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By Paul Kelly

For many of us, the Christmas holidays (holy-days) are the most happy and meaningful days of the year. Unfortunately, that is not true for everyone. The days of gift-giving, feasting, and celebrating, some people struggle with their worst experiences of depression of the year. Why do so many people deal with depression at the holidays? And how can your youth ministry help?

Christmas is the celebration of the advent of the Christ, and our celebration of it is wrapped up in family. That may be the source of the problem for many people.

• Broken families create a sense of dysfunction that makes the holidays feel hollow.
• Loss of family members to death through the previous year make Christmas feel more lonely.
• Disappointment over family not turning out as expected feels particularly acute during Christmas.

So, how can your youth ministry make a difference?

1. Take note of those who have lost loved ones in your congregation. Take your youth group to visit them to carole or deliver cookies. What you do is not all that important. What matters is showing extra love to those who are missing a spouse, a parent, or a child.
2. Plan some special events for your youth. Christmas can be very busy for you and other adults. It may be easiest to avoid special events for youth because of everything else that is going on. But some teenagers in your group may have more of a sense of family in the youth group than they do in their home. Little gifts your youth ministry gives to students may be the most thoughtful gifts some students receive. Time to sing around a piano or bake cookies together may be the only opportunity some of your students get to do things like these.
3. Create opportunities for students to give to others during the Christmas season. Teenagers need to be taught the old lesson that to give is more blessed than to receive. But it may be especially important for students who are disappointed with what their family does for them at Christmas. Learning the increased blessing of helping others at Christmas can help students to find joy by getting their focus on others.

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. It is also a wonderful time to minister to the people in your community. Even though you have a lot going on, give some thought to what will help those who are having a sad Christmas in your church.

By Paul Kelly

Conflicts between parents and teenagers are almost inevitable. Whether the issue is the state of the teenagers room, their grades at school, or disagreements in life choices, most families encounter conflict. For some families, the conflicts are noisy with raised voices and slamming doors. For others, the conflicts are icy. But when a teenager confides in you as the youth leader that he or she is having a conflict with parents, what do you do?

• Don’t take a teenager’s side against a parent. Whether you think the parent is making great decisions or lousy ones, it is not your call and you are likely to undermine your ministry if you do. Unless a parent is doing something to cause immediate danger to his or her teenager, don’t take sides.
• Focus on the teenager. Ask him to think about his choices, what he did wrong in the situation, and how he can better communicate with his parents. Reinforce the biblical standard of honoring and obeying parents. Acknowledge his feelings . . . anger, frustration, hurt, rejection . . . but explain that he must not use his feelings as an excuse to make ungodly choices.
• Help the teenager see the other side. Ask her to look at things from her parent’s point of view. Suggest she think about why her parent made the decisions he or she has.
• Take the situation to God. Make sure students understand that God cares about the conflicts they have in life and is always ready to listen. Prayer can change situations, though God often moves by first changing the person who is praying. Take a few minutes to pray with the teenager.

A man once asked Jesus to get involved in a squabble he was having with his brother. “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” he asked Jesus (Luke 12:13). Jesus refused to get involved in the conflict between the two brothers and instead confronted the greed that divided them. I think the story is helpful in dealing with others’ family conflicts. Use every opportunity to guide teenagers into a deeper walk with Christ. Drawing close to Christ may not be the easy answer when a parent says no to an activity the teenager wants to do, but it is the best answer for the teenager and for his family.

Paul Kelly is Founder and President of SmallYouthGroup.com and teaches youth ministry and Christian education at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

By Paul Kelly

Despite the fact that most teaching in youth ministry moves from the lips of the teacher to the ears of the student, most learning actually happens in a way that is more dynamic than that. Students usually grow the most in their understanding of their faith by processing experiences they have with God.

When David Kolb developed his Experiential Learning model, he was thinking about how adults learn, but it actually has a lot to say about how teenagers learn . . . especially older teenagers. Kolb suggests that learning usually happens when people reflect on what they experience. It looks something like this . . .

