Teaching

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 Scott Burks

Those of us who stand before students and hope to communicate some sort of concept know how hard that really is. Students are busy, easily distracted, and recognize weak content from a mile away. Communicating in this culture is tough.

Try the following next time you are getting ready to teach.

Start early.
It takes great communicators several weeks to prepare an effective message. Those who regularly stand in front of crowds with something to say have been thinking about, meditating on, studying, and examining their content for days. It is part of them and it flows like something they know, they believe, and are passionate about.

Don’t wing it.
You may get by with it a few times, but if you really think you can deliver a diet of half-baked talks that you really don’t know or maybe even don’t believe, then . . . well . . . I think you are most likely mistaken. One could even argue that people who wing it :: trust in themselves, don’t truly value their position, and aren’t honoring the audience. This is harsh, but it is borderline disrespect to stand in front of them and make it up as you go. You can do so much better than that.

Get help.
Get help as you prepare your next talk. Teams make things great. Inventions with impact are created by groups of people. Ideas that move a generation rarely flow out of individuals. The same is true for a great talk. Get together with a few people you have chemistry with and build the talk together. Get input, do research, brainstorm, create, craft, and form the message. It’s fun. You’ll grow. The group will feel empowered. Your audience will love it.

Hope this helps.

This article was reposted from Scott Burks’ blog. You can follow Scott at http://scottburks.me/

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.

By Daryl Watts

I have treasured Your word in my heart so that I may not sin against You (Ps. 119:11, HCSB).

Charles Spurgeon once said that this verse was about putting the best possession (God’s Word) in the best place (ones heart) for the best purpose (avoiding sin). I doubt many youth workers would disagree, but how many of us actually put it into practice? Or better yet, how many youth workers encourage and enable students to put it into practice?

So, how do we get students to memorize God’s Word? Well, it starts with you, the youth worker. Like many parts of the Christian life, Scripture memory is more caught than taught. I started my own journey into Scripture memory when I met a leader who had memorized the book of Mark. I decided then and there that I would be a student of Scripture memory. My goal for this year is to reach a total of 775 verses memorized.

Here are some guidelines to get you started.

1. Believe you can memorize. Many people think they have a bad memory. The truth is you memorize things all the time. For example, without looking it up, answer the following questions.             * What’s your phone number?
                * What’s your mother’s name?
                * Where did you go to high school?
                * Who was the first president of the United States?You knew all the answers because you memorized them. I doubt you have to use a GPS receiver to find your way home from work. You’ve memorized the route. So you know you can do it. Start with confidence!
2. Believe memorizing Scripture is important. The main reason we don’t memorize things is because we don’t think they are important. If Psalm 119:11 doesn’t convince you, look at Acts 2 where Peter quotes a long passage from the book of Joel and 3,000 people are saved. Or think about Jesus in the wilderness. He thwarted Satan with verses from Deuteronomy. Unless you think Peter and Jesus carried a stack of scrolls with them, they must have memorized their verses.
3. Get started. You know what they say, “a journey of a thousand passages begins with one verse” (or something like that).Start with an easy verse. Psalm 119:11 would be a good place to start. If that’s too hard, try John 11:35  (Jesus wept). The point is to get a quick win. You probably have a few other favorite verses that you practically have memorized now.Add some verses you are likely to use with students in your ministry. The Roman Road (Romans 3;23; 6:23; 5:8; and 10:9-10) or the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3-17) are good examples.

   Choose your favorite translation. I memorize all my verses from NASB. It’s what I started with and it helps me to have all my verses in one place. You, on the other hand, may do better memorizing each verse out of the translation that makes the most since to you. If so, include the translation in your memorization.

   Find a system. I print my verses on 2″ by 3.5″ cards (business card size) and laminate them. Okay, that’s probably a little OCD for most people, but this way they don’t get damaged easily when I travel and I can store them in business card boxes and cases. My wife just writes hers on 3×5 cards on a ring clip. Do what works best for you.

   Memorize it “letter perfect.” This may sound legalistic, but if you are certain that the first starts with “therefore” rather than with “so” you will be able to quote it with more confidence. Don’t worry about punctuation, but do learn every “the,” “and,” “but,” and “or.”

   Review, review, review. This is the hardest part. When I don’t review, I forget. My brain leaks and so does yours. I usually spend 10-15 minutes daily reviewing my verses so that I can review them all in a month. It’s a part of my daily devotional time. Until you get over 400 verses, you can probably get by with 5 minutes each day.

