I Found The Best Bible Study Curriculum
I can remember as a Youth Director several years ago spending hours at our local Christian book stores looking for something fresh and engaging to use to help teach my teenage friends the Bible. I tried all kinds of curriculum and even came up with some of my own. My “Seinfeld” Sunday School series is infamous. It still comes up whenever I get together with some of my old Sunday School kids. We watched Seinfield episodes and then discussed topics brought up in them. Seemed like a good idea to me, but apparently everyone could see through my attempt to squeeze an extra sitcom into my week.
But 10 years removed from that position, I’m no longer teaching Sunday School. Now, I’m charged with the task of teaching a group of guys (many of whom have not grown up in the church) about the Bible, and I’ve found the perfect curriculum for that job.
It’s the Bible!
For the past 3 years I’ve had a group of guys who get together every Wednesday morning at 6:00 at a local coffee shop and we just read the Bible together. And the best part is the questions that come with the curriculum. This is my favorite and the one I ask most often after we read a paragraph or two (and pause for an uncomfortable amount of silent time): “Anyone see anything that stands out to them or do you have any questions about anything we just read?”
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My Plan For Selling Weekend Camp
I’ve been working on a plan to sell our weekend trip to Southwind, so we fill all our spots quickly. Here’s what we’re planning to do.
- Pray about it a lot!
- Announce at Club – We started doing that last night. Our camp dates are Dec. 3-5 & the 4th is an SAT test date. So it’s really important to communicate that to kids. We’ve all had kids who turn in their deposit and then realize the week before camp that they can’t go because of the test. If your camp weekend has a test, talk to kids & parents & let them know the other test dates – Oct. 9, Nov. 6, & Jan. 22.
- Get fliers in kids hands ASAP & give them your cell phone number so their parents can call you with questions. This is important for all our new kids who are excited about Young Life. It’d be great if they were some of the first to sign up. It’s not bad to talk 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th timers to weekend camp, but let’s give the newbies a chance.
- Create a Facebook event for from your Club’s Facebook group. If you don’t have a Facebook group for your Club, create one before you do the event. You can upload a pdf file of the flier into Google Docs, make it public, and then put the link in the information of your event. That way kids can download the flier straight from the event page.
- Email kids & parents and attach a camp flier in pdf form. (about 2 months out.) This requires you to have email addresses. We’ve done a good job of getting club card info put in and we have last year’s camp spreadsheet with student & parent email addresses. I’ll send out an email letting them know to save those dates for Polar Bear Weekend, I’ll tell them about the SAT test, and I’ll let them know that spots are going to go fast, which they will. Most parents want their kids to go to camp, so communicating directly with them is important. I’ll probably do different emails for new parents than I do for parents who have had kids involved already.
- Text kids an hour or 2 before each Club/Campaigners & remind them to bring their fliers & money. If they forget, offer to go to their house to pick them up.
Finally, let me say a word about Google Docs. We’re using it for everything – camp sign-ups, club cards, club plans, music, etc. It’s great because the whole team can see it and even edit it if they have the rights, but it’s not public. We’ve kept our camp sign ups & club cards on their for the past few years, which makes it really easy when it comes to going from year to year. We can copy & paste a lot of that information.
Your Church Youth Group Doesn’t Have To Suck!
Only about one in four teens now participate in church youth groups, considered the hallmark of involvement; numbers have been flat since 1999. Other measures of religiosity — prayer, Bible reading and going to church — lag as well, according to Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., evangelical research company. This all has churches canceling their summer teen camps and youth pastors looking worriedly toward the fall, when school-year youth groups kick in.
I mean, who doesn't love to drive to church to get to play an awesome game of "Piece The Bible."
I cringe when I read this article in the USA Today not because the slumping numbers bother me, but for 2 other reasons.
- There is an assumption that our priority is to “get kids in church” which undoubtedly means that stupid building and…
- The word “relationships” doesn’t appear anywhere in the article.
I’m biased, but Young Life’s emphasis on going where kids are & earning the right to be heard (through relationships) just seems so much more logical, biblical, and effective. But, it’s a lot harder than simply throwing a pizza party. You actually have to recruit and train leaders to go outside the walls of the church and convince them that it’s important to enter the scary lives of teenagers – even if that seems to be the most uncomfortable thing in the world to them. I promise you, teenagers are craving it.
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A Third Kind of Youth Ministry
Just read a blog post – The Youth Ministry Gap.
