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YOUTH MINISTRY BASICS
The real goal of ministry, in my opinion, is to enable persons to explore
their relationship with the Divine, to discover how they are “created in
God’s image” (Genesis 1:27), and learn to how to best use their unique set
of gifts and qualities to answer God’s call of “seeking justice, loving
kindness, and walking humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).
In the Christian church, we do that by learning and experiencing the ways
of Jesus Christ and following his example of embracing the fullness of human
life and relationships.
Exciting programs with hundreds of kids are all well and good.
However, if the participants aren’t stretching and growing in their
faith and having the opportunity to act on it in a way that allows the Holy
Spirit to touch their individual hearts and lives, then we might as well be the
local mall. The mall also provides
a place for social interaction, exposure to a variety of experiences, and even a
bit of character building through a minimum wage job here and there. I can not
stress enough how much youth ministry is about particular individuals, not
teeming masses of teens and pre-teens.
This resource is full of ideas, suggestions, programs, etc.
Some work best with large groups of kids, others work best with only two
or three. Always, the goal is not
great programs, but rather strong and deep relationships.
The goal is the building of a particular young person’s relationship
with God the Creator, Christ and the Holy Spirit, the building of their
relationships with other youth, the building of their relationships with adults,
and the building of their relationship with God’s world.
So how do you build relationships and not only program?
You start by building a relationship with each youth.
You need to know who each person is.
In the Faith Based Community Organizing model developed by Sal Alinsky
and used all over this country by organizations like The Industrial Areas
Foundation (IAF), the primary first step to real social change is individual
one-on-one meetings. In community
organizing these were the foundational pieces they used on the way to raising
the minimum wage, building
affordable housing, or addressing racial violence.
In a one-on-one meeting, an adult who works with youth can begin to
understand who that kid is. What do
they care about, what do they have passion for, what do they love to do, what in
their world do they want to see change? Then,
the youth minister can better know whom in the church that young person could
connect to as a mentor and a friend. The
youth minister can better see what gifts that young person brings to the larger
Body of Christ, and how to nurture those gifts.
These insights and connections may have nothing to do with a traditional
“youth program”. Indeed, there are actually kids who better thrive and grow
outside “youth group” activities.
Case in point. I worked with
a young woman who had no interest whatsoever in being part of the youth group at
any age. Her parents wanted her to be part of the youth activities and pushed
her into coming. At youth group she
was mostly sullen and she sucked time and energy away from the adult leaders and
the group as a whole. On spending
some one-on-one time with her, I realized how much she loved music.
She could play several instruments and she sang beautifully.
After much prayer and thought, I realized that being forced to
participate in youth group was not going to do anything for her relationship
with God. What would nurture her
faith and help her develop strong relationships in the church community was to
participate in the adult music program. I suggested this to her and she was open
to the opportunity to do something she loved.
The adult music program opened her to all kinds of experiences and
connections.
One-on-one meetings can take place anywhere, but I always found that I
learned more when I actually went to the kid’s home, whether it’s a mansion,
an apartment, or a parked car. I
usually made the appointment through both the youth, and the adult(s) raising
them, so that my showing up at the door didn’t surprise anyone.
The easiest way to start a one-on-one is to ask for a tour of where they
live – it’s amazing what you can find out from looking at pictures and
posters on walls, books on shelves, and knickknacks in their sleeping space. After the tour you should have enough clues to be
in conversation for hours, but I suggest an hour is just about the right amount
of time for a one-on-one home visit. I’ve
played video games with kids, had lunch in tree forts, even shot hoops, which if
you knew me would be a pretty funny picture. If there are siblings in the family, either make more than
one appointment or expand one visit, but make sure you don’t lump siblings
together. The rest of the world does that enough, especially with twins!
One-on-one home visits are the basic beginnings of a good youth ministry.
Obviously the bigger the church, and the more kids in the “youth” age
range, the more time consuming this becomes.
