Teen Bible Lessons

I have never found a Sunday School curriculum that I like so I make my own Teen Bible Lessons each week. Far from the “bubblegum” Sunday School lessons frequently found at your local bookstore, these Teen Bible Lessons  handle serious doctrinal issues and often asked questions  in a way that kids can understand.

These Christian Teen Bible lessons are tailored to the Middle School age youth group but can be adapted and taught many ways (see my suggestions). Each has been taught and refined several times. Many include activities or games that help drive home the lesson. All include a leaders guide. The list is in no particular order.

While the Sunday School Lessons for teenagers are free to use, please respect my copyrights by leaving the credit statement on the sheet when you make copies for your class. I’d love to get your feedback (e-mail).

If supplies are needed for the lessons I have provided links to sources for those supplies for your convenience. I hope these lessons enhance your youth ministry experience.

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Youth Ministry: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Get it Right

By David Olshine / Abingdon Press

Reaching young people is still possible.

The Youth Ministry “movement” has become a monument. Youth leaders are doing so much work, and it all seems worthy. It’s big, important stuff. But leaders across the nation quietly suspect that the more we do, the less effective we seem to be in reaching young people. All those retreats and camps, books and seminars, conferences and leadership symposiums – what difference do they make in young lives today?

As technology accelerates, spiritual apathy increases. Young people are biblically illiterate, bored, and find the church to be irrelevant. Parents are frustrated. Youth leaders are burned out. And high school and college students – if they ever attended – are leaving the church by the droves.

What on earth has gone wrong?

Youth Ministry shines a revealing light on standard youth ministry practices, and helps the reader to see what needs to change. The book is full of practical ideas that work in real churches, and includes ‘voices from the trenches’ – perspectives from current youth ministry leaders.

Deep down inside, young people want life to matter. The church has something important to offer, but we have to start getting it right.

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Help and encouragement for Christian Youth Ministry Leaders

Did you know that over 70% of youth groups are under 15 kids? Even though your youth group is small you have been given an important ministry by being a mentor to these kids. What a legacy you, as a Sunday school teacher, will have as the years go by and the kids you’ve loved grow into adults. The youth ministry you do will touch hundreds of lives and families even if your Sunday school class has only a few attendees right now.

Be consistent, continue to grow spiritually yourself, and build a team that can keep going even if you move on. Grow your library of resources and connect with other youth ministry leaders.

Be balanced in your approach. You might have great evangelistic gifts but your kids might have other spiritual gifts. Discover what their gifts are and help them develop those gifts. Expose them to all of the fundamentals of Christian service but give them opportunities to serve in a way that energizes them.

“Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30—both evangelical and mainline—who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23, according to the survey by LifeWay Research.” (USA Today)

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The Me I Want to Be, Teen Edition
By John Ortberg & Scott Rubin

Every aspect of a teen’s life is growing and changing: their bodies, their minds, and their faith. But helping a teen really grow spiritually and understand how to live into the life that God desires for them can be a challenge.

The Me I Want to Be Teen Edition will help tends discover what it can look like when they’re fully alive. By examining their relationships, how they spend their time, their unique experiences, and their overall world, teens will find help and encouragement in the journey to uncovering God’s perfect plan!

There is also a DVD companion piece with leader guide. This really makes a lasting positive impression.

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Christian kids get picked on at school because they don’t participate
in the wrong activities the other kids do. They are not alone:

1Peter 4:4 “They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same
flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.”

Anti-Bullying Resources

Teen Sunday School lessons: Bullies of the Bible and Dealing With Bullies

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Building a Youth Ministry that Builds Disciples: A Small Book About a Big Idea

By Duffy Robbins / Zondervan/Youth Specialties

A concise-but-powerful blueprint for a youth ministry that fans the flames of lasting faith! Taking the focus off just fun and games, veteran youth worker Robbins casts a far-reaching vision, challenging leaders to think beyond what teens are doing now and pursue the ultimate ministry goal—a lifelong love of Christ.

More information about How To Help Parents Disciple Their Kids.

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Sunday School is still the perfect time to have a middle school age Bible class:

Why:

There’s no need to crack open a time in their busy schedule during the week for a youth group meeting. They are already here.

You have a willing audience -just look at the kids faces as they sit thru another sermon aimed at adults. They would rather be anywhere else. You can actually effect their church attendance when they are adults.

The “worship” time is a solid family experience that kids enjoy. You won’t need to duplicate that. Kids will actually be more willing to participate in other aspects of the church service like baptisms and communion. All you need to do is teach a Bible based lesson using one of my Teen Bible Lessons or use one of the other fine lesson resources listed here.

