Each week we’ll be writing about different ways that we, as leaders, can effectively be examples to our students, and we’ll discuss different topics to talk over with our students. These topics range from relationships to being active in a small group. All of these topics are nuggets every leader can apply to his or her life. It’s our hope that you’ll check back to see what next week’s topic is, and that you can apply what we’ve learned in your own life as a fellow volunteer youth worker.
“I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” Genesis 17:7
Today’s blog topic is Relationships vs. programming
It seems like today more than ever, we need to find a way to attract “seekers” into our student ministries. Whether it’s to weekend services, midweek services, or small groups, the fact is students need Jesus. There are so many ways to try to attract students into your youth group, and one approach is the theatrical glitz and glam. Although that’s one way to grab people’s attention, is it the best way? We need to try to get away from the Hollywood spotlights and get back to the roots of youth ministry. The glitz and glam, lights, and smoke are going to last for a night, but the relationships are going to last from generation to generation.
Matt: I love to see our High School Ministry church services filled on the weekends, I love seeing new faces that have come to check out this whole “God thing,” and friends of students who are part of our core group of regular attenders. We need to find a way to grab their attention and make sure they enjoy the service and want to come back for more. To do that we often start the service out with games and ways for students to win a prize, or just to come down and have fun on stage. But at the same time, I also see our core group who are longing to hear more of God’s word and spend more time in Worship. There needs to be a mix of both, we need to attract the seekers without boring the believers. Easy to say that, but how do we do it?
I think we need to make sure today’s students understand that God is not in bright lights, fog machines and booming bass speakers. God shows up no matter where we meet. Do all those things attract seekers? Absolutely they do, but then we need to make sure the seekers become believers, and we do that through relationships. One of the things I do when I’m volunteering at one of our four high school services on the weekend is look for students who are sitting alone. I’ll go up and talk to them, if it’s their first time here I want them to know they just made a friend. I’ll introduce them to some of our “core” students that I know so they can start to feeling like this could be their church home, and they have friends here, and other kids they can talk with.
Use the glitz and glamor to attract new students to your services, but immediately follow up with a relational aspect to your services. After all our goal is for these students to form a relationship with God.
Steven: On a similar note, I often find myself trying to build up the glitz and glam of my small group. There are some things my co-leader and I do to make small group more “attractive” to the guys in our group, but in reality it doesn’t really add much to the party. What we’ve found recently is that we just need to get back to the roots.
When students come to a youth group led by a church, they are expecting to hear about Jesus. We don’t have to try to hide our agenda of spreading Jesus just because we’re afraid of putting off students that don’t know him yet. When my students show up on Tuesday night, I know some of them don’t know Jesus. Obviously it’s my mission to make sure they get to know Him by the end of the year, and it’s comforting for me as a leader to know that they are expecting to hear about God and His word. Youth group is already seeker-geared. We don’t have the extra worry of making sure our lessons or discussions are “light” enough for seekers; they’re already expecting to hear it! If they were put off by Jesus talk, they wouldn’t be there in the first place.
Something my co-leader and I have been doing lately is instead of doing a quick game or fun activity in the beginning of our small group, we just ask our guys how their weeks went. That’s it. It might seem weird to just talk, especially with a group of 7th grade guys, but they actually enjoy talking about what has happened since we saw them the week before. We don’t have to plan anything huge and extravagant to get our guys to enjoy being at small group. God will take care of their attitude, we don’t have to do it for them.
