Here’s some training material I use to help my youth leaders and others prepare a Bible talk. It can be adapted for any occasion and maybe it’ll help you train your leaders as well.
The same basic principles apply for writing a Bible study, so I’ll add another post, in due course, with similar content but with written Bible study application.
Special note: There’s some wisdom in here generously borrowed from Rory Shiner
Here is 5 youth Bible studies on the book of Hebrews.
It is free to download and use for any ministry purpose but not for any commercial gain.
(Links to the file on Dropbox)
(Courtesy of Daniel Higgins)
This game is a combination of T.V. show “Family Feud” and the board game “Compatibility”.
The person running the game will approach a youth grouper before youth group, and ask them to answer some questions. For each question, “Jack” must provide 3-5 answers and rate them in order of importance.
When the game is played in youth group, teams will be asked the same questions as “Jack” and they will have to try and give the same answers and in the same order of importance.
(The game can also be played live with the “Jack” person writing their answers at the same time the teams write theirs.)
Jack will reveal and explain his answers why he gave them in that order so that we all get to know him.
After about 3 or so rounds, the team with the most points win.
Scoring:
3 points for a correctly placed match
1 point for an incorrectly placed match
Here’s and example:
QUESTION:
Something you would do on the weekend…
Jack’s Answers:
1 Go out for coffee
2 Go to cadets
3 Update planes on wikipedia
4 Go to the movies
5 Set something on fire
Teams Answers:
1 Set something fire + 1 (One point for a correct answer in the wrong place)
2 Go out for coffee + 1 (One point for a correct answer in the wrong place)
3 Updating Planes + 3 (Three points for a correct answer in the correct place)
4 Spit roasts + 0 (Zero Points for an incorrect answer)
5 MCing events + 0 (Zero Points for an incorrect answer)
Our starting point in this framework for an integrated church is that intergenerational ministry is first and foremost a human reality.
Children’s and youth ministry is a human reality, that is to say, it is a necessary consequence of our creatureliness. It’s not a result of the fall, as if kids’ craft and kids’ songs could’ve been avoided if only Adam and Eve didn’t eat the forbidden fruit. No, children’s and youth ministry is part of our humanness.
The divine command and blessing for humans to ‘be fruitful and increase in number’ in Genesis 1:28 was always going to involve having children and raising children to carry out God’s ordained purpose for humanity. In fact, Adam and Eve are the first youth and children’s ministers in the Bible and, according to the story, they had the abnormal experience of raising children without ever having been children themselves (think about that!). And yet, the Genesis story also records for us that they were not alone in the task. The long life spans recorded in the genealogies of Genesis are not to be unexpected, given that the Genesis story is one of beginnings, but the longevity of life also adds the benefit of having many generations of children, parents, grandparents, and grand children all living together at the same time.[1]
The human reality is, that as human beings, we are physical, local and transient beings. We are not static. Each of us can say that, to date, this is oldest I’ve ever been. There are some things about human beings that aren’t transient and don’t change, but what is always changing is your age.[2] A baby is only an infant for a matter of moments. A child is fast becoming a teenager. A teenager is fast becoming an adult and so on.
Therefore, in some ways it’s an odd thing to say that you ‘love children’ or ‘have a heart for young people’ or a passion for ‘young adults’ ministry’.
It’s a little bit like saying ‘I only love you for a little while’, ‘I only have a heart for you a little while’, ‘I only have a passion for you a little while’. ‘How old are you? You’re 13? Sorry I only love children, you’re too old, go see the youth minister’. ‘Sorry, what’s that? You’re 27? I only have a passion for ministering to young adults. You’re too old, go see the not-young-adult-anymore minister’.
Rather, it’s a human reality that people move through ages.
For this reason, it seems short sighted and slightly absurd to restrict ministry to a specifically defined age group. Any human community will need to think about integrating diverse generations because it is a reality of our humanness that we are different ages, and therefore, an intergenerational church is unavoidable.
All this is to say, that it’s worth thinking about how we can relate across the generations well and that integrating diverse generations in a community is not abnormal. It seems far more abnormal that we would try to draw up boundaries around certain age groups and isolate generations from each other. A short scan of the internet quickly reveals that there is an ever growing list of age categories and sub-categories that are segregating people in our societies. For example, a human being might find themselves grouped under the title of Antenatal, Newborn, Infant, Toddler, Walker, Preschooler, Primary age, Pre-Teen, Tween, Teen, Emerging Adult, Young Adult, Adult, Mature Adult, Senior, etc.[3]
Of course, it makes sense that we would do this for the simple and pragmatic reason that different age groups have different developmental needs. We don’t want to ignore the particularities that are faced at each stage of life. Specialising in a certain age group for schooling, sport, and age-care is good practice (we’ll get to this in part two). However, though specialising has its place, it becomes an issue when it also becomes isolating.
When a church congregation, for instance, ships off the children and young people to the their age specific programs as soon as the family arrives in the church carpark, specialising has become isolating. It is entirely conceivable that from ages 2 – 18 a young person might never get the opportunity to be in church (let alone serve) with their parents or with anyone in the generation below or above them.