4. Use your memorized verses with students. This is not to show off, but when students see the example in your life, they are more likely to commit to it themselves.
5. Create an expectation to memorize. I provide a memory verse on a card for many of the Bible studies I lead. Sometimes they memorize it and sometimes the throw it away. Usually they will keep it in a wallet or purse for a few weeks. Eventually, many of them will catch on and start memorizing.
6. Affirm students when they memorize. This can be in the form of praise. You can even reward them. Just use that sparingly. I’m not a big fan of teaching students to memorize for material reward as happens in some programs. Of course, the best affirmation is helping them see how Scripture memory is helping them grow in Christ.

Daryl Watts is the Student and Family Specialist at the California Southern Baptist Convention.  He assists churches in developing and improving ministry with junior high, senior high, and college students.

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.

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?

In Houston Heflin’s book, Youth Pastor, he claims that youth ministry involves responsibilities that compete for the time we invest in ministry in five different areas. I tend to agree with his assessment. For example, Heflin says our teaching must focus on helping teenagers in the church to grow AND teaching teenagers who have not yet come to Christ the truth of the claims of Christ. True.

Some of us are given to teaching lost kids. The vast majority of this generation of young Americans is in danger of spending eternity apart from Christ. The good news is that many of them are willing to talk to youth leaders about issues of faith and many would even like to learn the truths of Christianity. Even if you are not passionate about teaching lost kids, you need to find ways to connect with the lost of this generation.

Some of us are given to teaching church kids. The call of Scripture is to make disciples . . . and that involves a lot more than conversion. Too many teenagers in contemporary American youth ministries are what the Apostle Paul called “babies” or “worldly Christians.” Even if your heart is to reach the multitude of lost kids, you must find a way to build the faith of the students in your youth group.

Finding balance is a challenge. Most church youth groups will lean one direction or the other. But we cannot just say, “Evangelism is not my gift” or “Let someone else teach those kids.”

In the midst of the Christmas season, preparing lessons and activities for your youth may feel like a drain on your tiny remaining energy after the decorating, shopping, and cooking. How can you make the Christmas lesson fresh again this year? How can you keep from doing the same old stale activities one more time? Surely your students are tired of the same old lessons. How will you make this Christmas come alive.

The Hebrews were set free from slavery in Egypt, saved from the horrible death of the firstborn experienced in Egyptian families, and baptized by walking through the divided waters of the Red Sea. After those mind-blowing miracles, what did they do? As God commanded, they celebrated the Passover every year, reminding themselves and their children of what God had done to rescue his people.

“Great,” you ask, “but what does that have to do with Christmas?”

The message of the Gospel may be more overwhelming than anything the Hebrews experienced. God, in the person of His Son, took on human flesh so that he could be the final sacrifice, offering Himself in full payment of our sin. The story of our salvation is the story of Christ. And while Christ did many things worth celebrating, the two essential facets of the work of Christ were when God became flesh (Christmas), when Jesus died for our sins (Good Friday), and when Jesus rose from the dead to conquer death in those who are His once for all (Easter).

Teenagers really should remember your great Bible study lessons. I mean, you put so much time into shaping a learning experience that causes teenagers to truly understand the message and even apply it to their lives. They really should remember your great Bible studies. At least, it seems that way. While I was working on my Ph.D., I did a research project in which I tested teenagers who had been studying the life of Christ over the course of the year. Though they were still in the study and had not reached the final week of Christ’s life, I gave them a test of the entire course. The results were terrible. The students could remember very little about what their teachers had labored to help them understand.

Except for questions related to two points in the story: the birth of Christ and His death and resurrection.

Why did they remember the details surrounding those events? Especially the events surrounding Easter . . . since they had not yet reached that point in the study?

Repetition!

Over and over again, they have heard the stories of the birth of Christ, of His death, and of His resurrection. They have heard those events articulated and explained . . . since childhood if they have been in church. Like the young Hebrew who did not experience the terror of the dead, first-born Egyptians but heard the story over and over again, the young people in your church have heard the truths of the coming of Christ so many times they can repeat them at will. It has been said that familiarity breeds contempt. That is possible, I suppose, but there is something else that familiarity breeds that is much more common:

Learning.

Why do we celebrate Christmas? Because in one of the most miraculous moments of our planets long history, God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). It is worth repeating . . . again and again.

Youth ministry is all about helping teenagers to connect to Jesus Christ through his Word. Teenagers need a growing relationship with God that will provide a foundation of faith that they can build on for the rest of their lives. However, that may raise an interesting dilemma. As youth leaders, should we primarily see ourselves as evangelists who are trying to help teenagers who have no faith background discover Christ and enter a faith-relationship with him through faith and repentance? Or are we disciplers who are guiding teenagers in the church to develop their faith and deepen their walk.

