If you chose the “Bible Focus” youth ministry model based on your theology, values and principles (part 1), you’ve recruited the right leaders and have the systems in place to look after them (part 2), and you’ve designed a program that looks after your families (part 3), then as a continuation of structuring your regular youth group gathering (part 4a), this step 4(b) focusses in on The how of youth group gathering and activities.
It can be quite an exhausting task coming up with a new youth group program for each school term of the year and trying to be creative with how you do your youth group gathering so it remains fresh and yet faithful to your theology, values and principles at the same time. So here’s a few tools I use to make the process a little more simple, less exhausting and more sustainable.
We use this table (below) as the framework for each of our term programs. All the rows down the left represent the weeks and dates of the school term to be programmed. All the columns across the top represent the segments that make the weekly youth group gathering. The essentials are Bible Teaching and Prayer (see the previous post on this: structuring your regular youth group gathering), but we have also added: Bible Game/Mixer, Sharing Time, Memory Verse, and Supper. We also have a youth group band and do singing at our youth group but they have a separate roster that complements the term program. The other columns, as you can see, are for things like teaching theme, special notes, and who’s doing what.
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These regular segments at our regular youth group gathering mean there is an element of comfortable predictability for our young people as they come to youth group week after week, and yet because the segments are done with different activities each week and are arranged in a different order most weeks, there’s an exciting element of unpredictability that keeps it fresh. The advantage of this predictable structure is that young people know what they’re inviting their friends and gain confidence in the youth group gathering and what they can expect to happen when their friends are there.
The term program really starts at the beginning of the year when I put together the year’s teaching program (2005-2012 examples here) and then at the start of each school term I put the term program together by slotting in that term’s teaching program and then fill out the rest if the table by inserting the various activities which are found on this website (download the complete segment activities document here). In the Game/Mixer column I try to have a mix of Bible games and mixer games throughout the term so we’re doing activities that help us learn about God and each other throughout the whole term – these are 2 main aims of Games/Mixers in our regular youth group gathering and they provide another layering of Bible teaching that is creative and enjoyable. Ultimately I try to pick activities for all the segments that will dovetail well with the teaching or create a good spread of variety over the term.
Once the term program is complete, it is then up to the MC (one of the youth group leaders) to put together a running sheet of how those segments will be arranged for the gathering and to nominate/ask other leaders to run those activities. ALl the leaders know what is expected of them at any given youth ministry gathering because of the “Leader Expectation & Leader Roles” documents here.
Below is an example of a running sheet for week 1 using the above example term program (you can download the running sheet template as a Word document on the Download page). You can see how the various segments have been arranged and delegated to different leaders. Each segment has the description of how it’s run cut from the segments.doc (here) and pasted into the right hand column of the running sheet so that everyone knows what they’re doing and when.
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You’ll notice that there are other elements in my example term program and running sheet which I haven’t described. We’ll get to these later when we talk about how to include young people in serving at your youth ministry (that’s what the Salt VII is about) and how to partner with parents and families as they raise their children in the Christian faith.
You’ll also notice that there are activities included in the program and running sheet which aren’t listed on this website or in the segments.doc, and that’s because these are things which have to do with our youth ministry context and history and aren’t universally applicable. You get the general gist though right?
These tools are not meant to be rigid expressions of what a regular youth group must be like but a helpful tool in getting yourself started off in a good direction.
The next post is “How to start a youth ministry from scratch! (Part 5): Organising weekly youth Bible study groups
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
