There is a kind of pain in the Club that leaves no bruise. Nobody pushes, nobody curses. But every meeting, when it is time to pair up, the same person is left over. It is the Pathfinder nobody calls, who laughs at the others' jokes from a distance, who has already given up trying to break into the circle.
This is not a fight. It is structure. Cliques — closed little groups that always stick together and make no room — are subtler and more common than the one-off bullying incident. And precisely because they are "normal" they go unnoticed. You, as a leader, Counselor or parent, need to learn to see what is invisible on purpose.
The good news: a clique is broken with design. Not with a lecture. In this guide you will learn to recognize the signs, mix groups with intention, lead without favorites and build a Unit where the rule everyone agrees on is simple: nobody gets left out.
What a clique is (and why it hurts without hitting)
A clique is the closed group. It is three, four, five Pathfinders who always sit together, always pair up with each other, always save seats for one another and, without saying it out loud, do not open the circle to anyone else. There need not be any hatred. Often they are just friends too comfortable to notice whoever is standing outside looking in.
The problem is not the friendship. Friendship is great. The problem is the boundary. When the group becomes a wall, someone is always leaning against it unable to get in. And the message the wall sends is cruel precisely because it is silent: 'there is no place for you here'.
Notice the difference from an ordinary fight. In a fight there is an outburst, everyone sees it, and you step in. In clique exclusion there is no outburst. There is absence. Absence of invitation, absence of a glance, absence of a name being called. That is why it slips by: you are trained to react to noise, and exclusion is made of silence.
A quick leader test: at the next meeting, when it is time to form free pairs or teams, do not organize anything. Just watch. Who picks whom in two seconds? And who is the last person left over, waiting for someone to say 'come with me'? If it is always the same face, you have just found the hole in your Unit.
Recognizing the signs: the newcomer, the shy one and the 'different' one
Three profiles tend to be the ones left out, and it is worth training your eyes for each one.
The newcomer has no history in the group yet. They arrived later, they were not at the camp that became legend, they do not get the inside jokes. They are not rejected for something they did — they are rejected for lack of time. On its own, that takes months to resolve. With your help, one meeting.
The shy one wants to get in, but does not know how. They do not start conversations, do not volunteer, do not raise their hand. They wait to be called — and since nobody calls, they read the silence as 'they don't want me'. The shy one rarely complains. They just fade away little by little: they miss one meeting, then two, and one day they do not come back.
And there is the 'different' one: the one with another way, another body, another accent, who likes things the group finds strange, or who has a disability. Difference frightens teenagers, and the group's reflex is to close up. Watch for the physical signs of exclusion: someone who eats alone, who hangs at the edge of activities, who is not mentioned in conversations, who they 'forget' to tell about Saturday's program. Nobody had to say anything ugly. The emptiness said it all.
The most powerful tool: mixing on purpose
Here is the secret that changes everything: you do not fix a clique by talking about friendship. You fix it by changing who sits with whom. Structure beats speeches. If you let the Pathfinders group up on their own, they will always recreate the same little groups. So take that choice out of their hands — lightly, playfully and without accusing anyone.
Rotating pairs: every meeting, you draw or set the pairs. Cards, numbers, counting off, whatever. There is only one rule: you never pair with the person you paired with last week. In a month, almost everyone has worked with almost everyone. The walls start filling up with doors.
Drawn teams for activities: when the Unit is going to compete, pitch a tent, cook or do a pioneering project, do not let it be 'everyone picks their own team'. That phrase is the official factory of exclusion. Draw them. Or build balanced teams yourself, mixing newcomers with veterans, the shy with the outgoing.
Assigned seats that change: if your Unit has a fixed spot, shuffle it. Swap the seats by drawing now and then. The goal is never to separate friends as punishment — it is to make sure nobody stays stuck on the outside. Say it out loud and with good humor: 'today is meet-new-people day, nobody picks'. Turn the mixing into a game, not a penalty.
Read alsoHow to welcome and integrate a new Pathfinder into the UnitActivities that break up little groups (to use right away)
Some activities were made to dissolve cliques naturally, because they force the group to reorganize. Put them into your Unit's rotation.
The 'switch-switch' icebreaker: everyone in a circle, you call out a trait ('who has white sneakers', 'who has a younger sibling', 'who has slept at camp in the rain') and whoever fits stands up and swaps seats. In minutes, nobody is sitting next to who they started with. Simple, fast, and nobody notices they were 'made' to mix.
