LAKELAND — "I’m one of them," said an 8th-grader attending the Belfry Recreation Center at First United Methodist Church, Lakeland, to an adult volunteer after a Friday night candlelight memorial service for the victims of last April’s Columbine High School tragedy.

The boy explained that he had no friends, nobody liked him, and he didn’t know where he belonged; he felt just like one of the two boys accused of killing 12 classmates in Littleton, Col.

"He was a nice looking kid, wouldn’t stand out in a crowd…an average looking kid," said Bob Douglass, the church’s youth director.

Douglass says he is just the kind of kid the church is trying to reach through its Friday night Belfry Recreational Center ministry.

The Center is an outreach ministry of the church that has attracted more than 3,300 middle and high school students in the Lakeland area during the past three years, according to Douglass. Each Friday night, between 300 and 500 kids gather at the church’s youth complex. The center features a youth worker from Plant City who serves as a disk jockey and plays popular music for the kids to dance to, a game room, and snacks. Church members, parents and several Lakeland police officers make up the team of 20-30 adult chaperones. In May, Douglass said he is adding a Chat Room offering weekly speakers and a quiet place for discussions and prayer.

Douglass said the memorial service was designed to show the kids at Belfry that the church cares about them and was trying to reach out to them spiritually. He said they responded well. "They were relieved to have a way to express themselves on it, to give closure or give healing," Douglass said of the 150 youth who attended.

In the wake of the April 20 tragedy at Columbine High School, Douglass said he noticed that his church’s youth were deeply affected by the events, and many had taken them personally. "As much as adults were affected, the youth are really affected by this," he said. "The kids needed a way to deal with it."

In addition to the memorial service and a separate chapel service for members of the youth group, the kids were asked to sign a 50' long banner telling the youth of Littleton "our thoughts and prayers are with you." Most of the kids took time to write a personal message, Douglass said. The banner is being personally delivered to Littleton by a Florida Southern College student who attends the Lakeland church and grew up in Littleton.

While the banner and service were designed to provide healing for the community, Douglass said he also wanted to provide a message for the present and future.

The Sunday after the candlelight service, Douglass presented the story of the 8th-grade boy who felt like one of the school shooters in the Littleton tragedy to members of the church’s United Methodist Youth Fellowship, asking them: "Is this group one that could invite this boy in and make him feel like he belongs?"

He said the group responded enthusiastically that they would. Douglass also plans to provide a mentor for the boy — someone to get to know him better.