Archive for November, 2009

When I talk to professional youth ministers about SmallYouthGroup.com, a lot of them give me strange looks. Why would you develop a website that “celebrates” a youth ministry being small? Shouldn’t we be trying to build “big” youth groups? It is exciting to minister to large groups of teenagers. And, of course, more young people growing in their faith is better than a few young people growing in their faith. However, there are some good reasons to invest in youth ministry in a small church.

Jesus definitely taught big groups of people. In the Gospels you read about the big tent revivals Jesus did by the Sea of Galilee . . . and Jesus didn’t even have a tent. Jesus had a number of disciples who believed in him and followed him. He sent them out on mission in Luke 9. And we are surprised by Jesus’ “secret” disciples who begged his body from Pilate for burial after his crucifixion. However, Jesus invested most of his time with twelve men . . . some of them may have been teenagers. Why do you think he did that?

I don’t think we can ever wholly understand Jesus’ intentions. He is God. However, I believe part of the reason for Jesus’ investment in the Twelve was that he was able to pour his life into their lives. He was able to guide them in intimate settings to see the God he knew and could model for them how to serve that God. Small youth groups provide that kind of opportunity.

Actually, I am convinced that no youth leader, regardless of how good he or she is, can be effective at discipling a youth group of many more than twelve. Youth leaders in large groups who are actually effective have to have many leaders who are pouring their lives into smaller groups of youth. Many large youth groups are experimenting with youth ministry in ways that are automatic in small youth groups:

• Involving parents in the ministry.
• Creating small groups that contain older and younger youth so that older youth can encourage their younger peers.
• Allowing a leader to continue to work with the same group of youth for a number of years instead of having them simply promote to the next teacher at the end of the school year.

Youth ministry should follow the lead of Jesus and Jesus invested his life in a small group of disciples.

So, am I suggesting that youth groups are better off staying small? Not at all. I am suggesting that we are obedient to God in the place he has put us. That includes raising the youth in our care to grow in their relationship with God. It includes making Christ known to the youth we have opportunity to influence. It includes helping our youth ministries to be places that are on mission. Then, we trust God to bring growth.

“I only have five kids in my youth group. I don’t really need a lot of training.” I’m afraid a lot of youth leaders in small church may feel exactly that way. Training is for folks who work with hundreds of youth leaders, not for those of us who wonder if we are going to have anyone show up for our Sunday morning Bible study. Right?

I don’t really think so. I think students need our best and that means we continue to sharpen our skills. Youth culture is always changing. We can never be strong enough in Bible knowledge. New research is finding out more about the teenagers we work with all the time. And church structures change from region to region and decade to decade. Our teenagers are worth the effort to improve our skills.

So, let’s assume for the sake of argument that you agree with me. Let’s assume you see the need for on-going training. How do you get it? A friend of mine has identified five areas in which volunteer youth leaders need training. (These same areas aren’t bad for paid youth leaders either.)

1. We need training in Bible knowledge. Someone has said that the Bible is shallow enough for a child to understand that “Jesus love me this I know,” but is deep enough for the deepest theologian to swim all his life without touching bottom. We can all deepen our understanding of the Word of God. It will make our teaching stronger and our lives a richer picture of a committed follower of Christ.

2. We need training in Adolescent Development. The teen brain is a fascinating piece of creation. It is becoming an adult brain and leaving behind the workings of a childhood brain, but it is actually neither one. If we really are to understand and care for teens, we need to have a good understanding of what is happening in their bodies as they grow into adults.

3. We need training in Youth Culture. If you were looking for Richie Cunningham and the soda fountain today, you would probably not find him. Instead, he would be on Facebook. Or maybe just sitting in the back of class texting his friends. Teen culture used to change about every 10 years. Now, youth culture is morphing into something new almost every year.

4. We need training in Teaching Methods. The changes in youth culture coupled with the uniqueness of the time of life of adolescence means that teenagers tend to learn differently than children and definitely differently than adults. The more creative teaching arrows you have in your lesson preparation quiver, the more effective you will be in guiding teenagers toward eternal truths in a way they can absorb and apply.

5. We need training in Leadership. How do you become the kind of person a teenager would want to model their life after? How you deal with everything from flying gum in the Bible study class to listening to the girl who shares that she has been molested shows what kind of leader you are. Being a youth leader is NOT easy. Those who claim it is no big deal just don’t understand. Not every day will be a huge challenge, but challenges will come and you need to be developing the skills to deal with those challenges.

So, where do you get all of this training? Since I’m a seminary professor, you would expect me to say that one of the places you can get it is in a seminary classroom. In most seminaries you can be enrolled as a special student. You don’t have to pursue a Master of Divinity in order to get some formal training. Many seminaries offer Bible classes, youth education classes, and leadership classes in non-traditional formats–on weekends, on an evening, or over the Internet. The training you can receive at seminary is really worth the investment.

However, you can also find training seminars through organizations like Group, Youth Specialties, or LifeWay. Check their website for up-coming training events. Your local denominational offices might offer training. In fact, some denominations have trained consultants that can give you one-to-one instruction, or can come to your church to train you and your co-leaders.

