I though i would post them here and if anyone out there has ideas i would love the input.
1. What would ideal praise and worship time look like geared specifically for middle schoolers?
- Do you remember what it was like being a middles schooler? What do they need when it comes to praise and worship. Should it look high schooler ministry P&W/ children's ministry P&W or a blend of both or something completely different?
2. Games (Riot Time) What would be the perfect game time.
- In our ministry, every youth group night has a 10 - 15 minute game time. How do we reach perfection or close. Middles schoolers love to have fun and fun can be meaningful, but what does that look like. How do you involve all the students or is it impossible.
3. Small Groups. What does small group time look like in middle school ministry.
- Our ministry does small groups twice a week for 2 hours each time. So our small group leaders get to be with their students for 90 minutes twice a month. How do we use that time most effectively?
3 comments:
Trav, I wish we could sit at a coffee shop and talk about this stuff but we can't, so here are my thoughts:
1) My middle-schoolers love to move and dance when they sing. They love songs with motions and up-beat music. I would locate a worship leader who is gifted getting kids up, moving and excited. (Even the 6th graders in our program still enjoy "Go Fish", so something similar would be great.) I was at that huge, mega church in D.C. and there music for their middle school program STUNK. It was their biggest weakness. It wasn't at all age appropriate (geared toward teens) and the kids weren't into it at all.
2) In my opinion, game time should refect the lesson in some way. For example, if my lesson is on wisdom, I have planned a scavenger hunt to illustrate how Proverbs 2 says we must seach for wisdom like hidden treasure. When I teach about the disciples, I make the kids get in a make-shift "boat" and fish for something (we used balloons on the ground). Sometimes the best games, are games you make up or adapt as you prepare you lesson. When I teach on the Exodus, I make the kids come dressed as one of the 10 plagues. ;-) Lesson-geared snacks are also a lot of fun. Some of our kids come just for the candy and cool snacks.
3) My observation has been that middle-schoolers learn more when they have to look things up themselves, as opposed to us simply telling them that it's in the Bible or reading it TO them. Small groups should entail allowing them to look things up and learn to use the Bible. Small group leaders should be more discussion facilitators than teachers, especially if you have already taught the lesson to the whole group.
Fun idea: Every once in a while in our small groups, we give the kids a text and give them a time limit to come up with a "skit" that they then perform to the whole group. Our students love this and they get to use their gifts and abilities and creativity! The more involved they are in a lesson, the more they learn it.
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