Great Blog Post About Youth Ministry

There is so much good conversation going on right now about the future of youth ministry. I am so excited about where it seems youth ministry is going. Here is one conversation about this topic that was a huge encouragement to me.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/02/20/give-up-the-gimmicks-youth-pastors/

CIY BELIEVE RETREAT 2012

We got back last weekend from our middle school winter retreat. This year we again went and joined "Christ in Youth" for their believe retreat. This is the 2nd year in a row we have gone to this, and it reconfirmed in my mind that this is the only winter retreat that i want our students to be apart of. This conference is both fun and theologically sound. It's high energy and deep. The ability they have to pull both of these things off is what makes CIY stand apart from any other middle school retreat i have ever been apart of. We are definitely going again next February.

Three things i learned from this conference about how to target middle school students-
1. Understand attention spans- Our students sat through 5 sessions and each session was an hour to an hour and a half long and i never heard our 34 students complain once about being bored or struggling to stay awake. The sessions used their time so well to keep the kids engaged, using music, videos, two different speakers, a comedy group, and every element focused around the same theme to point the students towards the main point.




2. Teach deep truths in a simple way- The theme of this years retreat was the importance and significance of the Word of God. Our students learned about inerrancy, reliability, and inspiration but they learned it using their vocabulary. So, my students learned that the bible is perfect, true and it is God's words. This reminded me that I can teach my students deep truths, but i need to just work hard at helping them understand theological terms.

3. Foster communication and relationships- Some camps i have been to put all the focus on the main speaker or the band or camp counselors as if they are the super stars who are a little better and more important than the youth leaders they came with. So, the students desire is to get to know and talk to them about what they learned at the retreat. CIY did an amazing job at making my volunteer youth leaders look good. Over and over again they told the students to talk with their leaders about what they are learning and even set aside time to make that happen. They really set my ministry up for success after the retreat was over. Thank you CIY.