Thanks to Sarah, a youth ministry chaplain from NZ (New Zealand?), for sharing these links:

- Postsecret.com – topic of lonliness
- 1000awesomethings.com - contentment
- www.TheTroubleWithParis.com.au – excellent small group discussion on hyperreality
- www.creativemyk.com and www.sxc.hu
for all our powerpoints
-animoto.com for video making
-www.toptenz.net for intros

Disclaimer: I have briefly looked at each of these sites and found them to be useful for ministry. There is always the possibility of finding objectionable material on some of these sites. I do not necessarily endorse the content of these sites. Proceed and use with common sense.

Recently, Dennis approached me and asked if I would do a post for his blog. I was honored to be asked to do a blog post for him, especially because I’m so new to youth ministry. As a relatively new Junior High small group volunteer, I feel so humbled to be given this opportunity to share what I’ve learned in my two years as a leader.

Here are just three simple things I’ve learned as a Junior High volunteer youth worker:

1. If you have a large group, don’t be afraid to split it up (if you have a co-leader)!
My co-leader, Kyle, and I have a pretty big group of 14 Junior Highers, which can be a little bit difficult to keep under control. One of the best things Kyle and I decided to do is to split them up into two smaller groups of seven. We learned that the students have a lot less pressure to perform in front of the rest of the group, and they tend to stay more calm.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask challenging questions!
One thing I hate to do is ask boring, surface level questions. It doesn’t really benefit anyone to stay in the shallow waters, so be brave, and jump in the deep end! In our group, we have a lot of students with divorced or separated parents. Rather than just get the information and let it go, we try to talk with these students on a one-on-one basis and try to comfort them as much as possible.

3. When all else fails, just be there!
The title of this one may be a little confusing, so allow me to elaborate. Most groups don’t meet every day, so it can be hard to keep in contact with your students. My response: just be there! Always be available to take a student to grab a burger, go bowling, or just to hang out and talk. If you keep yourself available, you keep the lines of communication open through the whole week, not just on the one night that you meet.

Thanks so much to Dennis Beckner for allowing me to give a bit of insight into the Junior High ministry world!

Steven Orel graduated high school in 2009 and quickly began serving in our Jr. High ministry along with his long-time friend Oleg Bondarenko. I’ve watched them doing great youth ministry. It’s both inspiring and heart warming to see them get plugged in and do so great right out of high school. Steven is actually taking it a step further. He will soon become a 2010 summer intern with our Jr. High ministry at Saddleback Church.

Do you have any wisdom you’d like to share with fellow volunteers? Please submit it here.

What do you do with the kid who’s different? The boy who wears eye makeup and has black fingernails, the girl who goes through five shades of hair color every two weeks, the bookworm amidst athletic kids, the student who makes offbeat comments that leave everyone scratching their heads… the list can get long in a hurry. Conformity is king in any group of students, and many of the young teens with whom I work can be rather brutal toward the one who doesn’t fit the mold.

My personal mission as a youth leader is to welcome, nurture, and disciple every student who walks through our doors, with a laser focus on new students and 6th grade boys. That means that any kid who is noticeably, or perhaps quietly, different from the mainstream of our group deserves special care and attention. A recent midweek program was a prime example. One boy made a riotously funny comment during the message, which wasn’t unusual for him. He simply doesn’t have a “quiet” setting. Either he’s silent or you can hear him everywhere in the room, appropriate or not. Another student had come for only the second time and participated fully in a rather physical crowdbreaker despite being thoroughly nonathletic and not quite understanding all the rules of the game. I picked up strongly on a less-than-approving attitude among some of the other boys, communicated nonverbally at the least.

How have you made the “different” ones in your group feel like they belong? Here are some things that came to mind as I processed later that evening.