If all else fails, read. I try to recommend books I read that I think are helpful for small church youth leaders on this site. Recent recommendations have included:

• Richard Ross, Student Ministry and the Supremacy of Christ
• Walt Mueller, Youth Culture 101
• Vaugh Roberts, God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible
• Doug Fields, Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry

I can add a free downloadable book on adolescent development written by Allen Jackson: Introducing the 21st Century Teenager available at www.lifeway.com/Understanding/Youth/index.asp.

Regardless of how you do it, keep sharpening your skills. Keep learning about youth ministry. Your teenagers will never think to thank you for it. I mean, they are teenagers after all. But, it will make a difference.

One summer, I planned this day of site-seeing for our students. St. Louis was only a little over an hour from the Illinois city I was working and yet I had never gone up in the arch, seen Bush Gardens, or spent any time on the Mississippi River. I figured some of the kids in the youth group would enjoy seeing those things, so we blocked a day, enlisted some adults, arranged transportation, and started signing kids up. It wasn’t the best attended event we had that summer, but it was a lot of fun. The next day, my pastor asked how the trip had gone. Seems like a reasonable question, but I had a hard time coming up with an answer. How had it gone? It was fun, so that was good. Not many youth attended, so I guess that was bad. The truth is, I really didn’t know how it had gone because I really didn’t know what I was trying to accomplish.

Students love fun. I guess that is a silly statement to make. Of course, they like fun. So, is any event we plan successful if it is fun? I’ve come to believe that youth group activities should be purposeful, intentional. If the youth leader isn’t sure what the activity is supposed to accomplish, the chances are activities will be . . . well, purposeless.

Why do youth group activities? There are lots of reasons. You may do an activity to create a sense of community with your group. I think that is a great group. Adults can build fellowship by sitting around, sipping coffee, and talking about their aches and pains. Kids don’t tend to build fellowship that way. They tend to feel connected with each other when they sweat together. They can play hard or they can work hard, but sweat tends to make teenagers feel connected. How can I know if the activity accomplished that? Well, if two kids who didn’t really know each other can’t stop talking on the way home, it’s a pretty good sign that your mission was accomplished.

You may do an activity to reach kids for Christ. You plan something fun to give your students something to invite their friends to. You make it an awesome time, but you work hard on showing them what it means to be a follower of Christ. At some point, whether at the event or after, you talk to them about what it means to be a Christ-follower. How can you know if the activity helped you reach people for Christ? Well, did you have new people show up? Did they seem to be interested in your life purpose? If you got the chance to connect with lost teenagers, you were probably successful.

You may do an activity to connect parents to their teenagers. You may do an activity to get a group excited about a new discipleship series you are launching. You may do an activity that helps kids to find ways to minister to other people as they are going.

The problem with many small youth groups is that they don’t know why they do what they do. We’ve always done it that way, may be their thinking. Or, when I was a kid, we loved doing this activity. Those really aren’t great reasons for doing activities. Activities should be fun, but you should know what you are trying to accomplish. When you do, you can figure out if you accomplished the purpose.

We used to act like it was good enough to get teenagers to show up at church. At least if they were at our church lock-in, they weren’t at a beer party. For most of us, that is not enough. We know that real ministry with youth involves a deep relationship with a caring adult that points a young person to a deep relationship with God. We are believers in relational youth ministry. I just read Richard Ross’ new book, Student Ministry and the Supremacy of Christ. He challenges what most folks teach as relational youth ministry . . . and I think you will be interested in what he has to say.

The traditional approach to relational youth ministry is one-to-one ministry. It involves you, as a caring youth minister, investing in the life of a student. Not bad, huh? But the truth is, you cannot give students everything they need in terms of spiritual mentoring. Even if you had a youth group of one, you simply aren’t enough.

Ross has suggested that we look at youth ministry as a five-to-one relational ministry. Every teenager needs at least five adults who are pouring themselves into his life, pointing her to the Savior. Yes, you are one of those people. As a youth leader, your investment in the lives of teenagers is very valuable. However, they also need two parents who invest in their spiritual development. (Yes, many of our teenagers are lacking a parent . . . or two . . . with the spiritual heart to guide their teenage children. But finding ways to help parents to accept their role as disciplers of their teenagers is a huge issue.)

The fourth relationship the teenager needs, according to Ross, is a relationship with a small group leader. I know, for many of us in the small church, we are both small group leader AND youth minister. Maybe it’s time we increase our tent and find other adults who are willing to pour their lives into teenagers.

The fifth relationship Ross recommends is a prayer mentor. Every teenager needs at least one adult in the church . . . someone other than his Bible study leader, his parent, or his youth minister, that prays daily for him or her. As Ross points out, prayer has a way of weaving our hearts together so that a prayer mentor will likely become a deep adult friend for most teenagers.

Richard Ross has a number of suggestions for implementing THIS kind of relational youth ministry. Check out his new book.