Children and young people will then ‘…only experience church life with people precisely their own age. Adults will find no way to bless children, much less even see them. Young people will be cut off from the richness of almost all adult relationships. And, most importantly, they will not see members of their own families until it is time to meet at their cars and go home’.[4]
After eighteen years of implicitly saying to young people that ‘church is not for you unless it is customised to your age group’, is it any wonder that young people don’t want to join ‘Adult Church’ after they leave high school? In the Christian youth ministry world, this has been called ‘The programmatic, professionalized, age-segregated model’ of ministry.[5] This model of church and its effects on the faith development of young people and families has become the subject of much critique and reflection in recent years.[6]
However, the issue of isolating generations is not just a problem that has been identified in church models, but also a problem in our society. During the Winter of 2014, a range of billboards began to appear around Sydney, Australia, with the slogan ‘Let’s create a nation for all ages’. The billboards were advertising the website www.nationforallages.com.au as an initiative of National Seniors Australia.[7] It is clear throughout the website that this organisation perceives that ‘seniors’ is one specialised age group that is being isolated from wider society and is seeking to address the problem.
It is a human reality that multiple generations exist together in community, and our basic common unity is that we are people first before we are children, teens, seniors or whatever new age-based sub-category there is. This is a simple fact that was probably taken for granted before the word ‘teenager’ was coined in 1941, and has since became part of our social vocabulary from the 1950’s onwards.[8]
This may sound like an obvious statement, but first and foremost young people are people, and people are persons. That is, we are personal relational beings.
For all our differences, what cannot be ignored is that young people share more in common as people than they have with being young.[9] In fact, our need for differentiation implies what is common between us because ‘differentiation always implies a unity of that which is differentiated’.[10] Sometimes we spend so much time talking about what is unique and different about children and young people that we neglect what it is we share in common – we are persons.
There’s a whole fascinating study in theological anthropology that we could pursue at this moment, but Psalm 8 gives us a good-enough summary for defining persons theologically. [Read Psalm 8 here]
The central question of Psalm 8 is in v.4. It’s an anthropological and theological question: ‘what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?’. Anthropological because it asks ‘What are people?’. Theological because it asks the question in relation to their creator God.
The answer in v.5 is: we are persons that are ‘made’. We are creatures and not beings that are independent of the God who created people. In fact, Psalm 8 posits the question and answer in such a way that we can only be understood properly in relation to him. The whole structure of the psalm itself revolves around the interrogative pronoun h`Dm Mah (What? How?) in verses 1, 4 & 9. The question that frames the whole psalm is the majesty of YHWH’s name, in essence, ‘what is the majesty of YHWH?’ (vv.1,9). In the centre of that question then comes, ‘what are people?’ (v.4) in comparison to his majesty.
The answer that might be expected in contrast to YHWH’s creative power and grandeur is that human beings are impotent and worthless, and yet, even though people are ‘made a little lower than the heavenly beings’ they are ‘crowned with glory and honour’. We are not the only beings God has created, nor even the highest, but we have been given the royal dignity of being ‘crowned with glory and honour’ from our maker.
Psalm 8 has often been observed as a reflection on Genesis 1:26-30 and as such, it assumes the creation account. It is therefore not a big leap to see that v.6 is an explication of the Genesis image-bearing motif, where human beings are God’s representatives who have been given the privilege of ruling ‘…over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground’ (Gen. 1:26), and even naming the other creatures that God has made (cf. Gen. 2:19).
As a good-enough summary for defining persons theologically, Psalm 8 places the question of human value squarely in relation to the God who created people and gives them dignity. Therefore, at the heart of our common unity is the basic declaration that all persons are made for relationship to the creator God. For this reason alone, all persons have value. (Further to this, we will see how Christ transforms and fulfils our humanness in part two).
This introductory theological anthropology provides a stark contrast to being valued by what you do or by what you can contribute to society. By that measurement you might end up with the ethicist Peter Singer who has claimed that a healthy dog may have more right to life than an infant or a person with a disability.[11]
In contrast, Psalm 8:2 declares that God is pleased to see his strength proclaimed ‘from the mouths of infants and sucklings’. Just in case we might be tempted to think that only adults with power to rule and subdue are crowned with glory and honour, Psalm 8 deliberately singles out the smallest (lowest) of the human race.[12]
Persons have value because of ‘who they are’. They are made in God’s image – to be his representatives, ‘made a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned with glory and honour’. Even in the circumstance that one rejects their creator God and seeks autonomy from him, still ‘we cannot simply throw off our dignity. But the dignity of our destiny then becomes a judgment on our unworthy conduct’.[13] Here then, regardless of age and common to all persons is the need for right relationship with the creator God. All can be saved through the grace of God. All need to be challenged to stand firm against temptation and to persevere in following Christ. What is distinctive about young people is small compared with the similarities that they share with all people.
Pannenberg summarises it this way:
‘We are all persons in our necessary particularity as husbands and wives; fathers, mothers, and children; friends and foes; teachers and students; commanding and obeying; in work, renunciation, and pleasure. Yet personhood transcends all the singularities and changes of circumstances because it finally draws upon the relation to God as the source of its integrity.’[14]
Whatever we want say being made in the image of God means, it at least means that all people have a dignity and a glory and honour that transcends whatever their age or ability is.[15]
The first implication of this is that we must take ministry to children and young people seriously. It is not a waste of effort or money to invest in resourcing and training people for ministry to children and young people. It means that ministry to children and young people deserves to be seriously thought through theologically and biblically. It means that it’s not satisfactory to just insert the youngest, most convenient, least trained but most enthusiastic person to lead it in the hope that they’ll be just cool enough to keep the young people in line.