1. Respect – It was a beautiful providence that this was exactly our topic that night. We drew from 1 Peter 2:17 and Romans 12:10 and 13:1-5 and focused most of our conversation on respect for authorities like parents, teachers, youth leaders, etc. But the foundation of respect is honoring all others as well as yourself, because each of us has been created in the image of God. That holds true whether someone is your best friend or you can’t stand them. Youth groups in general, and small groups in particular, MUST be safe places for students to be exactly who God created them to be.
2. Affirm – Since every kid is unique, find something specific to affirm about each one as often as possible. When Katie Edwards came to train our volunteers a few weeks ago, she was armed with a great resource book called Make Their Day. I’m excited to use some of these ideas to make every kid hear just how special they are, to God and to me.
3. Enlist- Have them do something to contribute in a way that other students will value. It may be a quiet kid reading a Scripture passage, a kid with developing social skills being charged with distributing a treat, or allowing students with unusual talents to show them off. I still remember three years ago in the basement of a cabin at Fall Retreat when my group of 8th grade boys (the last group I journeyed with past 6th grade – I now do 6th grade every year) gathered around just such a kid, who regaled them with several illusions, including levitation and string that hovered and danced around.
4. Pair Up – So often the kid who is separate from the group only lacks a friend to connect with. My heart breaks when a kid walks past a group of kids his age and sits by himself. Yet it soars when I see another kid spontaneously reach outside his comfort zone to include someone who needs a friend. When this doesn’t happen on its own, I sometimes have to step in. This can be very informal or it can involve some effort outside of programming. One Saturday I arranged to have shy “Billy” meet me at “Kendall’s” basketball game (not their real names). We then introduced Billy to the wonderment of Five Guys Burgers & Fries for lunch. At times I feared Kendall would overwhelm Billy with his bubbly personality, but he did a great job finding out Billy’s interests and encouraging him to be more involved in youth group activities. I affirmed Kendall after we dropped Billy off – I told him that there were several guys I could have asked to do this, but I knew he would not “drop” Billy when his other friends are around.

I wasn’t bullied hard-core as a kid, but I know all too well the pain of not really fitting in. I rose above it and kind of transcended the groups by the time I finished high school, but in middle school I really struggled to belong. I wish I’d had a youth leader like us back then.

Andrew Burden has been in volunteer youth ministry for 18 years, the last 10 in suburban Kansas City. For the past 3 years he has specialized in welcoming new 6th graders to his middle school ministry.

You know the saying, “The squeaky wheel is the one that gets greased”? It seems that’s true in youth ministry. We give our attention to obvious needs. By the time we’ve dealt with one, another pops up. Sometimes needs that aren’t as obvious go unmet because we haven’t taken time to unearth them. In this guest post Sarah, a fellow youth ministry volunteer, shares a heart-warming story that helped her realize the need to not overlook the wheels that aren’t squeaking.

Are you a youth worker? I’d love to post some of your thoughts on this blog, too. Please click here to submit your wisdom by e-mail

Here’s her story:

One of my high school students, a senior, was baptized tonight as part of a High School Ministry service, entitled “Step by Step”. The message focused on the process of growing closer to God, and all the little steps we take along the way to allowing Christ to be center of our lives. I had tears in my eyes throughout the service as I thought about this young woman whom I am so blessed to disciple in our weekly Bible Study. I would describe her as one of the strongest members of the group. In fact, I was a bit surprised to hear that she had not yet been baptized!

The church played a short video of the girl giving a very brief testimony and explaining why she wanted to take baptism as the next step in her faith. I was floored to hear her say in this video that she had only truly committed herself Christ during her Junior year in high school. I had been her Bible study leader that entire year, and was consistently impressed by her willingness to learn, and by her profound and honest participation in all of our discussions. She was always mature, calm, and warm to her peers. She asked superb questions, and even offered advice to other girls who shared in the group. I had never inferred in any way that she was unsturdy in her faith. By all indications, she was a committed follower of Christ and devoted to discipleship at the time I met her. To hear tonight that she had joined our group seeking God (and had apparently found Him) was a complete and wonderful surprise.

Being a “young” youth ministry leader, I have very little experience. This small event has changed the way I will look at my students entirely. No matter how well we know each student, or how much they open up to us, the human soul is always a mystery to everyone but God. As a leader, I have to remember to take nothing for granted.

Each week may be the week that someone opens their eyes to Christ. Someone who looks solid by all human means of evaluation may actually be the one who is at a spiritual crossroads. This thought unnerved me… had I ever neglected her because I thought she had it together? Had I focused totally on the kids who were obviously hurting or struggling and forgotten about those who seemed happy? Could I potentially have been responsible for letting her slip through the proverbial cracks just because she wasn’t a mess?

Of course, God works throughout all of our efforts as servants to these kids, and this girl’s story seems like it’s heading in a wonderful direction. She activley serves in missions in the church and continues to grow into a beautiful young woman inside and out.

God’s lesson to me was this: You can’t always see what I’m doing under the surface… you must be consistent and faithful with each one that I send to you.

My job is to cheer on these girls as they take each little step towards becoming more like Christ. My new prayer is that God will help me never to forget to cheer as loudly as possible, no matter where they are on that path.

