the activity.

I brought several different dipping sauces and some celery too which was a really refreshing addition.

And, I brought a large bowl of watermelon as well which took refreshing to the next level!

As it turned out, the wings were DELICIOUS!! The boys ATE them UP! And, needless to say, the activity was a huge success.

If you're interested, this is the recipe that I created: Baked Wings.

Finally, you may be wondering "wait...I thought you said that it's supposed to be a boy-run program. It sounds like you did everything!" If so, that's a good observation and you are partly right. But, consider this...

First, this is finals week in school for the young men so they're totally buried and have no free time. The Advisors really needed to step up this particular week.

And, second, being in charge of an activity doesn't necessarily mean you have to do everything. We are trying to teach the young men how to be in charge of an activity and, many times, that involves delegating and making assignments to others which is what happened in this case...except that I kinda volunteered to take this assignment.

In any case, it was a great success. And, now I have a new favorite recipe that I've added to my Cook'n collection. My cooking confidence has increased too which is very satisfying.

I think that one of the things I enjoyed most about this experience is this: I'm actually not a huge fan of chicken wings. The super spicy flavor of some of the wings you get at the restaurant with the sticky, sloppy, candied/carmelized coating is just not my favorite. These wings actually tasted really delicious! I could definitely see myself making these again.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. And, more importantly, I hope you are having fun using Cook'n to find delicious recipe ideas that you can make your own!