However, on the flip side, we cannot glorify ministry to children and young people as if this is the most important form of ministry. Against our Western culture, we cannot make the mistake of idolising youth, ‘for youth and vigour are meaningless’ (Ecc. 11:10). Neither should youth be seen as the ‘future’ of either society or the church, for they are part of society and the church in the present.[16] Nor should the ‘rejuvenative power of youth’ mean that children and young people are nothing more than a convenient tool for implementing change.[17]
Although we might think it obvious to say that children and young people are persons with value, we don’t always treat them in practice with the dignity and value God has given them. A helpful paradigm for reflection on this issue is whether we treat children and young people as either problem, challenge or asset.
It’s no new revelation that, at times, adults find children and young people difficult. They often display simplistic or contradictory behaviour. They can be a distraction. They need things to be explained. They don’t always fully grasp the social conventions of what is expected and accepted behaviour.
Treating children and young people as problem is to relegate them to the ‘too hard basket’. To try and put them somewhere else until they aren’t a problem anymore and can contribute to church and society ‘properly’.
Children’s and youth ministry here looks more like ‘babysitting’. It’s managing the problem until they grow out of being a problem. This is a ‘children should be seen and not heard’ mentality.
Again, children and young people can be difficult at times, but they show great potential if they can just be harnessed and utilised properly. In this way, they present a challenge to be overcome. ‘If we could just get them together and shape them into useful members of the community, if they could be more like adults then young people could be of great value’.
Children’s and youth ministry here looks more like instruction, discipline and schooling. It’s wrestling with the challenge in order to subdue and cultivate it into something else more manageable. This is a ‘children should be seen and not heard unless they sound like adults’ mentality.
Again, young people can have difficulties and challenges like all people, but they have a valuable contribution to the community in the stage of life that they’re currently at.
Children’s and youth ministry here looks more like ‘full participation’. It’s opening up space for children and young people to participate in the community as they are now and recognising that, as valuable human beings, they already bring something precious to the community with all their particularities.
There will still be problems that need to managed, challenges to overcome, instruction and discipline and schooling, but above all, a recognition that they can fully participate and bring a unique contribution that will add value to the community in the present. This is a ‘children should be seen and heard’ mentality.
Upon reflection, hopefully this three part series will help you to see children and young people as a fully participating asset in the church that provide unique opportunities for the church as a whole to worship and glorify Jesus.
In part two of this series we will explore the unity and diversity of the church and the particularities of children and young people as an asset that provides opportunities for the church. For now, use the discussion questions below for reflection.
Discussion Questions:
Reflect personally:
> Identify whether you treat children and young people as either Problem, Challenge or Asset.
Reflect with others:
> Identify where your church treats children and young people as either Problem, Challenge or Asset.
What can we do differently/better?
> What other groups of people do you possibly treat as either Problem, Challenge or Asset?
What can you do differently/better?
——————————————————————————————-
Footnotes:
[1] By the time Adam dies at 930 years of age, there are 8 generations living together with their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. It is not difficult to imagine that this was of great benefit for people who were working out how to raise children and exist in the world, who were able to pass on knowledge from generation to generation whilst they all lived together.
[2] Your sex (according to your chromosomes) will not change, your ethnicity will not change (though your nationality might), and your finger prints, etc.
[3] These specialised age groups are perhaps more the result of a consumer marketing culture which can create new age based markets as consumers continually transfers out of one sub-group into a new one. Cf. Martin Lindstrom, Brandwashed (Kindle ed.; Sydney: Random House Australia, 2011), Loc. 222.
[4] Timothy Paul Jones, ed., Perspectives on Family Ministry: Three Views (B&H Academic, 2009), 12.
[5] Jones, Perspectives on Family Ministry, 180.
[6] Cf. Mark DeVries, Family-Based Youth Ministry (Kindle, Revised and Expanded edition.; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Books, 2010); Jones, Perspectives on Family Ministry; Timothy Paul Jones, Family Ministry Field Guide: How Your Church Can Equip Parents to Make Disciples (Kindle ed.; Indianapolis, Ind: Wesleyan Publishing House, 2011).
[7] In case you’re wondering, they consider over 50 as being ‘senior’.
[8] Jones, Perspectives on Family Ministry, 26.
[9] Phillip Jensen, ‘S.O.C.M Discussion Paper 10/87 ‘Youth Work’’, October 1987.
[10] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; vol. 2, Kindle.; Grand Rapids, MI.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994), loc. 2450.
[11] Peter Singer, ‘Sanctity of Life or Quality of Life?’, Pediatrics 72/1 (July 1, 1983): 128–129.
[12] Cf. Matthew 21:16, Jesus quotes Psalm 8:2 as the children recognise who he is.
[13] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, loc. 2245.
[14] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, loc. 2533.
[15] Cortez has great summary of the many and varied views concerning the imago dei. Marc Cortez, Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed (Kindle ed.; New York ; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2010), loc. 196.
[16] It is nothing more than a marketing strategy to capitalise on young people today because of their future potential. Cf. Lindstrom, Brandwashed, loc. 222ff.
[17] Cf. Erik H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis (W. W. Norton, 1968), 134; cited by Graham Stanton, ‘The Value of Adolescence’, Heads Up, Cited 26 Aug. 2014, Online: http://grahamstanton.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/the-value-of-adolescence/.
My senior minister and I haven’t ever sat down and designed a grand master plan for an integrated church with children’s and youth ministry, but what we have had is a continuing and developing conversation about how our church practice can integrate people across generations and, by extension, integrate the full diversity of people. This is what we mean by an integrated church: how our church practice can integrate people across generations.
It’s a conversation that was born out of studying youth ministry at Youthworks College and out of a wholehearted commitment to continually reflect upon the consistency between our theological principles and church practice.
