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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.

One of the things I love about youth leaders is that they love teenagers. You love listening to their stories. You wake up in the middle of the night with a student on your mind. You love to tease them, laugh with them, and see the light of Christ grow stronger in their eyes. Still, if we are honest, some teenagers are a lot easier to love than others. Some teenagers (like we adults) have annoying habits. Some of been so hurt by adults that they push everyone away. Others cling to adults until it becomes suffocating. Some students are manipulative and untrustworthy.

And yet you are called to love them.

Love is a choice. It is not a feeling. It is a decision to seek the very best for another. Some teenagers don’t deserve your love. Some don’t want it. Some abuse it. I believe we are called to choose to love them still.

Love comes from God. Human love is always frail and shifting. Only God’s love is pure and steadfast. When you are struggling to love a student, pray for them often. Allow the Spirit to teach you to see them as Christ sees them. Allow him to love them through you.

Love does not treat every student the same. It is interesting that Jesus gave some of his disciples experiences and teaching others did not get. Only Peter, James, and John joined Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. (Well, Elijah and Moses showed up, too.) You will invest more in some students than others. I don’t think that is wrong. That is how Jesus modeled ministry for us. But Jesus gave all of his disciples an investment of himself . . . not just his teaching, but himself.

I’ve often wondered what it was like for Jesus on the night he was arrested to wash the feet of Judas Iscariot. Surely Judas was hard for Jesus to love. And yet . . .

Bible study is essential in a small church. However, sometimes leaders approach Bible teaching as an informational task. We want students to know what the Bible says, and sometimes believe that is all that is needed. Learning, however, is about change. It is about transformation. Great youth Bible study doesn’t just give students information; it affects how they think, what they do, and even how they feel about things. Great youth Bible study causes teenagers to shed old attitudes (things the Bible characterizes as “the flesh”) and put on new attitudes.

How do you accomplish that kind of Bible teaching? Certainly, it begins by being clear about what the passage you are studying teaches and how it relates to students. If you can’t write the teaching of a Bible passage in one clear sentence, you aren’t ready to teach it. But, after you know what you are trying to teach, you begin the hard (and fun) work of determining how to teach it.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1. What is going on in the lives of my students that would be impacted by this truth?
2. If they really get this passage, how would their lives change?
3. Where could I put them (either by changing the room around or by taking them outside the room) that would make the open to thinking deeply about this truth?
4. How could I help them to get face to face with God as they consider this truth?
5. What action could I ask them to take that would actually begin the transformation before they ever leave the class?

“D. L. Moody was not an educated man or a trained theologian. Yet the nineteenth-century evangelist started his ministry by gathering children from the streets of Chicago and teaching the Bible to them. Children were delighted to be a part of Mr. Moody’s class because they felt loved by the bearded shoe salesman who was their teacher. The more Moody taught the Bible, the more children and adults responded. In time this group grew to become the Moody Church, which now stands at Clark and North Avenue in Chicago.”

–Mark H. Senter, When God Shows Up: A History of Protestant Youth Ministry in America

Often small church youth leaders believe they have to be exceptionally creative, well-educated, and always available to be effective at reaching and discipling teenagers. Senter’s point in the quote above was that the most profound movements in youth ministry throughout history have been simple. Moody loved children and taught them the Bible. That’s a pretty good recipe for beginning a youth ministry.

My mother has a little sign hanging in her kitchen saying, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all.” She laughs about how she finds herself doing and saying the very things my grandmother used to do and say . . . things that once annoyed her. Perhaps her little sign bears more truth than that. Recent research indicates a strong correlation between the faith of parents and the faith their children will grow up with.

As a youth leader, you are an influence on the faith of your teenagers . . . but you are not THE influence. Statistically speaking parents are the strongest influence on the faith development of their teenage children by far. For better or for worse, when it comes to their teenage children, what parents are is what they are likely to get.

So, if parents have such significant influence on the faith of their teenagers, why don’t parents try to make more of a difference?

Being a parent of a teenager is a challenge. It is easy for those of us who have never raised children to be frustrated with and critical of parents. Perhaps it would be more beneficial for us to understand the challenges . . . and then figure out how to help.