Being an evangelist among teenagers is a big calling. While they are members of a larger culture, many of argued convincingly that teenagers are part of their own culture. The youth culture is shaped by adolescents, but it also shapes them. It includes unique language, permeating attitudes, iconic leaders, and shared ways of looking at things. The work of teaching teenagers without Christ the truths of the Gospel, youth leaders need to think like missionaries. Just like a cross-cultural teacher in a foreign land, youth leaders have to explore the culture of teenagers, looking for ways to speak into their culture. And just like cross-cultural missionaries, youth leaders will have to invest time developing relationships and expressing care in order to be able to teach.

More of the teaching to non-Christian teenagers may take place during football games or in casual discussions at Starbucks than in classrooms at church. However, if our job is to be cross-cultural missionaries, we need to find ways to teach at the church that would make sense to a teenagers with no background in biblical truth. When so many teenagers are in need of faith in Christ, perhaps this should be the focus of our ministries. Perhaps we should be primarily cross-cultural evangelists.

On the other hand, Jesus called us to “make disciples,” to teach them “all things” (Matt. 28:18-20). While the teenagers at church may have made a commitment to Christ, it seems unlikely that many of them have a strong enough grounding in the teachings of Christ to actually be able to build a life on it. In fact, all of the research says that churched teenagers are basically biblically illiterate. If we neglect the development of the youth in our church we are likely to see the same trend we have seen in recent years: teenagers begin dropping out of church at about age 16, many of them never to return to their faith.

If we are going to make disciples of teenagers, we will need to provide them with a number of experiences that help them to understand and value the things of God. We will need to teach for spiritual growth and demonstrate a faithful pursuit of Christ in our lives. Perhaps we should be primarily disciple-makers.

I suppose the truth is, we must be both. Evangelism is, of course, incomplete if we are only making converts and not disciples. Likewise, discipleship that does not show teenagers how to engage a lost world in order to guide them to faith in Christ is not real discipleship. The implications are that we need some times in our youth ministry in which we are seeking to reach and teach those without Christ and we need some times in which we are seeking to help those who have made a commitment to Christ to grow in their faith. Not easy work, but essential.

One of the biggest challenges in youth ministry is finding Bible study materials that connect with your students. Personally, I don’t believe any prepared plan will be usable as it is. You know your students. The person who wrote the lesson plan doesn’t. You will need to take his ideas and adapt them to your group. So, don’t throw out your Bible study curriculum materials the first time you don’t like a learning approach.

Good Bible study materials should . . .

Have a long-term plan for teaching students the Bible. Curriculum is more than a lesson a week; it is a strategy for teaching the Bible to students.

Help you understand the passage . . . before you try to teach it to your students. Background material or commentary is important for you as you study.

Include a learning strategy . . . that begins by drawing students into the study, helps them to examine the passage, and leads them to make personal application of the passage.

Be more than Bible-ish. Lessons should grow directly out of the passages being studied.

Here are a few of the Bible study materials I think are worth looking at:

1. KNOWN by LifeWay. The KNOWN curriculum plan is built on a faith development strategy. Students are challenged to know God, own their faith, and make Christ known. One month every quarter is devoted to each of those strategies. The lessons are discussion-based. The curriculum includes a plan for a mid-week meeting in addition to weekly small group Bible studies. Materials are attractive but may be expensive for a small church. Discussion may be a challenge if you only have two kids show up.
2. Live by Group. This is the new Doug Fields offering. The curriculum is topical, hitting a number of things teenagers need to know. The plan seems to have balance between life needs of teenagers and understanding of doctrinal truths. The Bible content is pretty light. The curriculum is delivered electronically. The study is primarily discussion-based, but includes some ice breakers and creative activities. It also includes some fun options, like questions to text your students before the session. You have to buy four years of Bible study at once, so the price may be prohibitive, but you can adapt it to your needs once you have it.
3. Student Life Bible Study by Nav Press. This is a six-year plan for teaching youth the Bible. The first three years are a comprehensive, Bible-centered approach to Bible study. The Bible study is deeper than many curriculum offerings, but application is not always as beefy as the content. It is delivered on-line and a subscription is purchased on a sliding scale making it more economical for smaller churches. The lesson plans involve a wide variety of teaching plans with lots of options for how you teach each lesson.
4. Life Focus by LifeWay. This is a curriculum approach designed specifically with small churches in mind. The lessons attempt to use multiple teaching approaches, but you should be able to teach any lesson if you only have 3 or 4 teenagers show up. The paper quarterlies are pretty vanilla, but a revision of the look is in the works. Cost will be a factor since you need a quarterly for each student, but price is not extravagant. The Bible study plan follows a church-wide, comprehensive study of Scripture. The idea is to have parents and youth all studying the same passages.

Of course, these are only a few of the MANY curricular offerings for youth groups. If I have left your favorite out, feel free to add it to the comments below.