Overtime, it has become apparent that there are three theological convictions that have particularly helped in reforming our church practice towards being an integrated church:
It’s been hard to apply what this will look like in our context at All Saints Petersham, but we’ve tried to be creative, to reflect and critique and make adjustments as we’ve gone along. For example, some concrete application of this conversation has been to:
All of these applications have their limitations and challenges and are part of the process of critique and adjustment.
This is actually a journey that the good people of All Saints Petersham have tacitly been on together in the last 10 years, and the experiment continues.
What is left for us to do is articulate the theological underpinnings for an integrated church, starting first with the issue of integrating people across generations and then extending and applying the theological framework beyond our generational diversity to include other human particularities (e.g. people affected by chronic disability, mental illness, addiction, poverty etc.)
The following three blog posts will follow the titles of the three theological convictions that have particularly helped in reforming our church practice towards being an integrated church:
Hopefully these blog posts will also be informative for you as you work out and reflect upon your theological principles and church practice, not least that we might do youth and children’s ministry in a way that honours God, builds his kingdom and is biblically and theologically faithful.
There will be discussion questions at the end of each post for your own reflection or comment.
Mike.
This horticultural analogy reminds me of church services which are based on a narrowly age defined Homogeneous Unit Principle… Let’s go for a youth ministry permaculture in our churches!!
“two aspects of permaculture. It opposes ‘monoculture’, where only one crop is grown in an area. Permaculturists know that monoculture temporarily increases yield. But it strips the soil of nutrients, and is a free kick to bugs that feed on the crop without competition or predation. Farmers must handle soil leaching and bug plagues with fertilizer and pesticides, which create other problems. By mixing a variety of crops, permaculturists seek to keep soil nutrients high and bug populations low. The practice reduces the yield, but people still eat and the whole system is more sustainable over time.”
Excerpt From: Andrew J.B. Cameron. “Joined-up Life.” Inter-Varsity Press, 2011-04-15. iBooks.
[This is the Mixer Version of the same Sharing Time activity]
Give each person in the group a sheet of paper and tell them to write down (download) everything that they did, or that happened to them during the week (or holidays). Then get them to find another person or other people in the group who’s list has the most similar items to their own. Interview some of the groups or pairs then pray.
This game is adapted from the Spicks and Specks game show where it is called “Substitute”.
The aim is to teach the memory verse by singing it as many times and in as many ways as possible to help reinforce memorisation.
Split into at least 4 teams. Give the memory verse for the term to each team or have it up on the projector or a whiteboard. Each team will also need to be given three tunes to well-known songs as well – you can use national anthems, pop songs, church songs etc. This game is played in 3 rounds. Before the start of each round, each team has a minute to practice among themselves singing the words of the memory verse to the tune of one of the well-known songs that they were given.
Each team then takes turns in singing the memory verse to the tune of the well-known song while the other teams listen in and try to guess the tune of the song that is being sung. Teams only get one opportunity to make a guess and they “buzz in” when they think they know the tune. 1 point is awarded to the team that makes a correct guess, and 1 point given to the team that was singing the song that was correctly guessed. No points are awarded if no one guesses the tune of the song.
This game courtesy of Mark Schroder, youth minister at Campbelltown Anglican.
This game is based on the same game that has overtaken your news feed on Facebook!
The idea: Try and guess the word that is being represented by 4 cryptic pictures. This activity is a great one for learning about Bible characters, Bible stories and each other.
Create 3 rounds for the game. For example:
Round one: Bible Character
Round Two: Bible Story or thing:
Round Three: Youth Group Character ie. leader or member.
How to play:
If the pictures are too cryptic, you can make a round easier by providing one or two bonus letters as clues.
Below are 2 examples provided in pptx files with the following answers for each respective one:
a) Callum- (he’s a youth group leader at Campbelltown Anglican Youth)
b) Samson
c) The Prodigal Son
a) Nick Bull- (he’s a youth group leader at Campbelltown Anglican Youth)
b) Jonah
c) Tower of Babel
If you chose the “Bible Focus” youth ministry model based on your theology, values and principles (part 1), and you’ve recruited the right leaders and have the systems in place to look after them (part 2), and have designed a program that looks after your families (part 3), and have structured your regular youth group gathering and how put it together (part 4a & part 4b), then step 5 is to start some regular mid week Bible study groups for your young people.
These groups form the back bone of youth ministry and you should strongly encourage every teenager to attend a group for the year. It’s a great mix of bible study, social activity, accountability, and fun, but on a more personal level than the main youth group gathering. The groups are user friendly, and a great place to invite friends!
My experience has been that we get more young people attending weekly Bible study groups than we get at the main weekly youth group gathering. It’s also the place where our young people invite most of their non-Christian friends. That might seem a little counter intuitive given that it’s a small group of young people meeting together around the Bible, but I think that’s the appeal! It’s a smaller group of people and therefore somewhat less intimidating for a newcomer, it provides a more intimate and personal setting to ask questions and explore the Bible, and it’s not just for Bible study but also for sharing life together and building friendships.
You can organise a weekly Bible study group in any way you choose, but here’s a couple of tips:
components to arrange your Bible study group time roughly into thirds, let’s say 30 minutes for each component with a total Bible study group time of 90 mins. 90 minutes is long enough to cover the essentials and shorter enough to not be a weekly burden on the family time of young people.Here’s some great resources for weekly Bible study groups:
“Leading Better Bible Studies” by Rod and Karen Morris
“Studies 2 Go” by Julie Moser and 
“More Studies 2 Go” by Julie Moser
If you chose the “Bible Focus” youth ministry model based on your theology, values and principles (part 1), you’ve recruited the right leaders and have the systems in place to look after them (part 2), and you’ve designed a program that looks after your families (part 3), then as a continuation of structuring your regular youth group gathering (part 4a), this step 4(b) focusses in on The how of youth group gathering and activities.