Challenges that only work mixed: set up a task that needs different skills — one who ties knots, one who draws, one who leads, one who takes notes. When you form the team deliberately diverse, the newcomer and the shy one stop being 'the leftover' and become a needed piece. Nothing welcomes faster than being useful.
The table below gives a quick map of what to use depending on the problem you see in your Unit:
| Sign you see | Recommended tool |
|---|---|
| Always the same pairs | Drawn pair rotation every meeting |
| Newcomer lost and quiet | Buddy of the week + a task where they shine |
| 'Everyone picks the team' | Teams built by you, balanced |
| Closed circle at break | 'Switch-switch' icebreaker before the snack |
The leader without favorites: you are the mirror
Here comes the uncomfortable part. Many Unit cliques are a reflection of the leader's own clique. If you, Counselor, always call the same people to help, laugh harder at the popular kids' jokes, give more attention to those who are already your favorites — the Pathfinders learn that there is a line, and that some are born at the front of it. They copy what you do, not what you preach.
The Bible is direct about this. James writes: 'My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory' (James 2:1, ESV). And he closes with no hedging: 'But if you show partiality, you are committing sin' (James 2:9, ESV). Partiality is exactly that: treating people differently because of appearance, popularity or likability. For those who follow Jesus, favoritism is not a personality quirk. It is a serious failure.
In practice: spread the spotlight around. Rotate who leads the prayer, who carries the flag, who answers first. Learn everyone's name — for real, not just the loud ones. Do an honest mental tally at the end of the meeting: how many different Pathfinders did I speak to eye-to-eye today? If the answer is always the same three, the problem starts with you.
This does not mean pretending you like everyone equally — you do not control feelings. It means acting fairly anyway. The difficult Pathfinder, the one who irritates you, the one who is not 'your type': that is exactly the one who most needs to know there is a place for them. A good Counselor treats well those who do not make it easy. If you want to go deeper into this role, see the guide on how to be a good Counselor.
Teaching welcome: turning every Pathfinder into a host
You will not be everywhere all the time. That is why the final goal is not for you to police exclusion — it is to get the Pathfinders themselves not to leave anyone out, even when you are not watching. This is taught, and the model is Jesus himself.
Tell the story of Zacchaeus. He was despised by everyone, the man nobody wanted around. The whole crowd had already decided he was out. And what does Jesus do? He crosses the crowd, looks at the excluded man up in the tree and says he is going precisely to his house (Luke 19:1-10). The summary of the mission is in verse 10: 'For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost' (ESV). Seeking out whoever is on the outside is not optional niceness. It is the heart of the Gospel.
Translate that into concrete, teachable action. Create the 'nobody eats alone' agreement: if you see someone alone at the snack, you call them over. Period. Teach the 'empty chair rule': when the group closes into a circle, someone always leaves a spot and offers it to whoever arrives. Praise in public whoever welcomes: 'I noticed you called so-and-so over today, that is being a real Pathfinder'. What is recognized, gets repeated.
Jesus summed it all up in one sentence: 'A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you... By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another' (John 13:34-35, ESV). Notice the detail: the world recognizes the Christian by love, not by the uniform nor by the honors on the sash. A Unit that welcomes is the best sermon your Club can preach — and you do not need to be Adventist to find that beautiful and true.
When exclusion turns into bullying: stop managing and protect
There is a line you need to know how to see. Not all exclusion is bullying. A little group that closes up without realizing it is a fellowship problem — you solve it with mixing and welcome. But when exclusion becomes intentional, repeated and aimed at the same person, it has crossed the line. Then it is no longer Unit dynamics. It is bullying, and the game changes.
The three signs that mark the crossing: intent (the group excludes on purpose, knowing it hurts), repetition (it happens every time, not one bad day) and power imbalance (the victim alone against a group). Add mockery, nicknames, 'forgetting' to tell them on purpose, spreading that so-and-so is weird — and you no longer have an innocent clique. You have a victim.
At that point, stop treating it as a mess to manage. Do not force the victim to 'solve it alone' or to 'understand their classmates'. Welcome the victim first, talk separately with those who exclude (without humiliating them in front of everyone), document what is happening and involve the Club Directorate and the parents of those involved. Systematic exclusion destroys a teenager's self-esteem in a lasting way — that is not an exaggeration from an outsider.
To conduct the disciplinary conversation without turning it into public shame, lean on positive discipline. And if you have identified that it truly is bullying, the specific step-by-step — including when and how to involve the family and the school — is in the guide for parents and leaders on bullying in the Club. At that moment, escalating is not failing as a leader. It is exactly what a good leader does.