Student Ministry Tip: Meet Them Where They Are

Last night I finally followed through on a plan that I have been wanting to put into play for a long time. Every week a few of our teens (one of whom is in my Journey Group) like to get wings at a local restaurant. Oftentimes their get-together takes place during Wednesday Night Live, understandably leaving me out of the potential mix. But it is a tradition to them, and to that one student in particular.

I have been wanting to forge a stronger relationship with this one student in particular, and last week made him an offer. If he came to WNL, I would love to join him for wings after we were done. He jumped at the chance.

During our meal together (about 90 minutes) we were able to chat about all kinds of things. Video games (he’s a big Call of Duty fan), football (also a starting running back for Varsity), family life, friends, H20, and even his own walk with Christ. All that over a few chicken wings.

So take this lesson to be learned (or relearned or remembered). Take every opportunity you can to meet teens on their own turf. You may find that they are more open with you about their life, and your ministry should become even more effective as a result.

BONUS: We sat next to a couple of our adult leaders I had been trying to get into contact with for a couple days. God is so cool!

WNL FAITH: Week 5 Review – 2/3/2010

Set List: No One Like You (David Crowder*Band), In the Secret (Andy Parks).

Prepwork For the Evening: Prepared message, created media (welcome bump video, images), created PowerPoint, set up room, prepared EasyWorship schedule, prepared handouts, set up webcasting equipment, prayed.

Lesson Topic: FAITH: part five – Life After Death and Hinduism

What We Did: We wrapped up the portion of FAITH: that explores other faith systems by looking at Hinduism using the lecture method primarily. We explored both Christianity’s understanding of life after death and Hinduism as a whole.

Scripture Used: John 14.6; Ecclesiastes 9.10; Luke 23.43; Luke 16.19-31

Positives From the Evening: There was some interaction with students during the lesson portion. Students were very responsive to the second song selection. There was excitement for National Goatee Day.

Negatives From the Evening: The first song was un-energetic at best. There were several teens who admit to zoning out during the lesson. A few even found themselves not paying enough attention to the lesson to the point that they were having their own discussion on the side.

Results From the Evening: It’s really hard to say that tonight went well. The topic seems to have been too broad to have held student attention. There was little enthusiasm for music, and there was a general overall feeling of disinterest. I think the best part of the evening was setting up a potential collision for students during the singing of In the Secret.

Student Involvement: Students ran the camera, ran EasyWorship, and asked questions.

Next Week: FAITH: wraps up with a look at why Christians believe what they believe.

What Have I Been Up To?

I am still hoping to get back onto a blogging track this week. To start with, how about a little video detailing our Dodgeball Tournament we hosted last weekend at Friday Night Flood?

Been Quiet Around Here Lately

I have had a lot of my time taken up by sickness, planning, evaluating, being a dad and a husband, and video production for our WNL FAITH: series. Understandably, there has been very little left over to blog outside of debriefing myself after H20 programs. Interestingly enough, my site hits have been quite high while I have been posting next to nothing. Hmmm…

Anyway, this is just a short little note to share that I will soon be back in the saddle creating new content soon. And once I am done editing FAITH: videos, I want to get back into creating unique video content for my blog as well.

So look for new stuff soon. I hope to get at least one or two real posts up next week. If I’m not too busy…

WNL FAITH: – Week 4 Review (1/27/2010)

Set List: Undignified (Matt Redman), My Savior, My God (Aaron Shust).

Prepwork For the Evening: Prepared message, created media (welcome bump video, images, PowerPoint game), installed VGA splitter, created PowerPoint, set up room, prepared EasyWorship schedule, prepared handouts, set up webcasting equipment, prayed.

Lesson Topic: FAITH: part four – Sin and Buddhism

What We Did: Taking a more (unplanned) conversational approach, we worked our way through the basics that Buddhists believe about life, and how it compares with what Christianity believes.

Scripture Used: Romans 3.23; Galatians 5.19-21; James 1.13-15

Positives From the Evening: There was a lot of discussion and interaction amongst the group that was not planned or even expected. We had a lot of new faces, some of which were there only because God brought them tonight. The group seemed to really latch on to the idea of sin and run with it. The Buddha Challenge PowerPoint game really went over well. We got to see a couple of teens that we have not seen in a while (one the result of a personal invite via a phone call this afternoon).

Negatives From the Evening: Music once again was a chore for most of the group. There were a handful that really got into it and used it to connect with God, but most of the room looked like a group of Sunday morning pew fillers. More than half the group didn’t sign in on the attendance sheet, leaving me to scramble before they left to figure out who was here tonight.