It can be quite an exhausting task coming up with a new youth group program for each school term of the year and trying to be creative with how you do your youth group gathering so it remains fresh and yet faithful to your theology, values and principles at the same time. So here’s a few tools I use to make the process a little more simple, less exhausting and more sustainable.
We use this table (below) as the framework for each of our term programs. All the rows down the left represent the weeks and dates of the school term to be programmed. All the columns across the top represent the segments that make the weekly youth group gathering. The essentials are Bible Teaching and Prayer (see the previous post on this: structuring your regular youth group gathering), but we have also added: Bible Game/Mixer, Sharing Time, Memory Verse, and Supper. We also have a youth group band and do singing at our youth group but they have a separate roster that complements the term program. The other columns, as you can see, are for things like teaching theme, special notes, and who’s doing what.
These regular segments at our regular youth group gathering mean there is an element of comfortable predictability for our young people as they come to youth group week after week, and yet because the segments are done with different activities each week and are arranged in a different order most weeks, there’s an exciting element of unpredictability that keeps it fresh. The advantage of this predictable structure is that young people know what they’re inviting their friends and gain confidence in the youth group gathering and what they can expect to happen when their friends are there.
The term program really starts at the beginning of the year when I put together the year’s teaching program (2005-2012 examples here) and then at the start of each school term I put the term program together by slotting in that term’s teaching program and then fill out the rest if the table by inserting the various activities which are found on this website (download the complete segment activities document here). In the Game/Mixer column I try to have a mix of Bible games and mixer games throughout the term so we’re doing activities that help us learn about God and each other throughout the whole term – these are 2 main aims of Games/Mixers in our regular youth group gathering and they provide another layering of Bible teaching that is creative and enjoyable. Ultimately I try to pick activities for all the segments that will dovetail well with the teaching or create a good spread of variety over the term.
Once the term program is complete, it is then up to the MC (one of the youth group leaders) to put together a running sheet of how those segments will be arranged for the gathering and to nominate/ask other leaders to run those activities. ALl the leaders know what is expected of them at any given youth ministry gathering because of the “Leader Expectation & Leader Roles” documents here.
Below is an example of a running sheet for week 1 using the above example term program (you can download the running sheet template as a Word document on the Download page). You can see how the various segments have been arranged and delegated to different leaders. Each segment has the description of how it’s run cut from the segments.doc (here) and pasted into the right hand column of the running sheet so that everyone knows what they’re doing and when.
You’ll notice that there are other elements in my example term program and running sheet which I haven’t described. We’ll get to these later when we talk about how to include young people in serving at your youth ministry (that’s what the Salt VII is about) and how to partner with parents and families as they raise their children in the Christian faith.
You’ll also notice that there are activities included in the program and running sheet which aren’t listed on this website or in the segments.doc, and that’s because these are things which have to do with our youth ministry context and history and aren’t universally applicable. You get the general gist though right?
These tools are not meant to be rigid expressions of what a regular youth group must be like but a helpful tool in getting yourself started off in a good direction.
The next post is “How to start a youth ministry from scratch! (Part 5): Organising weekly youth Bible study groups
If you chose the “Bible Focus” youth ministry model based on your theology, values and principles (part 1), and you’ve recruited the right leaders and have the systems in place to look after them (part 2), and have designed a program that looks after your families (part 3), then step 4(a) is to structure your regular youth group gathering.
The first image that usually pops into someone’s head when the term “youth group” or “youth ministry” is mentioned is that often chaotic gathering of overly energetic, socially awkward, and sexually frustrated teenagers on any given Friday night of school term… It seems inevitable that any gathering of young people will have to contain a mix of chaotic games (often messy) and activities that are thinly veiled attempts to make teenagers flirt with each other for the entertainment of the onlookers (E.g., “Honey if you love me give me a smile“, “Straws and Rubber bands“, etc). But the good news is it doesn’t have to be that way!
Because young people are people first, and they need what all people need – the transforming power of God’s Word in his son Jesus by the Spirit -then the regular youth group gathering should be centred around God’s Word. This is why the aims of a “Bible Focus” type of youth ministry are:
This is really about your theology of church, what you believe Christian gathering is all about, what Christians do when they’re gathered together, and why they meet in the first place. If you don’t know what your theology of church is, here is a really helpful place to start: www.bettergatherings.com.au (and you can have a crack at this article if you want to be pushed a little further: “knoxrobinson-for-today“)
While you work out what your theology of Christian gathering is, I think a good biblical and simple working definition is “God’s people gathered around His Word“. This means that your Sunday church meetings, your Bible study groups, your kid’s club, and your youth group all count as type of Christian gathering if their primary purpose is to meet around God’s Word, that is, to know him in the way he reveals himself by his Word and ultimately in the “Word made flesh” – Jesus. A Christian gathering is a representation of the heavenly church and should contain the things that Christians do when they gather:
A Christian gathering doesn’t have to look like a typical Sunday church service, and given that young people are open to experimental learning, you should take the opportunity to be creative with how the Bible is taught and how you create the opportunities to share the Christian life together, to know each other better and encourage one another. This website is an attempt to share some of the creative ways that you can do these various components of Christian gathering: Resources Link.