1. A student has an experience. Maybe it happens at youth camp. Maybe it happens at church. Maybe it happens at home with his family.
2. The student reflects on the experience. He considers what really happened: why his parents reacted the way they did, why the game was so empowering, what made the encounter with the children after church so beneficial. And what was God up to in that situation.
3. The student forms a new abstract concept. He begins to think about what God is like or how God could use him in this kind of ministry. He begins to hypothesize about life.
4. The student experiments with the new understanding. He volunteers to help in VBS. He begins to change habits to line up with his new understanding of God.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that students don’t always reflect on their experiences and they certainly don’t always determine how this experience leads to a new understanding of God. That is where parents, youth leaders, and even peers can come in. Inviting youth to unpack experiences they have had with us may be the best teaching we ever do. Guiding them to weigh what they experienced against Scripture and determine new insights they can get about God’s truth based on a new experience is totally different than just hearing you talk about the passage.

This is one of the places where you have a great advantage in a small youth group. You can spend time with students individually and in groups of two or three guiding their reflection on what God is up to when they have a fight with their parents or when the music at the church strikes them as cold or boring. Asking them to think about the “why” questions can be powerful. Even the lessons you share with them in Bible study times will get richer when you help them to think about those concepts in the context of life experiences.

Helping students grow as disciples of Christ is not just about helping them to understand biblical truth . . . though we certainly need to help them with that. Real discipleship goes a step further. It asks kids to integrate their learning about Christ into their life experience in a way that leads to transformation . . . in attitude and action.

Paul Kelly is the Founder and President of SmallYouthGroup.com and Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

By Paul Kelly

Teenagers begin to make decisions about how engaged they will be in Bible study as soon as they walk in the door. But a lot of us struggle to know how to make space teen-friendly. You may have great space for youth Bible study, or you may meet in the hallway of the school. Regardless, here are a few simple things you can do to enhance your learning space.

1. Avoid a stagnant space. Even if you spend a lot of time painting, arranging, and decorating a youth room, teenagers will get bored if things are always the same. When the space is the same from week to week, it may communicate: Nothing special or unusual is going on in here. Relax and zone out. Simple changes, like moving the chairs around, putting up posters, or setting up some props for the lesson can cause teenagers to engage.
2. Play music to set the mood. If you want students to come in excited, pump up the volume and play some up-beat tunes. Want them to think, put on some youth friendly worship music  and play it a little softer. Music can be used to deaden the sound of other groups when you want students to discuss something in small groups and can be used to enhance reflection when you want them thinking about their own spiritual life.
3. Use lots of pictures of your students. Focus on faces; that is what pulls us into photographs. If they are part of the lesson, that’s great. If they are from a recent youth event, fantastic. If they are shots you took at a recent high school game or a band concert, good job. Kids love to see their faces and the faces of their friends. OK, we adults do too. Don’t believe me, pay attention next time you look at a group shot. Do you look for yourself in the group first? Print them and hang them up. Use lots of little ones or two or three big ones. Or print several out in different sheets and splice them together as a giant photo on the wall. Better yet, hook your computer up to a projector and have pictures rolling as students enter. The Bible study will feel more like theirs when they see themselves on the walls.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with your youth ministry responsibilities? Ever wonder if you are giving students all they need to grow in Christ? Are there times when you feel like you are not growing fast enough to be a good roll model for your students? Do you ever wonder if your ministry could be stronger in some area . . . reaching, teaching, engaging, nurturing? If so, you might consider looking for a youth ministry mentor.

How do you go about finding someone to be your mentor?

1. Find the right kind of person. Look for someone you respect. While the person may not have to be currently engaged in youth ministry, he or she should understand students and get your call to them. He or she should have an encouraging temperament, but should also be someone who is not afraid to tell you when she/he thinks you are doing something ineffective, wrong, or stupid. He/she should be willing to make an investment in YOU, so that you can make an investment in students, their parents, and other youth leaders.Should the person be a member of your church? That depends. If you can find someone who has the right fit and enough objectivity to help you think about the ministry, he or she would be great. You may, however, have trouble talking honestly about the needs of your group (or yourself) with someone who is too closely related. You may want to find someone who is a member of another church.

   Since you will be spending regular time with your mentor, you should probably choose someone who is your own gender.

