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.