If the church has one to fifty youth, one-on-ones are very possible to do
in a single year by a full-time youth minister. A church that has over fifty youth may take two or three
years. But ultimately, it’s so
worth it! If you are in a setting
where there are more than fifty youth, or the youth minister is less than
full-time, then I highly recommend adding a layer of adult youth leaders to form
a one-on-one team. This will enable
each kid to still get a personal visit from a caring adult who continues to
build a relationship with that kid, and who understands what opportunities in
the total church program will be best suited for that kid’s spiritual
deepening. The
one-on-one meetings you do as a youth minister is only the first step in
building relationships. The second
step is then connecting each kid with other people, both other kids and other
adults. The more adults in the church a kid connects with, the
better. Youth ministers come and
go, sometimes at blinding speed. If
there is only one adult in a church community working with a group of kids, it
can actually create the opposite effect we want for their continued spiritual
development. If the youth program
is not fully integrated into the church, if a kid’s experience of “church”
is just youth group and one or two adults, it can actually cut them off from
later growth. If a kid has not had
a larger experience of church than just youth group, then, when they are no
longer youth group age, they won’t know how to connect as adults to the wider
church community.
Also,
if a kid is only bonded with a youth minister and that person leaves, generally
older youth will not bond with their replacement.
It has been my experience that older youth bond once.
Younger youth may bond more than once, but if there is a succession of
people coming through every year or two years, kids will stop letting themselves
get attached. It’s human nature
not to want to feel abandoned. Even
though they may understand intellectually that an adult is moving on for good
reasons, they will still feel abandoned. That’s
why it is imperative if a church hires, for instance, college students or
seminary students to run their youth programs, that there are also a number of
adults who are rooted in the congregation developing ongoing relationships with
the youth.
Like I said before, it’s all
about relationships.
MINISTRY
WITH A SMALL NUMBER OF KIDS
So
what if you don’t have the critical mass for a large youth group.
Again, that is not the goal of ministry with youth.
With a few kids you have the chance to really connect in a deep and
powerful way. You have the
opportunity to know each kid, and help them build relationships with other
people of perhaps differing ages but similar passions.
They might not need to meet together as a “group”.
If
you do meet together as a group, the organizational side of things is far less
complicated with a small group. If
you can all fit in one mini-van to go somewhere, you will spend far fewer hours
on what often feels like annoying and trivial details than your colleagues who
are working with larger groups.
If
you have a handful of kids, you can still do all the program ideas in this
resource. For the activities that
actually need more people, invite adults in the congregation to make up the
numbers you need to make it work. The
intergenerational connection will only enrich and enhance these program ideas.
Just make sure those adults know that their task is encouraging the youth in the
group to take the lead to speak their heart and insight.
Again,
even if you have a small group, make sure you are not their only adult
connection. Yes, you can easily
handle five kids on your own, but make sure each of these kids has other
non-familial adult connections in the church. MINISTRY
WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF KIDS
The larger the number of kids involved with a youth program, the more
adults you need to run the week to week life of the program.
A good rule of thumb is one adult for every five to seven youth. As the numbers get bigger, the more clear of an organization
you need to create. With more than
twenty-five kids in a program, the youth minister almost becomes less a “youth
group leader” and more of an organizer, trainer, manager, and resource person
to other adults.
The
same principles of working with small groups apply with large groups as well.
Particularly, making sure that each kid has a few adults they relate to
and bond with as leaders move in and out of the program.
One of the dangers of a large youth program is that it can easily become
separate from the rest of the church community.
Finding ways to continually integrate individual kids and the group as a
whole into the larger life of the church is so important for their continued
growth as spiritual people.
There are many ways to organize a program with a large number of kids.
Some church cultures keep ages together, so that the youngest can learn
from the oldest, and the oldest learn responsibility for the younger ones.
Other church cultures separate by pre-teen, junior high, high school, and
post-high, feeling that their program is better done when kids are separated by
developmental stages so that age-appropriate issues can be more frankly
addressed. Some church cultures do
a combination of both. All ways of doing things have their own pluses and minuses.
Each church has its culture and traditions.
In all cases, it is important to train anyone older in appropriate
boundaries and role modeling with anyone younger.
If the youth group is a mix of ages, the adults working with the group
and the older youth need to be clear about appropriate language and behavior
with anyone younger.
If the youth program is divided by ages, I suggest that the leaders of a
group are at least five years older than the oldest youth in the group.
