Fun

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.

The new pastor has two teenagers, a middle school son and a high school junior daughter. You have hoped that your church would build a youth group, but the only teenager in the church for the last year has been your son . . . the same age as the new pastor’s son. Because you really want a youth group at your church for these students, you agree to lead the youth group. Okay, maybe your story is different than the one above, but how do you grow a youth ministry when you only have a few students in your church? As you know, the biggest problem you face is that teenagers are most often attracted to other teenagers.

The bad news is, prepackaged approaches don’t usually work. If the church across town grew a group by having Friday night masquerade parties, it’s not very likely the same thing will work for you. Start with prayer. Ask God to show you what you need to do, who you need to reach, what activities you need to do, how you need to go about getting your teenagers involve in ministry. Then . . .

A female high school junior is not very likely to get excited about hanging out with a couple of middle school boys. Enlist her help first. Help her to understand that you want her to be a leader . . . not just another student. Tell her you would like to meet with her fairly often to get her help to plan the Bible studies, determine what mission projects you need to do, and determine what you can do that will be fun for the younger kids. She may not respond to your request for help, but if she does she will be a great example for the younger students and is more likely to invite her friends and to look to you to help her as she develops in her spiritual life.

Don’t over-do the activities. Plan about one activity each month (in addition to your weekly Bible study). Design half the activities to be just for fun and encourage the students to bring a friend. Design the other half to get the students involved in ministry to someone . . . and encourage the students to bring a friend.

Focus your youth ministry on the students you have. Plan things that are fun for two or three students. Let them know how much you enjoy being with them. Look for ways to help them to grow in their walk with God.

Create a sense of openness in the group. There is always room for another student or two.

As students begin to feel at home in your youth ministry, find ways to get to know their parents. Invite their parents to come to church with them. Take time before or after youth events to talk to parents as they drop off their students. Ask parents if they would be willing to help drive or bring food. Help them to connect with other people in the church.

This Sunday a new ninth grader was in the youth group. I watched as he sat with several guys his own age–guys he didn’t know. They didn’t really talk to him much and he didn’t say anything to them. How do you help a student to connect with your group?

We can harp on our students to make youth feel at home. It is good when they start to understand that they should try to make other students to feel welcome. But it is terrifying to ask most 14-year-old students to make friends with a kid they have never seen before. They seldom know what to say. They definitely don’t want to be perceived as stupid by the new kid–or by the other kids that see them trying to talk to the new kid. Most 14-year-olds lack the social skills to make someone feel at home. (If we are really being honest, we’d have to say that a lot of adults suffer from the same deficit. But, let’s not go there.)

So, how do you break through and help students feel welcome? There are probably a lot of answers to that question, and I’d love for some of you to respond with your thoughts below. But, let me tell you what happened Sunday.

One of the kids picked up a trivia game. Several of the kids got involved in trying to answer the questions. Before I knew it, all of the kids were laughing and trying to offer their answers. Every kid, including the new ninth-grader.

There is something about play that allows us to let down our inhabitions and start to connect with each other. Maybe play helps us to get the focus off of ourselves and onto the game. Or maybe laughter is just good for us. But play almost always has the effect of helping people–especially teenage people–to feel comfortable with each other.

Does the game suggested in this week’s Bible study seem silly and pointless? Perfect. Use it to get your students comfortable with each other.

Lesson Four: Take Time to Play. It Paves the Way.

Another tool in building bridges to students is to remember to enjoy life. Enjoy people. Enjoy the teaching, coaching, or parenting experience. Some of my favorite times with students have been playing a game with them . . . tennis, ping-pong, football, basketball, golf—whatever we can do together. When you play with them, they feel valued.

Last fall, on a guys retreat, some of our ninth grade guys slipped down to the lake and took a late night dip. Some of the students told me they were down there. I made my way down there to tell them to head up to their cabins. When I arrived, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to run in to the frigid water with them before sending them to their cabins. In that plunge into the lake, I connected with them in a way I never had before.

The connection you get with students when you choose to play with them allows you to have a voice in their world. We’re not playing only because we like to play. Though we may get accused of trying to regain our lost youth, that’s not really it. The play enables opens doors for us to share the message of Christ with them . . . and have them hear it. You may still have to be the adult that sends them back to bed, but at least you’re wet with them when you do it.

Zach Skipper has spent over 12 years working with students. He has served as a youth minister, speaker, and bible study teacher. He is currently leading Bigtime Ministries while part-time coaching at one of the country’s leading Junior Highs in Birmingham, AL. To find out more about Zach’s ministry, contact him at www.bigtimeministries.com.

Ever have one of those times when only two kids show up for your fun night? Awful, right? Well, maybe not.

A fun time with two students can be fun, but you will have to throw out all of those games that have kids break up into teams of four. Here are a couple of ideas that have been around a while, but you can play them anywhere with no set-up . . . and they work with two kids.