2. Ask for their help. Most likely, the right mentor for you is someone who is already busy with personal ministry, so you may feel awkward asking her/him for time. You might want to ask him/her to meet you for breakfast or lunch. You will want time to talk to her/him face to face. Explain why you think you need a mentor. Then, be specific about what you are asking him/her to do. You might request that she/he meet with you for an hour once a month to help you understand how to be most effective. Explain that you realize that may mean making personal changes as well as structural changes in ministry. If the person you have chosen turns you down, don’t take it personally. However, most people who are invested in youth ministry want to help others who have a similar calling.
3. Don’t waste time. Schedule an appointment to get started. Come with an agenda. Focus on things you believe are areas of concern: a student that seems to be unresponsive, an activity that seemed to be less effective than you had hoped, personal goals you hope to reach. Expect your mentor to probe both your motives and your work. Don’t be defensive. Remember, you asked for help. Listen and then begin making changes. You may not agree with everything your mentor suggests and that’s fine. But, you need to open to change. If your mentor senses you only want to talk and don’t actually do anything differently, your mentor will feel like he/she is wasting time.
4. Show appreciation. Find ways to show your mentor appreciation. Insist on treating if you are meeting over a meal. Tell them how they are helping you. Consider a small, appropriate gift.

By Paul Kelly

Sometimes talking to teenagers can be frustrating. At times, they develop a bad idea about faith, relationships, or life. They assume it to be true but it is actually destructive to their walk with God. Talking to them about it may be difficult, because they may be defensive when you confront those ideas. How do you begin to talk to them about an unbiblical point of view without alienating them?

I was in a conversation with a young man this week that got me to thinking about this. “I believe in God, Jesus, the crucifixion saving us . . . all of that,” he explained to me. “I just don’t get the church. You see all of these pastors driving around in Cadillacs and living in fancy houses. How is that about people knowing God? The church is really all about money.” Well, those of us in the church have certainly had our share of sins related to money, but I don’t believe that is the story of the church. If the pastor at my church was hoping for a Million Dollar house and a Lexus on the salary we pay him, he is pretty disappointed.

My first inclination was to reply, “Nuh-huh!” That would have been helpful, right? Instead, the Holy Spirit seemed to prompt me to ask a question. I asked, “How do you think a church should use the money they are given?” This changed the direction of the conversation. He mentioned things like feeding the hungry, helping needy, and letting people know about God’s love. That led to a conversation about things that happen when I give money to my church. I get to participate in disaster relief in California, church planting all over the nation, and mission causes literally around the world . . . as well as paying the light bill at my church. We could have had a conversation about what kind of cars pastors drive, but I don’t think that would have been helpful. So, because God is smarter than I am, I was able to recast the discussion into something that did feel helpful.

Recasting doesn’t mean that we change the subject; we just change the way we are discussing the subject. Let’s say that a student wants to talk about “how far is too far” in a relationship with his girlfriend. Maybe a discussion about what is okay to touch and what is not is warranted at some point, but that discussion always seems to lead to an argument over rules, not a growing commitment to Christ. Perhaps asking the question could recast the discussion: Why do you think God designed us to be sexual beings?

The adolescent brain is just beginning to stretch its new ability to think through things logically. That can be annoying to adults. Some of them want to challenge EVERYTHING. But, the answer is seldom in “fixing” their thinking by giving them the right answers. It is usually found in giving them a new way to think about difficult issues. I saw a Facebook post on a teenager’s site recently that said something like: Either God is incapable of ending suffering, in which case He is NOT omnipotent, or He is not willing to end suffering, in which case He is not compassionate. I am sure that seems like a logical argument to the student who wrote it, but can I recast it? Suppose  you are the father of a child you love very much, but who hurts other people continuously. What would you do? Destroy him? Isolate him? Remove part of his brain? What? We cannot know all that God knows, but we can trust  Him.

By Paul Kelly

Where do your students meet? Where is the best place for them to meet for Bible study, prayer, and fellowship? Do you meet at the church building? Or would it be better to meet at someone’s home?