Results From the Evening: Tonight was a really great evening. The interaction in the room was a lot deeper than I was expecting, especially for a lecture-style lesson. Buddhism turned out to be a rather interesting topic tonight, and our newer teens really dove right in (especially the one who informed me after the lesson that she is an unorthodox Jew). Overall, teens went home more informed and refreshed, though I really am left wondering if music as a medium for worship has run its course for much of our group.

Student Involvement: Students ran the camera, ran EasyWorship, and asked questions.

Next Week: We’re exploring Hinduism, as well as Life After Death in part five of FAITH:

WNL FAITH: Week 3 Review (1/20/2010)

Set List: How He Loves Video (David Crowder*Band) because my voice is not back yet (been fighting a cold all week).

Prepwork For the Evening: Prepared message, created media (welcome bump video, images, PowerPoint game), created PowerPoint, set up room, prepared EasyWorship schedule, prepared handouts, set up webcasting equipment, prayed.

Lesson Topic: FAITH: part three – Salvation and Islam

What We Did: Utilizing PowerPoint trivia and asking teens to share what they know about Islam, I was able to combine this with traditional lecture for a fairly informative night.

Scripture Used: Genesis 3; Ephesians 2.8-9; Hebrews 6.17-18; Micah 3.6

Positives From the Evening: The teen who shared really enjoyed being able to share what he knew with the room. The initial stages of the Scripture or Qur’an PowerPoint game went really well. There was some real solid discussion about Islam, and there were even a couple of teens who are ahead of the curve when it comes to how best to interact with people from different faith systems.

Negatives From the Evening: A couple of teens were a bit disruptive, and technology once again didn’t work too well. 10 passages was probably a little long for our group in the Scripture or Qur’an game.

Results From the Evening: Good conversations and some solid interaction from our teens combined for a good week. There aren’t too many Muslims around Corry, but hopefully our teens have all the necessary info to hold an intelligent and gracious conversation with them when they do run into them.

Student Involvement: Students ran the camera, ran EasyWorship, asked questions and even taught a little bit.

Next Week: We’re exploring Buddhism, as well as Sin in part four of FAITH:

Friday Night Flood in Review – 1/15/2010

Tonight was another good night of Friday Night Flood. I actually entered it with a new perspective. You see, a couple months ago our leadership team read through Youth Ministry 3.0, and one of the things I remembered from the book was the discussion about one possible shift for us into 3.0 would be multiple youth groups in the same church. I have been noticing that we seem to be shifting that way ourselves, with different crowds on Sunday Mornings, Wednesday Nights and Friday Nights.

Tonight we featured one of our longtime students sharing his journey, and some strong, encouraging words of challenge for our crowd. We also had some “Stupid Human Tricks” (look for the video soon) and shared the whole break time again on our church website.

Tonight there was little negative that I encountered. There was one 6th grader who came in (we are 7th – 12th grade). We let him stay since it was getting close to the end of our evening. I did get to have a few really solid conversations with teens. In the end, tonight really seemed to feel good to me. I know the few teens that I was able to talk to really benefited from being involved tonight.

Communicating With Teens, part 2

Yesterday I blogged about the different avenues that I utilize to communicate information to our teenagers. I neglected to mention one major place that I use frequently.

Church Website
Our church website has given H20 an entire section devoted to our programs and ministries. I utilize this site all the time, in an effort to keep both our teens and their parents informed and up-to-date:

• Homepage: Here students find our purpose statement, an interactive calendar, announcements about upcoming events and programming, access to our texting list, our weekly schedule, (when we produce them) video announcements, a feed to all of our videos, and a picture slide show. That is a lot of info! And yet, it doesn’t feel incredibly crowded (though I am looking at how best to streamline it a little better.
• Program Pages: Our regular programs (Wednesday Night Live, Sunday School, Friday Night Flood and Journey Groups) each have their own page with an explanation of why the program exists, and videos captured from each program. Friday Night Flood also includes downloads of the informational brochure and our Medical Release Form, and a live video feed of the program (but only when we are live).
• Event Pages: Currently, our upcoming Winter Retreat (Snowbound) has a page with information, video advertisements, downloads of the brochure and images for the weekend. We also currently have a page devoted to our Dodgeball Tournament that includes information, videos, and downloads of any necessary paperwork (Medical Release Form, sign-up form, etc.). In the future we will feature pages for ALIVE, our summer mission trip, the 30 Hour Famine, and more.
• FAITH: Our current Wednesday Night Live series is so… big… that I have set up a section devoted to it. This page features the live video stream of each WNL, information on the series, and links to subpages with archived videos, text resources, and links used for each faith system that we explore in the series.
• H20 Leaders: A fun little section featuring profiles of each adult who currently invests in our teens.
• The Purple Police: An informational page about the series. Each season is embedded, as well as the story behind the series’ creation.
• Fahim: Fahim is a child in Bangladesh that our group sponsors through World Vision. This page is static, and simply explains who he is, and why we sponsor him.
• H20 Links: Useful links for both teens and parents to make use of, as well as links to the rest of our web presence (YouTube, Picasa, etc.).