The Christian gathering isn’t limited to these components/segments of Bible Teaching, Singing, Prayer, Sharing Life, and Fellowship over Food. Apart from Bible Teaching and Prayer, it’s not necessary to either have all of them or be limited by just these, having a regular memory verse time is quite a good addition for example.
Of course, there’s now a big question pushing it’s way into your mind isn’t there…?
If the main youth group gathering is ordered around Christian gathering then what about non-Christian young people?
Excellent question! Here you need to go back to your foundational theological principles. You chose the “Bible Focus” type of youth ministry because you want kids to know and trust Jesus & adopt his values. Because you believe this can only happen by God’s Word. And because you want kids to “do life” with Jesus and see what this looks like in practice. These are not merely discipleship reasons but missional ones too! The wise Jodie McNeill calls this “Dual Action“. What he means by this is that you can disciple people and mature them in the Christian faith while evangelising and gospelling non-Christians at the same time, it doesn’t have to be either one or the other.
The Christian church has actually been operating this way for millennia. (you can skip this next little indented bit if you don’t care for the Biblical references)
The Bible paints a picture of God’s people as a diverse community of believers (Rev. 7:9-12) united in the cross (Gal. 3:26-29; Col. 3:11; 1 Cor. 12:12-13) with each member of the body of Christ gifted to build each other up into the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (cf. Rom. 12:4-8; 1 Cor. 12:12-27). Therefore, the first priority of the church is to maintain the fellowship (Eph. 4:1-6), and edify the community of believers (1 Cor. 14:4-5, 12, 17, 26), as Jew and Gentile, Slave and Free, and Young and Old relate to each other by their common unity found in Jesus.
The function of the community of believers is to be both passive and active in evangelism. Passively, the church is a light to the world (Matt. 5:14-16), a witness to the world and heavenly principalities through their unity and gathering in Christ (John 17:20-2; 1 Cor. 14:23-25; Eph. 3:8-10). Actively, the church is to continue the apostles commission in bringing the good news of Jesus to “all nations” (Matt. 28:18-20; Luke 24;47; Acts 1:8). It is in this way that the church exercises the ministry of God’s Word to it’s members and the world.
The main youth group gathering can do the same.
Of course, the criticism is that young people won’t come along to youth group that is all about God, Jesus and the Bible.
Perhaps that’s true enough. The world is, not surprisingly, quite resistant to the message of the gospel, and as much as people like the idea of Jesus (like Ghandi) they don’t like him to tell them what to do. But the answer is not to then try and coax in non-Christians with worldly bait so you can then gently introduce a very other-worldly way of life (this is often the trick of the salesman “free hotdog and drink if you come to our store on Saturday”). The world doesn’t need the church to mimic the worldly ideas of what a fulfilling life is (but with a much poorer budget and minus the sex and alcohol).
No, the answer is to hold out a way of life that the world will not and indeed cannot offer. The world needs the church to be the church, the bride of Christ, the members of his body. The world needs the church to proclaim the gospel and teach the Word of God in all it’s fullness. The world needs to see Christians gathering together because of their common unity in Jesus and not because of their common age or race or gender.
It’s for this reason that I believe it’s important that the main youth group gathering include both junior and senior high age young people and both genders because young people, like all people, need to learn the value of loving and relating to those different to them in age, sex, taste etc., and junior high age young people need to have senior high age young people to look up to. My aim is to never split them no matter how much we grow in number and especially no matter how much the senior high might complain about the immature juniors or the juniors complain about the boring seniors, if anything that’s the perfect reason to keep them together!
Surely when a non-Christian young person (or any person) walks into this type of Christian gathering they will be like the unbeliever in Corinth who sees God at work in His people gathered around His Word and exclaims “God is really among you!” (1 Cor 14:24-25).
This post is continued in How to start a youth ministry from scratch! (Part 4b): The how of youth group gathering and activities
I’ve decided I should do an, at least once a year, reflection on youth ministry for the year. I’m actually in the habit of reflecting on the year’s youth ministry anyway but perhaps publishing it online will be helpful for others and a good archive of my thoughts that I can look on in years to come.
Well I’d be lying if I said this year wasn’t a difficult year. Not unsurprisingly so, but difficult nonetheless. This year I returned to full-time study completing the B.Th. at Moore College whilst still working at All Saints Petersham and running the youth ministry there, which has been a delight and a joy! This year marks 8 years for me at All Saints and 9 years for Salt Youth Group, what an honour. Certainly it shown that even the most average youth minister can do extraordinary things given enough time 🙂
So it has been a good year, and the difficulty has been in my divided time between my commitment to study (which All Saints has generously released me and enabled me to do) and my commitment to nurturing the youth ministry at All Saints. I know there have been opportunities to care, train, follow-up, and start fresh initiatives that have gone wanting… Noticeably, this year our youth leadership team has not had the closeness of fellowship and bond of friendship that we have managed to cultivate effortlessly in the past years. This is partly due to a change in family circumstances for myself (our 3rd child was recently born) and some of the other leaders, and partly due to the turnover of leaders we’ve had in the last 18 months. I think I have found that the hardest of all.