Haley Veturis is a 2-year intern with our high school ministry. She has taken a unique approach to bonding her girls together while raising the bar for them by giving them expectations to live up to. She’s had a great response. I asked her to share her idea with you. Here’s what she had to say:

Alpha Omega
AΩ
by Haley Veturis

As a fellow small group leader, one of the significant struggles we tend to face is finding a common ground within a group that will bring unity. Small group leaders know that God should be the main force to pull all groups together but students are reluctant and often too blinded by their differences and drama to see the obvious answer. In an attempt to unify my small group of sixteen girls ranging from juniors to senior girls, I have initiated them into the sisterhood of the Alpha Omega small group sorority.

With four new senior girls heading off to college next year and twelve junior girls soon to follow, I had to find a way to bring this group of girls from two rival high schools together. The idea came to me one night when I went to dinner with one of my close friends from college. She and I would never have met had I not joined a sorority. The friends that I made through my sorority in college are some of my best friends that I am still in contact with today. Nothing unifies a group better than the identity of sisterhood.

To make this idea fun for my group, I put together a “new member” packet on what was expected from the group. I basically took our ministry’s small groups covenant and added sorority wording to it. I also made a page that explained what they could expect from me as their sorority leader and listed all of my contact information available to them 24-7. At the end of the packet I added an *optional page for girls who wished to earn an Alpha Omega pin. The optional page included a few requirements that were expected from candidates who were attempting to be pinned. These girls were required to attend all small group meetings in our Refinery building, three weekend services for the month, one social (HSM event), and one philanthropy (service project).

Overall, I have had great responses from my small group girls regarding the idea of being a part of a sorority. The girls even decided on their own to have t-shirts made to wear at each small group meeting. Some of the strongest bonds that these girls have already made this year, have been in response to being a part of a sisterhood in Christ…and that’s what Alpha Omega is all about.

____

If you have some great community-building ideas, I’d love to post them on this blog. Please click here send an e-mail to me

If your church doesn’t currently have a youth ministry prayer team – make that your primary goal for the remainder of the year! Other youth ministry goals are great to have – i.e. increase in numbers, increase in volunteers, monthly service projects, an annual mission’s trip, etc. But prayer is paramount! A youth ministry’s success is directly proportional to the prayer lifted up for it. Every youth ministry needs a committed group of adults that will daily lift the youth ministry up in prayer. And the great thing is that right now there are many people in your church that would love to pray for the youth ministry. However, a lot of times they just don’t know what to pray for. But if we provide them with some guidance they will pray with fervor and passion for the youth ministry at your church!

This is also a great way to get more adults involved in your ministry that may not want to do hands-on type ministry. I guarantee that there are plenty of people in your church that will never voluntarily enter a room full of Junior High students, but would love the opportunity to pray for them. A prayer team is also a great way to reach out to homebound congregation members in your church. How special would it be for you to stop by someone’s home and express your desire for them to pray for the youth ministry at the church? A youth ministry prayer team has the potential to go beyond the walls of the youth room – it will also bless those who pray for it!

This prayer guide template is exactly that – a template – so feel free to change it around in the way that best meets the needs of your youth ministry and youth ministry prayer team. Each day the prayer team will be given guidance on how to pray for the various youth programs, the youth, their peers, the adult volunteers, and general ministry needs. The prayer team will also be guided on how to pray for any upcoming special needs. You may want to send out updated prayer guides every month or quarter so you can provide your prayer team with updated special needs. Or if you’re very organized you can include special needs for the entire year and just make one available. Also, on the back of the prayer guide template is a personal prayer guide based off of Dick Eastman’s The Hour that Changes the World. This is intended to enhance the prayer life of your prayer team members.

This prayer guide is intended to be double-sided on one sheet of paper that can fold and easily fit in a Bible or be stuck to a refrigerator. Included is a PDF document for you to view, it also includes a sample prayer guide. Also included is a WORD document that is completely editable. You are more than welcome to change this around as much as you need to. If you want to keep it simple and produce it as is – simply replace the highlighted parts with the appropriate entries and you’re ready to print.

There are people in your church that will labor in prayer for the youth ministry – they just need some help knowing what to pray for. Recruit them, give them the guidance through a prayer guide, and watch what God will do through the prayers of His saints!

By Matt Baxter
Contact Matt
Visit Matt’s Scribd page where he has posted many more free resources
Matt is a youth minister at New Town United Methodist Church in Williamsburg, VA. He’s been involved in youth ministry for 7 years. He’s married for 4 years and is obsessed with The Office and the Chicago Bears.