The church will grow: Kids are natural evangelists. Word will spread that their church experience is great. Kids will want to attend. Parents with kids this age will be thrilled. More families will come -guaranteed.

You don’t need to be an amazing, energetic youth leader to make an amazing difference in the lives of the kids and families.

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Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers

By Chap Clark / Baker Academic

Contemporary adolescents seem confident, well-adjusted, and happy. But beneath the surface, they’re often lonely, insecure, and empty. What’s going on? Claiming that adults have “abandoned” teens just when they most need support, Clark’s ethnographic study examines today’s changing youth culture from the inside out and suggests five strategies to “turn the tide of systemic abandonment.”

Hurt 2.0 features a new chapter on youth at society’s margins and new material on social networking and gaming. Each chapter has been thoroughly revised with new research, statistics, quotations, and documentation.

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Shiny Penny Kids:

The kids in my previous Sunday school class are all great kids: Good grades, well behaved, two parent households, attend church regularly, lots of after school activities. So what’s wrong with that? For one thing, they are actually harder to reach than the so-called fringe kids.

They take in the Biblical knowledge I teach them but it’s hard to tell if their hearts are being touched. I was a bit miffed about what to do until I read Chap Clark’s book shown above. I also took a class from him at this years Simply Youth Ministry Conference.

Now I know that even these “shiny-penny” kids feel abandoned and alone at times. The shiny pennies are just really good at covering up the hurt and conforming to adults expectations but they still hurt. After much thought and reviewing my own middle school experience I see that this loneliness can actually be used as an …read the rest on my youth ministry blog.

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The Quick-Reference Guide to Counseling Teenagers

By Dr. Tim Clinton & Chap Clark / Baker Books

In today’s tough culture, teens–and those who counsel them–need all the help they can get! In this timely A-to-Z guide, Dr’s. Clinton and Clark provide professionals, youth workers, and lay-helpers with biblical insights and recommended action-steps for 40 common counseling situations. Find symptom lists, questions to ask, conversation and prayer-starters, recommended resources, and more.

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Middle School Sunday School Teachers

This website is designed for the Christian Sunday school teacher, youth ministry leaders, and youth ministry group pastors. I have posted many of my unique Sunday School Lesson Plans for you to download free Each lesson plan is surrounded by the resources used to create the Sunday school lesson and lead the class.

I update with new posts, FREE Sunday School lessons, and youth group resources often so keep coming back.

Yes, this may be just a home-built website, not as flashy as those professional ones, but it’s loaded with great stuff -one of the best collections of resources for junior high and high school youth ministry on the web.

I respond to your e-mails. So if there is something you need, a correction I need to make, or something you’d like to contribute, please let me know.

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The Adolescent Journey: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Practical Youth Ministry

Adolescence is a time of individuation–children are slowly finding their identity as adults, separate from their parents and other adult influences. Such a critical time of psychological development is complicated by cultural influences that shape their expectations of adulthood and color how they relate to other people and even God.

The task of the youth pastor becomes to help adolescents navigate this often treacherous journey, helping young people reconcile their experience of childhood to the reality of their impending adulthood, and rooting and establishing them in a faith that can sustain them through their adult journey as well.

In the The Adolescent Journey: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Practical Youth Ministry Amy Jacober draws on the insights of sociology and psychology and reveals youth ministry to be an act of practical theology, and helps youth pastors find their footing as they guide young people through adolescence.

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Don’t underestimate the value of older folks and parents in youth ministry:

The common thought that youth leaders or youth pastors must be youthful is causing Christian churches to overlook or shuffle aside a large group of qualified volunteers for youth ministry. While it is true that it takes a youthful body to keep up with kids on outdoor trips and some physical activities is is not true that older folk have nothing at all to contribute to the discipleship of young Christian kids.

A lot of pastors argue that kids will be drawn too or have closer relationships to younger adults because they have more in common is also not true. Many kids are suffering the loss of a parent through divorce. These kids yearn for a… READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE ON MY BLOG / Parents in youth ministry.

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Teen Bible Lessons website encourages the volunteer Sunday school teachers with sure-fire tips, youth ministry resources and FREE Sunday school lessons. These discussion type youth group lesson plans are easy to follow with minimum preparation. Professional youth pastors will benefit from the experience and resources listed here. Over thirty free teen Sunday school lesson plans for teens to just print and go.

Because attendance at a teen Sunday school or youth group can be sketchy keep several lessons in your bag and pull out the one most applicable to the kids attending youth group that day. Read my blog post about teaching multi-part Teen Bible Lessons.

Thank you for visiting Teen Bible Lessons. Leave comments below.