As a young person, I have experienced the good and the bad of many different environments of youthwork and needless to say know a thing or two about it. So, what are the secrets to giving us youth the best youth group experience? How do you keep us interested and entertained by the prospect of Christianity? How do you have the best Biblical impact on us? How do you help us keep our faith?
Here are 7 things you should do that will benefit your youth group...
We want balance between everything that we do as a youth group, so a variation between social time, Bible studies and games is key. Too much social time will result in losing the point that a youth group is centred around Jesus; without this being reinforced, we will gradually fall out of sync with the Bible and begin to stray away from God. Too much Bible study won’t develop relationships between us young people, and to be able to have fun and be comfortable around each other is the best thing that young people can have. With that closeness, it is more likely that we will speak our minds and voice our own opinions during discussions with the whole group.
Being honest and authentic with young people is very important; without trust between the youth worker and young people, there is no hope of having a good relationship. We want to be able to talk to you about our problems and know that you genuinely care about what is going on in our lives. Even by helping us with the small things and talking to us about them, it can mean a lot when we need help making decisions in the future. Being honest will improve your relationship with us and boost the level of trust between you and us, ultimately making our youth group experience much better!
Encourage your youth to go on camps, events and trips out. Regularly going to youth events and camps/residentials will dramatically increase good relationships between the youth and develop our relationship with God. Experiencing other forms of church, worship and hearing other people speak at events can really help shape our view of church. Instead of being inside a repetitive, unchanging bubble of our home church (as good as it may be!), going to events like conferences, festivals, different churches and residentials can really impact our view on Christ. Experiencing Christianity from a much larger perspective can change our viewpoint of our religion and church; and a day out with us youth will create an experience in itself, many jokes, an encounter with God and a better relationship between you and us.
Giving us responsibilities and leadership opportunities within the wider church and youth group will help us discover their natural and spiritual gifts, growing in our relationship with God and helping us to see our own value. Encourage us into children's work, leading a youth service, joining the worship team, and maybe offer a chance for us to share a testimony, lead a discussion or game or Bible study. This will also help prepare us for the realities of adulthood and the responsibility needed for our future and helping other young people.
Having good leader-youth relationships will mean that we are much more likely to come and talk to you and trust you with our problems, however big or small they are. We need to know that you care and are willing to talk about anything with us, especially typically ‘taboo’ church subjects. Young people are much more likely to quietly stop coming to church if we don’t get along with our peers or youth leaders. If our lives get busy, and they do, let us know that you are thinking and praying about us and that you care, despite us not being able to attend church events. Young leaders are people that we can easily relate to, so having them around means that we will be more willing to have a conversation with them, and even that can be a way to keep young people in the church loop.
Following the same schedule, with the same game and the same leader every time will become tedious and boring. Changing what you do and how you do it every week will keep us interested in what will happen week to week and make us more likely to attend following meetings. You also need to be able to adapt to whoever turns up that week or to the needs of your group whenever they need it, as a week with two people will be different from a week with 20 people!
Although we would NEVER admit it, us youth secretly love a good dad joke, bad pun or prank, even if they’re aimed at us. However often we claim we think they’re stupid or we just throw them back in your face, we secretly love it when youth leaders humiliate themselves with their awful, but sometimes humorous, jokes. True, we don’t like it when they go too far or are genuinely stupid and dull, but we’ll accept a good few from time to time!
So, there you go, 7 things youth leaders should know that us youth like! But the most important thing is to listen to the young people in your group, as at the end of the day, it’s their opinions that matter the most, and when Jesus is the foundation of all of this, everything should be fine! Good luck...