God has been gracious in providing kingdom hearted and gifted leaders for our youth ministry, and I am truly thankful, but it is nevertheless a massive blow to have such longstanding well-matured youth leaders move on to new places. None of the leaders have left on bad terms, and all have left for geographical reasons (Melbourne, Bathurst, Ashfield, St. Ives, Dubbo). I have prayed and anticipated for a long time that God might take the youth leaders that we have trained up at All Saints and make them a blessing to new places, I guess I always figured that would be when I was ready to release them 🙂
In 2012 we have had a fairly young and less experienced youth leadership team than we have had in the past and with my adjustment of priorities leaning toward study I think I have let the philosophy and foundations of our youth ministry slip into the background somewhat. This combined with less team bonding I think has had the knock-on effect that or youth meetings this year have lost some of their vitality and purpose… Leader’s retreat, meals, social time together and foundations for youth ministry are firmly back on the top of the agenda for 2013. I always knew these things were vital for the health of a youth ministry (It’s step 2 of how to start a youth ministry!) but I think I took for granted the natural and effortless way these things happened for us in the past.
I know what was lacking this year and needs to be done in 2013 but I’m also conscious of the fact that 2013 might very well turn out as this year has done… I’m praying for even more of God’s grace and mercy that he will not just hold us over the next 12 months but that he will see fit to grow us in our weakness.
I feel a great excitement and burden for youth ministry in Sydney. I particularly feel excitement for the revival and growing opportunities for youth ministry in the city/Inner West area of Sydney where churches that have laid dormant for nigh on 50 years are slowing growing, waking like sleeping giants, and where the seeds of youth ministry are just beginning to sprout. These are exciting times! The hard work and cultivation of Youthworks College is showing it’s fruit in our city and I praise God for it! And in tough financial times I’m pleading the Lord to keep the college open and thriving for the sake of the gospel through well founded, biblically and theologically thought through youth ministry. Lord, there is so much to do.
The aim is to pray for people you know who aren’t Christian (yet!).
Read out one or more of the sentences of Scripture below and then get the group to write down on a piece of paper at least 3 evangelistic things they can pray for (ie. for non-Christian friends/family or enemies, for missionaries, for governments etc). Then get them into small groups of about 3 and get them to pray for the points they have.
Scripture passages (NIV 84):
Colossians 4:2-4
2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
1 Timothy 2:1-4
1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
2 Thessalonians 3:1
Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honoured, just as it was with you.
Ephesians 6:19-20
19 Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
The object of this game is to help young people become familiar with stories from the gospels and as a secondary goal will help them mix with other young people at youth group. This game does NOT require players to have any prior knowledge of the Bible at all (though there is an advantage for people that do).
You will need to download and print off one of the Story Card decks (download: Deck 1 here), 200gsm cardboard works well. Each deck contains 12 stories. Each story is split over 5 cards (Beginning, 1st Middle, 2nd Middle, 3rd Middle, and End). Only use enough cards to have complete stories, for example if you have 20 people playing use 20 cards that make up 4 complete stories. If you have an odd number of players, for example 22 people, see if you can make up the numbers with 3 leaders so you have 25 people playing the game and 5 complete stories.
Split into groups of 5 people. After you form everyone into teams of 5 you can work out how many bible stories you’ll use from the deck (eg. 10 teams = 10 stories. There’s 12 stories in a deck so remove the remaining 2 stories).
(We’ll use 10 teams as an example of how the game works)
Designate a captain from each team of 5 and deal out 1 card from each of the stories that you’re using (maybe just give them the “beginning” card from each story), that’ll leave a remaining 4 cards for each story in the deck.
Shuffle the remaining deck of cards and distribute randomly. You should now have 10 teams where the captain has the beginning of a story but the rest of the cards in the team are mixed up and will all be from the different stories (though the law of averages will mean that there could be 1 or more other card/s in the team that matches the captains story card). The card that has been dealt to that person stays with them for the entire game.
Give the groups a minute or so to work out if they have any cards that belong to the same story. After roughly a minute, sound a gong (or something) to indicate that the captains trading period has begun. Set a time limit for the trading period to encourage them to get on with it.
The captains meet in the middle of the room (front or wherever the trading area is) and they start to work out a trade with other teams. Captains can only trade a maximum of two people (and their cards) each trading period. At first the captains will want to trade the maximum, so everyone will want to trade 2 players. As the game goes on and people are getting closer to piecing together their story, some will want to trade 1 and others 2, but no matter what happens a team MUST NOT exceed 5 players. It’ll be up to the captain to work out how to trade the players they want to swap (eg. If the captain wants to swap 2 players but everyone else only wants to swap 1, then the captain will need to swap their players to 2 different teams. No problem).
The players remain in their teams with their cards during the trading period. Once the captains have struck a deal, then people move teams (taking their card with them).
Once all the teams have traded, give them another minute or so to work out if they now have more cards that belong to the captain’s story.
At the end of roughly a minute, start the next trading period and repeat the process until one group has one complete story. Check if the story is correct and then you may end the game there or continue until all groups have completed stories, though it is perhaps best to finish after 1 group has a complete story because of time. Have the winning group read out their complete story.
Note: It’ll help to have another copy of the cards printed out complete on A4 pages so you can check if the completed stories are correct or give assistance for those who need it.
Have a young person (or a few people) from youth group make a 30 second video (each) of their room, showing things that are on their desk, posters on their wall, the song playing on their iPod, their Bible open at the last passage they read, the clothes in their wardrobe, a musical instrument or any other quirky thing they might have (a pet snake for instance!). The whole idea is to give a snapshoot of their life and what they’re interested in. After watching the video at youth group, quiz the group on what they saw in the video (questions like: what poster was on the wall? What passage was their Bible open on? What was on their doona/quilt cover? etc). Reward those who make a correct answer (with chocolate or something). This game can be played in pairs or groups where you would have each pair/group make a list answering the questions about the video. Repeat the process if there’s more than one video.