Five Challenges of Parenting Adolescents:

1. Teenagers need the loving input of their parents . . . but they tend to push parents away. Teenagers have a growing desire for personal space and privacy. They want the opportunity to think things out on their own. They want to feel like they are an autonomous adult. Their grunts when parents show interest and their frustration when mom was “in my room” give parents the idea that their teenagers don’t want parents in their lives. It’s not true. Teens crave loving input from their parents. But it sure feels true.

2. Parents who are middle-aged, or quickly approaching their 40′s, have some unique stressors on their own lives. They are often sandwiched between the needs of their teenage kids and their aging parents . . . all at the time when their bodies are beginning to slow down.

3. The role of parenting during adolescence becomes confusing. As children, parents knew their job. They were to teach kids right from wrong, protect them from things that would harm their kids, and show them how to live life. Parents were the respected source of authority to their children. But that all changes in adolescence. Teenagers challenge the authority of parents, push them to defend their ideas of truth, and scoff at parents’ desires to keep them safe. The truth is, teenagers are becoming adult and parenting a teenager demands a whole new set of skills. Parents need to become more of a mentor, challenging youth to think more deeply rather than just giving them easy answers. It is a shift in responsibility few parents manage easily.

4. Parents of teenagers must balance responsibilities, freedom, and limits. Most parents get that. The problem is finding the balance. Most of the time a parent doesn’t realize she has given a teenage child too much freedom until he has abused the freedom. Establishing a new limit is tough. The crazy thing is, the correct balance is different for every teenager.

5. Teenagers need to see faith reflected in the lives of their parents. of course, that is really hard if the parent is not walking with Christ.

So, how do we help?

1. Make sure parents know we are on their side–not on their side against their teenager, but on their side for their teenager.

2. Pray for parents. And let them know you are praying for them.

3. Never criticize a parent (or a parent’s rules) to the teenage child. If teenagers complain to you about their parents, remember: you are only getting a skewed view of the situation. Encourage the teenager to find ways to talk to her parents about her frustrations.

4. Include parents in youth ministry experiences at times. Look for ways to help parents to talk about faith in front of their kids.

5. Remind parents of the great influence they have on their teenagers. Encourage them not to give up when their teenagers push them away. Encourage them to keep the dialogue going.

Once in a while, you experience those huge, powerful experiences in ministry with teenagers. I remember a summer camp in which God simply fell on the group and we spent hours praying together. I was so concerned about just staying out of God’s way as he did what only he can do. Watching teenagers minister to others on a mission trip we spent years preparing for is a huge blessing. The big moments in ministry are incredible.

However, I’ve come to believe that the most valuable things in youth ministry are the little things. A quick phone call to find out how the test went that you prayed over on Sunday. Showing up for yet another high school version of “Grease” because one of your students has slicked his hair back to sing in the chorus. A smile and a nod across the room when one of your students slips into Bible study late.

The little things say: This is not just a job to me; I really value you. The little things create a sense of relationship. And maybe the little things are hints that God cares about the little things–hurts and joys and anxieties–of our lives.

Youth ministry in a small church is not really about the lock-in you plan for 20 teenagers . . . and then have 6 show up. The Bible studies are important, but 10 years from now, your students probably won’t remember anything you say. More likely, they will remember that you came to their games, wrote them a note, or gave them hugs when they were hurting.

“Loneliness comes in two basic varieties. When it results from a desire for solitude, loneliness is a door we close against the world. When the world instead rejects us, loneliness is an open door, unused.”

The quote was written by science fiction and suspense author, Dean Koontz. I wouldn’t suggest Koontz is a great theologian or a good youth ministry theorist. But this quote has caused me to reflect. Perhaps we have two kinds of lonely teenagers in our youth groups: those who push people away and those to whom no one goes. Sure, teenagers tend to run in herds. Most of them are surrounded by other teenagers . . . at school, church, on teams, in clubs. And yet, Chap Clark characterized teenagers of this generation as Hurt (Baker Books, 2004).

Recently a student in my Lifespan Development class made a case that the one significant need in the lives of teenagers is love. Teenagers may need other things (like truth, empowerment, and the occasional new pair of basketball shoes), but I think the student was not far from the mark.

For the teenager who has shut the door to the world to escape the constant meanness and pressure, perhaps love looks like a cautious knock at the door . . . a request to be trusted friend even though many friends have proven unworthy of trust. And perhaps it is a knock we try again and again until the student cracks open the door.

For the teenager who waits behind an unused door, perhaps love looks like an intentional step into his or her world.