For instance, leaders of a pre-teen group would be high school junior,
seniors or adults. For junior high,
they would be college age or older. For
a high school group, they would be twenty-five or older.
It’s also good to have leaders of a variety of ages and personality
types.
Pre-teen
groups still need a high level of parenting to feel safe.
A good mix of leaders for a pre-teen group would be a grandparent-age
person, a parent-age person, and a high school or college-age person. Add more leaders, starting with grandparent and parent ages,
as the number of kids increases.
Junior
high kids in particular need strong same-gender role models.
A good mix of leaders would take into account how many of each gender you
have in the group and make sure there are adult leaders in proportion to gender.
Again, pay attention to grandparent age, parent age, and young adult
leaders.
High
school kids are all over the map in their needs.
Many are beginning to discover their God-given sexual orientation, or
have already figured it out, and so it would be helpful to them to have leaders
who model for them how to be a healthy heterosexual person, a healthy homosexual
person, or a healthy bisexual person. They
are also trying to figure out what it is to be an adult.
We all know that there are different types of people - introverts,
extroverts, tech people, arts people, people with different physical
capabilities, and the list goes on. For
high school kids seeing adult leaders at different ages, stages, personality
types, and life paths can be a help to their spiritual and life development.
Post-high
or college-age adults can often run their own groups.
Adult leadership becomes more as mentor, friend, and resource for this
age. But it is still good for young
adults to have adults who are a little older and of other generations to connect
with and learn from. We all need
healthy models for the next stages of our lives.
Large group discussions
When the large group activity is discussion or reflection on an activity,
if you have more than 10 people you may want to break them into small groups of
5-7 people each. As adults or youth
with good facilitation skills lead the small group discussion, their task is to
make sure everyone who wants to speak has a chance.
ALL
SIZE PROGRAMS
Whatever
size program or age group you are working with, it is imperative that all adult
or youth leaders have good pre-training. It
is normal for anyone to suddenly find themselves experiencing a whoosh of
feeling as their own memories arise from when they themselves were whatever age
they are now working with. One
important issue to adress is whether parents/guardians should be youth leaders
for a group that includes their own kid. My
experience is that it depends on the adult and the kid.
Parents/guardians are often the adults with the most stake in the
program. I have seen groups thrive
with parents/guardians and their own kids in the same group.
The trick is good training for the adults to help them understand that
when they are in the group, their relationship with their kids changes and they
need to leave the personal stuff at home. They
need to treat their own kid the same as they do the other kids; no special
privileges, no extra responsibilities. Some
parents/guardians are great at being leaders for one of their own kids, but
maybe not with another of their kids.
Preparation/action/reflection –
the experiential trinity
The programs and activities in this resource are usually designed with
three parts: ·
Preparation ·
Action ·
Reflection Preparation
might be as simple as lighting a candle and saying a prayer, or as complicated
as an entire meeting or series of meetings to get ready for a mission trip or
worship service.
Action is the doing of the experience: serving at the soup
kitchen, visiting the convalescent hospital, leading the whole church in
worship, or going bowling.
Reflection is the opportunity to reflect on the preparation and
action and begin to see how it connects to the larger picture of spiritual
deepening and growth. It can be as simple as a closing prayer, or some kind of
discussion, sharing or debriefing built into the activity. One
valuable tool of reflection is a Spiritual Life Journal. Giving kids an
invitation to write or draw their ideas, reactions, and reflections of what they
are experiencing as you move through the year is a gift that you give them. Use
them throughout the year to reflect on activities and programs (most programs in
this resource builds in time to do that), write in quotes they want to remember,
or record whatever they want.
These
Spiritual Life Journals can be as simple as a stash of notebooks you keep in a
box, individually claimed and decorated, with a few extras for guests and new
kids. For younger kids, it’s best if you keep them.
Older kids may want them at other times to write or draw in.
You can give kids a choice of keeping track of their journal themselves
or having them at the church in a safe, private place. What kids choose to
write, draw or doodle in these journals should be private.
The kid can then decide if and how much they might want to share with the
larger group.
Deepening Faith: Youth Ministry Resources and Some Miscellaneous Advice Rev. Lizann Bassham, Front Porch Spirit Press Copyright © 2001 |
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