Tapestry Christian Fellowship, the small church I belong to here in Orange County, has a nice building with a designated room for our  youth group. When I served as the youth ministry leader at the People’s Church of Oak Mountain in Birmingham, AL, we didn’t have a building. Our church rented the cafeteria of a school on Sunday morning. We had no youth room at the church and certainly had no youth building as larger churches often do. While having a building changes the discussion a little, churches of all shapes and sizes often struggle with where to meet . . . at the church building, in a home, or somewhere else. At Tapestry, most of our meetings happen at the church building. However, we recently started a new Friday evening prayer meeting for youth . . . and it meets at the home of one of our families with youth group members. At the People’s Church, most of our youth meetings took place in people’s homes. However, we started a Bible study that met in a school hallway on Sunday morning because we determined that to be the BEST time to get all of the students into a study of God’s Word. And, for a while we held a Wednesday night youth worship and fellowship time at a local coffee house. One of my seniors brought his guitar and we just took over the place for an hour or so. (They sold more ice cream on Wednesday nights than they did the rest of the week.

I think deciding where you will meet is an act of balancing several issues . . .

1. What space is available to you?

If your church has a building, you have an asset that is valuable. However, you may have difficulty customizing the space to make it comfortable for students. Some churches treat their space like a shrine and only want it touched on Sunday. That doesn’t always make for great space for your Friday evening game night or your weeknight group meeting. Regardless of whether or not you have a room at the church, think about your available space more broadly. Where could you meet? What homes would be available? How close are they to most of the students? What public places could you meet in? What space at your church would meet the needs of the meeting you are planning?

2. Where are the kids most likely to show up?

It may be lousy, but if the space is too hard to find, students may just opt out. Kids may love hanging out in the youth room at the church because it feels like theirs. Or maybe they are bored with the room and feel like nothing fresh is happening when they are there. Students from your group may come from as far as 10 minutes away, or they may be driving from all over the city. Proximity may be an issue.

But, don’t just think about the kids currently in your group. Think about other kids you would like to invite to this event. Would lost kids (and their parents) feel more comfortable showing up at your church? Or would they be more likely to come to a home? Or a public setting?

3. Where are teenagers most likely to be “real”?

When we’re looking at the Bible, we need kids to think beyond the “Sunday School answers.” When we have prayer time, we want kids to take their real lives (not the facade they sometimes wear) to the Father. And where students are sitting can affect that. Kids may be less likely to ask questions if they are in the living room of their home. They may be more likely to share the trite answers when they are sitting in plastic chairs at the church.

You will have to make up your mind for your youth group. Personally, I prefer a mix of locations for the youth ministry. If we are doing events in which I want to reach the maximum number of kids, I am probably going to meet where we meet on Sunday. Parents know where it is. Other people in the community are more likely to know how to get there. I can control things like seating and air conditioning better than in most other locations. If I am meeting with a few kids for discipleship or for planning, we are probably going to look for a home . . . an environment where teenagers can share and think deeply. Occasionally, I like to have students meet for Bible study in a public location . . . especially if I will do most of the talking. I think it is good for lost people to have the chance to “eaves drop” on youth Bible study meetings.

Leading a youth group in a small church often means you have limited time and limited resources. It is easy to over-program, stretch the church resources and your stamina to a breaking point. Youth ministry doesn’t have to be harried to be effective, but it does need to include a few essential components.

First, give your students a solid diet of Bible study. You may only be able to meet once a week, but make sure the Bible study helps them to catch a vision of who God is and what he wants to do in their lives. Focus on a walk with God. Even when you are teaching them about ethical issues (sexuality, honesty, compassion), help them to relate that to their relationship with God. Challenge them to develop their prayer life and invest in personal Bible reading and reflection. Teach them how to do those things during your class sessions.

Second, give teenagers opportunities to have fun together. Creating an opportunity for real fellowship to develop is important for teenagers. Surround your teenagers with love and laughter. Don’t schedule too many of fun events. Give yourself and the other leaders time to plan something great and get teenagers excited about it. If students don’t know about the events or they are picking which ones they will attend, you are probably planning too much.