The gist of it is that when the words “Youth Ministry” are uttered, it could actually mean 2 different things.
1. “Professional Vocational Youth Ministry” which he say is 20% of the workers.
This youth ministry is pretty sophisticated. Like any profession people fall into schools of thought. They have models for doing youth ministry. They have written personal and can defend philosophies of youth ministry. They run programs which implement their well thought out and defended philosophy of ministry. They train volunteers to be proteges for their school of thought. They have opinions about whether a certain models is getting stronger or dying.
2. “My Church Youth Ministry” which he says is 80% of the workers.
They just want to know how to minister to the kids in their church. When they e-mail me or call our customer service line they don’t want to talk philosophy or are even aware that there are different ways of doing youth ministry. They are calling because they have 15 seventh graders in their Sunday School class and they need a curriculum that will work for them.
For the 80% or so of youth workers in America who fit this category, youth ministry is pretty matter-of-fact. There are kids who show up on Sunday morning or Wednesday night and I do what I can to minister to them.
That characterization might be true, but I disagree with the percentages because there’s a missing group in there. It’s the group of youth leaders who have little interest in youth ministry philosophy, programs, or models because they aren’t really focused on creating a “thing”. But, they also aren’t overly concerned with what to do with kids who “show up”.
This third group of youth leaders are not holed up in a church building waiting for the kids to come to them. They are spending their time going to the kids, living out life among them, bringing Jesus to them. There is a percentage of Youth Ministry professionals & volunteers who don’t strive to draw kids to themselves, but are drawn to kids. It might be a small percentage, but it is a group of people who are doing it the way Jesus did it. There is a third kind of youth ministry.
Cabin Time Questions For Ordinary Club Talks
Help for Young Life Leaders NOW has some great advice for weekend camp speakers.
I recently spoke at a YL weekend camp. One of the best pieces of YL camp speaking advice I ever received was to plan your cabin time questions before you plan your talk.
That is outstanding advice, but reading the post gave me an idea.
At the end of nearly every regular Club talk our leaders will say something like “Hey, if you want to talk more about this stuff come and see one of the leaders.” That’s always great, but hardly any kids actually do that.
Here’s the idea…what if leaders who were speaking came up with 2 or 3 questions (before they write their talks) that they’ll give to the other leaders at pre-Club for us to use in conversations with kids during the following week? Not only would it help the speaker stay focused but it would help the rest of us have some creative ways to bring up the talks in our conversations with kids outside of Club.
Just an idea!
The Psychologist Skit
We just did this skit on Monday. It is my favorite to do and had the kids cracking up.
Mr. Tolson is knocking at the door on the door of Dr. Roberts, the in-house psychologist.
Dr. Roberts: Mr. Tolson
Mr. Tolson: Are you Dr. Roberts?
Dr. Roberts: Yes, come in. Please have a seat. Sorry to have to call you down here on such short notice, but your company asked me to give you a creativity test.
Mr. Tolson: I’ve never taken one of those before.
Dr. Roberts: Well, they’re pretty easy. Actually, they can be fun. Would you like a beverage?
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Gospel-Centered Everything…Even Topical Discussions
I’ve had some great discussions over the past year or so about making Jesus central to every Young Life talk we do. That’s easy most of the time, but challenging when it comes to particularly the Sin talk – telling kids about our separation from God due to our sinfulness. But still, Jesus is & should be central to everything we teach, even when it comes to specific topical teaching & discussions.
Resurgence posted some thoughts under the title “Gospel-Centered Discipleship: How It Looks” and I love this statement.
A gospel-centered church does not just preach the gospel. The gospel is not an addition to our ministry or even a beginning point; rather, the gospel must saturate every part of our church’s life.
I understand the value of topic-based discussions, especially in Campaigners. Kids seem to always want to talk about topics that “apply to their lives”, and it’s a temptation as leaders to give in, plan for, & do an entire discussion on some topic but leave out the gospel, as if the gospel doesn’t “apply to their lives.” The gospel needs to be in and through everything we do.
So, how do we do that?
- Rely on scripture. The gospel runs through scripture, so if we are using it Jesus will be central.
- Most “topical” discussions that kids want to talk about are usually about their misguided responses to a longing for deep relationship with God. Keep that in mind & steer discussions toward Jesus.
I would take the whole Gospel thing one step further & say we should not only apply it to church, but to our own lives. The gospel of Jesus Christ must saturate every part of our lives.