1. Play Thumb Wars. Two people interlock the fingers of their right hands with thumbs sticking up. Then, each person tries to “pin” the thumb of his or her opponent using only their thumb. First one to hold the thumb of the other down for the count of three wins.
2. Play a giant game of Dots. Cover a page with dots that align in rows and columns. Each player places a line between two adjoining dots, either up and down or side to side. (No horizontal lines.) Any time a player creates a box, he or she puts an initial in the box and gets a point. The object of the game is to keep from leaving three sides of a box for your opponent. You can do it on the back of an envelope or on a giant sheet of paper on the wall.
3. Play the Double Letter game. This is a guessing game that works best if students don’t know the game. Begin by saying two related things. The first one has a double letter, the second doesn’t. For example, It’s apples but not oranges, or It’s rabbits but not hares. Each student should offer an example. Tell them if they are right and wrong. Keep going around the circle of three until they figure it out.
4. Going to the Moon. Like the game above, this is a guessing game. Each person says, “I’m going to the moon and I’m going to take . . . ” and they complete the sentence with something that begins with their first initial. Keep going until they both figure it out.
5. Hangman. Come up with a title (like a book or movie) or a person’s name and draw a space for every letter. Make sure to separate words. Draw a gallows and allow the kids to take turns guessing letters. If the letter exists in your title, write it in. If it doesn’t, begin drawing the person who is being hanged. When the head, body, both arms and both legs are drawn, they hang. If someone guesses the answer, he or she wins.
6. Boggle. If you don’t have the board game, just write a list of seven random letters and give students a minute to write as many words as they can with those letters.

So, anyone have great games to play with two kids? If so, add them in a comment below.

This weekend we held our annual youth group progressive dinner. I’m not really suggesting that as an activity for your group. It’s an old idea and maybe not very cutting edge. But, the key word for us is ANNUAL. Our kids look forward to this annual chance to wander from house to house stuffing their faces and talking to their friends.

If you think teenagers aren’t interested in traditions, you have misunderstood them. They love traditions. Why?

• Traditions create memories. They get to talk about what happened the last time you did the activity. The things they do over and over again will likely be the things they will talk about when asked about their youth group experience.
• Traditions provide security. You may have a much better idea for what the group could do, but kids are probably going to prefer to do things they have done before. The world of teenagers is changing so quickly that having some traditions they can count on provides a bit of security.
• Traditions give students something they can invite friends to. A giant water war may be lots of fun, but if your kids think it might flop, they probably won’t invite their friends. However, if this is the third year you have done the water war, kids will have some sense of what is going to happen and will feel more confident about inviting their friends.

So, should we ever kill a tradition? Yep, but we should have a good reason to kill it. If a tradition becomes destructive, kill it. If the tradition eats up too many resources to justify it, you might want to kill it. If a tradition seems to lose its appeal to the kids, kill it.

Think about the traditions in your group. What are they? What makes them fun? What do they do to help your students connect with each other? Connect with you and other leaders? Connect with God?

If youth ministry is really “ministry,” should we bother with time to plan activities that are “just for fun”? Yes . . . and no.

Fun activities are essential in youth ministry . . . but they need to be the RIGHT fun activities. There are several reasons why we do fun activities, but one of the most important reasons is that they do a great job of building community among students. What builds community? Well, a lot of things, but here are a few:

1. Communities of teenagers have shared experiences. The students in my group love to tell the story of almost being killed by a tornado that swept across Florida while we were on an “amazing race” last summer. It really wasn’t as life-threatening as they make out, but the winds did get scary enough for us to take shelter in a truck stop. The story is important because it is an experience they share.

2. Communities have shared stories. One youth group I worked with used to go to this retreat center that had a cemetery beside it. Once while we were walking through the cemetery, one of the middle schoolers asked me why one of the headstones had a carved dog on top. Honestly, I had no idea, but I made up a story about how the guy buried there had a faithful dog that tried to save him from a fire. The dog failed, and was so damaged that friends decided he should remain with his master. “What you see here is not a replica of the dog, but the actual dog encased in concrete,” I concluded. While the students decided I had a worse sense of humor than they had realized, the story became a defining myth of our ministry. Every time we went back to the retreat center, they insisted we go to the tombstone and I tell the story again.

3. Communities have inside jokes. Some time ago, I started calling all the students in our youth ministry “Charlie.” We even did a T-shirt once that said our church was a place where we call you by your name–”and your name is Charlie.” When I call one of the kids Charlie and a guest tries to figure out why, they explain, “It’s just a thing with our group. Go with it.”

So, what fun activities are NOT the right kind? The kind that don’t build community. Take students to an amusement park and let them run off to ride roller-coasters with their friends from school. Meet together to eat supper. Then, meet to go home. Was it fun? Yes. Did it build community? Not likely. I’m not saying don’t do amusement parks; I’m saying make sure any activity you do gives kids an opportunity to connect with each other.