Third, give students opportunities to be on mission together. Plan at least several events a year that allow students to serve God and make Christ known together. Students need experience in living out their faith. Some have said that the reason so many students abandon their faith as they get older is because we haven’t given them a faith that is significant enough to build their life on. Part of that means investing in the lives of other people in significant ways.

Finally, build relationships with students. It may be better to show up at a basketball game than to plan more youth activities. Students need spiritually rich relationships with significant adults as well as with peers. The most important job you have is showing them on the living canvas of your life what it means to walk with Christ.

A friend of mine who pastors a growing church is looking for a new youth minister. Trying to find the right person is important to their fellowship . . . and he has been out of the youth ministry loop for some time. He explained that years ago he had been told that if you wanted to engage high school students in ministry, having an athletic youth leader who would get them playing sports was the key. Later, students were attracted to music and finding a youth leader who uses music in ministry is what brings students into the group. So, what attracts teenagers to youth ministry today?

Honestly, some students will still be attracted by sports and having a youth leader who lives sports is a good connection for some. And, some students will be attracted by music. Giving students the opportunity to make music as well as hear it will be a good connection for some students.

Youth culture has become much more divergent. Many students love sports, but their interests range from field hockey to gymnastics. The fact that students have the time to invest in . . . and get good at . . . sports has led to growth in more school-based and community-based sports leagues. But, it is unlikely you will find a whole group of students around your church who love volleyball. Likewise, it would be a mistake to say that music is NOT a part of youth culture. It is! The problem with how you use that in the youth group to attract students is that for some kids it is all about Lady Antebellum; for others Lady Gaga. And everything in between.

I believe there are two keys in this multi-faceted, global youth culture that are essential to drawing students into your church’s youth ministry. First, relationships! Students are engaged by people who genuinely care about them, who take time to listen to them, who take interest in their lives, and who share their lives with students. Buy a smoke machine and turn your youth room into a hip-hop church if you want to, but adults (and students) who care about every kid who wanders is the glue that will make them stick.

Second, vision! That may be too simple a word. What I mean is, students want to be a part of something important, something that is changing the world. Most teenagers have not committed much of themselves to the mission of the church because the mission of the churches they have gone to is simply not worth much commitment. For some, that will mean traveling the world and being on stage telling people about Christ. For others that would be too intimidating. For some filling shoe boxes with toiletries for children in an third-world orphanage would seem like a hands-on way to make a real difference. For others, that would seem too far removed from the action. Still, regardless of the specific way they would prefer to make a difference, students need to believe what they are doing is important.

Small churches may never be able to field a lacrosse team. And they may never have the talent for a youth praise band. But every small church can do those two things: give kids deep relationships and a vision worth their lives. If your church is struggling to reach students, start asking questions about these things.

We had talked about how hot it would be, how tired we would feel, . . . and how important the work we were doing on our mission trip would be. It should not have surprised me that all the complaining started anyway. I mean, they are teenagers. I was hot and tired, too. That’s probably why their whining got to me. I probably should have affirmed their feelings and encouraged them, but instead I jumped all over them for being so immature. I was angry.

Teenagers do things that are frustrating. The more time you spend with them, the more you find yourself angry at something they say or do. And, anger is sometimes exactly the right reaction. When you see one teenager bullying another, I think anger is the right reaction. Jesus got angry enough to turn tables over and chase people out of the temple (Matt. 21:12-13). Anger is sometimes exactly the right response. The problem for us is what we do when we are angry.

Next time you get angry with your youth group (or your kids, or your spouse), take a breath. Choose a calm tone of voice . . . even if the student is yelling at you. Acknowledge the feelings of the person making you angry. Say something like, “I know you guys are excited and are having a hard time getting focused,” or “I get that you guys are hot and tired.” Then, ask for what you want. “Still, I would really like you guys to focus on what we are doing here.” And tell them why: “Because I believe God wants us to get something here and, while the easiest thing we could do is jump around the room, it would hurt me to think we missed something God had for us.” Okay, you’ll have to use your own words.

The way you deal with anger has everything to do with your relationships with the students. Kids who have little relationship with you won’t care. But as you build relationships with students, as they understand how much you care about them, they will respond positively to a calm expression of anger or frustration.