The aim of the activity is simply to better know someone at youth group.
This is not so much a defence of the Memory Verse because it’s particularly under attack by people who want to be rid of it, but rather a defence for my own peace of mind as I flip-flop between thinking MVs are the best thing since sliced bread and on the other hand loathing the very archaic and patronising notion of rote learning verses of the Bible…
This really is a reflection that was prompted by the excellent papers by Michael Jensen and Graham Stanton at the 2012 Youthworks Youth Ministry conference (Thetacon) which delved into the subject of the incarnation and how the humanity of Jesus connects with our trials and temptations.
One of the points that came through strongly in both papers and really grabbed my attention is that in the face of temptation and trials, Jesus used only the same resources for faithfulness that I too have access to. This startled me because I think I’m often inclined to believe that Jesus could only resist temptation because of the divinity that he has and that I don’t… I think I’m inclined to emphasise his divinity at the sake of diminishing his humanity, and in doing so I lose the impact of realising that Jesus was made in every way like me and was tempted in every way I am and yet in his humanity did not sin (cf. Hebrews 2:10-11; 4:15). Jesus overcomes not by being superhuman, but by being truly human.
So what resources does Jesus use to resist temptation and persevere through trial? He has the resources of godly friends, Scripture, prayer, the indwelling of the Spirit, the momentum of maturing character and the visible divine help of angels. Chiefly of these though is the way Jesus relies heavily on his knowledge of God’s Word.
When Satan tempts and tests Jesus in the desert, inviting doubt and misquoting God’s Word, Jesus does not overcome Satan and bind him by means of his strength or power or his heroism or his unbowed moral courage. He defeats him by clinging to the Word of God – to the command and covenant, the precept and promise.
This is why I’m challenged to defend the Memory Verse. Memorising and recalling God’s Word accurately in our time of temptation and trial is the chief means by which we resist and persevere. At the youth ministry I’m involved with we do use the Memory Verse activities on this site, but two of them in particular we use regularly each term (‘Application Pictures‘ and ‘Memory Verse Skits‘) because we want to remind ourselves that we are not remembering God’s Word as an end in itself but in order to recall it in our time of need. We want to think ahead to the situations that we will find it useful to remember these verses and so cling to God and his faithful character.
I’m renewing my commitment to the Memory Verse times we use at our youth ministry as the chief way of equipping our young people to resist and persevere through temptations and trials as the Lord Jesus did.
Evaluating commonly used expressions so that we may have godly speech. (ie. “it’s not fair.”, “that’s gay.” Etc…)
Have the groups think about some of the commonly used expressions that they hear regularly and/or use themselves. Write some of them up on the white board. Ask the group to reflect on what the use of these expressions say about our values, ie. “that’s gay!” is an expression that devalues gay people, “Eshays” might be a sarcastic way of mocking lads. Reflect together on whether the values that lie behind the expression agree with Christian values. Finally, ask how the use of that expression might affect the people who hear it and should we keep using it. You might even be able to create more helpful expressions to use as replacements.
In summary, this segment has 4 phases:
Finish the segment by reading these words from Ephesians 4:29 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” And James 3:9-12 “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”
Decide on a person from your church (not from youth group because it won’t work). Collect about 5-8 items/clues that are related to the person and put the items in a bin (you will want to make them a little cryptic, with the first clue the hardest, and the final clue more or less giving away the answer). Note, you can just get pictures of the items and put them on the powerpoint rather than find the actual props for clues.
Split into smaller groups (mix it up with those who go to church and those who don’t). Bring the bin out the front so that all groups can see it (or the use the powerpoint slide). In the game, each group gets to have only one guess at who the person is, their guess should be made to the leader of the game in quiet so that other teams can continue to play without knowing the guess of other teams. If the person is guessed immediately after the first clue, maximum points are awarded. With every clue that is revealed less points are awarded for a correct guess.
At the conclusion of the round give info about the person from church or play a video interview of them before moving on to the next round.
#1 Alternative game play: Split into teams and give each group a bin with clues to a different person. Each team is given 5 minutes to rummage through the clues in the bin and then make their guess. In this alternative game play all clues should be a bit cryptic with no “give-it-away” clue.
Decide on a bible character or story. Collect about 5-8 items/clues that are related to the character or story and put the items in a bin (you will want to make them a little cryptic, with the first clue the hardest, and the final clue more or less giving away the answer). Note, you can just get pictures of the items and put them on the powerpoint rather than find the actual props for clues (there is a keynote file already prepared attached to this post.
Split into smaller groups (mix it up with those who have Bible knowledge and those who don’t). Bring the bin out the front so that all groups can see it (or the use the powerpoint slide). In the game, each group gets to have only one guess at what the story or who the character is, there guess should be made to the leader of the game in quiet so that other teams can continue to play without knowing the guess of other teams. If the story or character is guessed immediately after the first clue, maximum points are awarded. With every clue that is revealed less points are awarded for a correct guess.
At the conclusion of the round point out the theological significance of that Bible character before moving on to the next round.
#1 Alternative game play: Split into teams and give each group a bin with clues to a different bible character or story. Each team is given 5 minutes to rummage through the clues in the bin and then make their guess. In this alternative game play all clues should be a bit cryptic with no “give-it-away” clue.
#2 Alternative game play: Instead of using bible characters or stories, use group members and make the game a mixer.
(x) christian (m) ministry (2) to (y) youth 