There you have it. The H20 website in a nutshell. That is a lot of stuff! I didn’t realize just how much we have posted online.

WNL FAITH: Week 2 Review (1/13/2010)

Set List: No One Like You (David Crowder*Band), Days of Elijah (Third Day)

Prepwork For the Evening: Prepared message, created media (welcome bump video, images), created PowerPoint, set up room, prepared EasyWorship schedule, prepared handouts, set up webcasting equipment, prayed.

Lesson Topic: FAITH: part two – Evangelism, Jehovah’s Witnesses & Mormonism

What We Did: With a little more discussion than last week, we walked through the major beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, and compared them to our beliefs as Christians.

Scripture Used: Matthew 28.19-20; John 1.1

Positives From the Evening: There was one teen in particular who has stated point-blank in the past that she only comes Wednesday nights because her sister makes her come, and prefers Friday Night Flood. She came, despite her sister being home sick. Aside from that, there was a lot of interaction as students shared personal experiences and asked more questions than last week.

Negatives From the Evening: One student in particular who is struggling with God not answering his requests as he would like them to be was quite disruptive at the beginning of the evening. Technology was not cooperating well this week.

Results From the Evening: Lots of questions and a load of interaction from teens this week. Hopefully they can take the information and advice to heart and use it as they interact with their friends and neighbors who are either Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons.

Student Involvement: Students ran the camera, ran EasyWorship, asked questions and helped lead singing.

Next Week: We’re exploring Islam, as well as Salvation in part three of FAITH:

Bonus: One of the segments from this week:

Communicating With Teens

I have been looking at how I communicate information to our teens lately. Sometimes it seems as if no matter what I do, someone inevitably pipes up that they either didn’t hear it, or (sometimes more accurately) I didn’t offer the information to them. So I decided to sit down and list out the communication avenues that I take advantage of to ensure that our teens are hearing everything they need to know about programming, events, teaching, and growth opportunities that have been created just for them. Here is what I have been using lately:

Text Messaging
I use texting two different ways. There are a handful of teens that I communicate directly with text messages (my Journey group, several others who respond to me when I chat with them) on a regular basis, really more to keep up conversation and not so much for informational purposes. The second method I employ is a free service called Broadtexter. Broadtexter was designed for bands, and allows me to create messages online or from my phone at any time. It also allows me to set a message to be sent at a later time. I usually take a few minutes at the beginning of the week to program in reminders for the week. Teens can subscribe to the Broadtexter list on their own using an embedded widget on our website and our MySpace page. (And check out our Broadtexter page here).

Social Networking
I have recently migrated our Facebook group to a Facebook page, and use this once or twice a week to send out reminders and updates to our teens on Facebook. I also post our group’s prayer requests as a note for everyone in the group to read and remember. Our MySpace page has recently been overhauled to be more helpful to our teens. I send bulletins out once a week with Prayer Requests, and occasionally to remind students of events and programs that are coming up.

Video Announcements
I have actually suspended this method in the past couple weeks. For a time, it was a good method of keeping the announcements interesting, but after a while teens were focusing more on the fun stuff (YouTube Video of the week) than the information, and forgetting important dates, times, etc. It also became very difficult to get teens to star each week. You can check out all of the videos here.

Bulletin Boards
We have two bulletin boards (on in the Youth Room, one in the church Narthex) on which I hang multiple calendars (4 in the Narthex, 2 in the Youth Room), and this very week have been reworking how we utilize the one in the Youth Room. That particular bulletin board is actually connected to the next item…

Info Table
Resting underneath the bulletin board, the Info Table has items such as Medical Release Forms, brochures for upcoming events, take-home calendars, Fahim’s (our sponsor child) money collection box and more.

Slide Show, Bulletin & Newsletter
Each week there are slides in our Sunday Morning service slide show that runs before and after the service. I also put info in the bulletin about new or different programming. And each month our church’s newsletter has a page written from me to students and parents, as well as a monthly calendar with all that month’s activities listed.

Those are what we use, in addition to spoken word announcements on Sunday mornings and Wednesday Nights. How do you communicate important info to your teens?