How to Make Your Youth Group Grow
Every youth leader wants their youth group, Sunday school class, and youth ministry to grow. Your regular attendees can be your best salesmen. If they feel that their youth group is of great value they will bring their friends to see. Your job is to make their friends feel at home.
The 9: Best Practices for Youth Ministry
We’ve never met a youth worker who wanted to be ineffective. Why would anybody enter the turbulent world of youth ministry unless they wanted to make a difference! But where to start, what to do, and how do you know if your efforts really are effective?
In The 9: Best Practices for Youth Ministry, Kurt Johnston and Tim Levert unwrap nine characteristics of effective youth ministry. They specifically tackle this vital question: “What can churches and youth groups do to keep students from walking away from church after high school?”
Discussion groups are more likely to grow and least likely to decline.
A poll by Josh Hunt reinforces my belief that Sunday school, or children’s church, based on discussion type lessons like mine are far more interesting to teens than a sermon or lecture done poorly. Josh finds:
“If your class is not growing, we have an easy solution: jump to the discussion method. It is the single most likely group to be growing AND the single least likely group to be declining. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by going to the discussion method.” Read the entire article.
Subscribe to Josh’s Lesson Vault. Use coupon code 4478 for a 10% discount. Here is a free 170 page e-book from Josh Hunt in .pdf format. Download here.
Do They Run When They See You Coming?: Reaching Out to Unchurched Teenagers
By Jonathan McKee / Zondervan/Youth Specialties
This book educates youth workers and student leaders about the unchurched student, teens that aren’t making it to church for some reason or another. This book gets in the mind of the unchurched student and examines what they think of God, of the church, and of Christians. It goes further to explore the needs of these individuals and the ministry methods that they actually respond to. This book doesn’t just give information about this group that isn’t making it inside the church walls, it provides tangible guidelines and attainable methods to reach them.
Make Your Youth Group Grow by
Helping kids feel at home:
Upon arriving, every kid is celebrated into the youth room. That means that the leaders usually shouted out their names and added a big cheer. Within the first few minutes each teen is included into a conversation and presented with a snack or a warm drink (on a cold day). 
One of the best things we did was to let the kids write on the wall. We painted it bright yellow then supplied lots of colored markers. Everyone signed their name. The wall became known as the guest book. When a new person came they were warmly greeted then asked if they’d sign our guest book. They were delighted when they found out the book was actually the wall. A regular attendee would proudly walk them over, get the makers. The newcomer was immediately involved.
Get Your Teenager Talking: Everything You Need to Spark Meaningful Conversations
By Jonathan McKee / Bethany House
When you ask questions, it shows you care. Jesus constantly noticed people and asked them questions. Try following his example with your teenagers with a few well-placed questions, and perhaps you can start getting more than a one-word answer. In Get Your Teenager Talking, author Jonathan McKee, an expert on youth culture, shares 180 springboard questions to get teens talking to you about what they care about.
Here are some Youth Ministry/Sunday School Ideas especially for Junior High age kids that will make your youth group grow.
Middle School Sunday School is fun and rewarding.
Treat them with respect
Kids (especially teens) are some of God’s greatest creations. Why do people always roll their eyes and think I’m nuts when I say that? Kids are dying for grownups to treat them with respect, take them seriously, and care about them. If you do that for them they will do that for you.
Of course, it also helps if you genuinely like kids. They can tell. “Kids will be what they think you think they are.” The kids were an important part in helping me cope with the loss of my own daughter. I did not hide that from them and they were pleased to be helpful in that way. To learn more about that read my article, “Buckets of Love“.
Time & Place
In addition, my junior high Sunday school class was held during the church service, right after the worship time, so they got out of having to sit through sermons that were way over their heads.
I do not do a mid-week “Youth Group” because:
- the kids schedules are already packed.
- Parents were hard pressed to deliver them and pick them up.
- Everyone was exhausted from their day.
- I didn’t have the energy either.
We continued the Sunday school class year-round instead of breaking for the summer. We experienced a huge jump in attendance over the summer, and enjoyed an extraordinary spirit-filled time.
Snacks
I also feed them great snacks. Word got out about this. Kids invited their disbelieving friends to see for themselves. They told their parents they wanted to come again. The parents told me they were delighted that their kids actually wanted to come to church. These families became regular attendees.
Anyway, if you other youth leaders are wandering around the internet you must be looking for something: encouragement, youth ministry ideas, Sunday school lesson ideas. Feel free to poke around my stuff, download what you might be able to use.
See-Through Life 4 week DVD study
By Craig Gross / Group Publishing
Today’s teenagers face so many temptations, so many opportunities, so many possible ways to follow the road to future success down the road – and just as many possible ways to derail those plans by messing up.
But author and speaker Craig Gross knows that youth ministries can make a difference in leading young people toward a lifestyle of accountability. And that’s a piece of amazingly good news – teenagers don’t have to figure this out on their own. They have parents and other adults who want to help them. They also have one another – fellow Christians who are trying to make sense of the teenage
Writing lessons to answer the kids questions:
I got a lot of ideas from other website’s myself but I never found a curriculum or a Sunday School lesson that was just what I wanted so I always wrote my own. The kids seemed to like them. After awhile they would prefer to skip my lame games, just sit down and get into the lesson. Sweet.
The links and products featured on the site are all things I use in the Christian youth ministry. Buying these items thru the links provides our ministry with a small commission and offers you the lowest price and a safe source to get it from.
Churches around the globe are experiencing a sharp lack of volunteer Sunday School teachers. It does require a high degree of commitment and can also be a little scary for a new volunteer to contemplate being in charge of a group of Junior High age kids for more than an hour. My greatest fear in the beginning was, “What if my brain freezes up in the middle of a lesson, I lose my train of thought?” So every Sunday I came in with a Sunday School lesson plan guaranteed to keep me on track. Click here to discover how these lesson plans can help you too.
Connect: Real Relationships in a World of Isolation
By Jonathan McKee / Zondervan/Youth Specialties
In an age where teenagers are deeply engaged in in virtual communities and social networks, they still feel alone and isolated. It may all sound too simple, but the truth is that you have the opportunity to make a profound impact on the lives of students with the simple act of spending time with them, one-on-one. Whether you’re a volunteer or the lead youth pastor, getting some students to open up and share their lives can be a challenge. In this practical book you’ll learn the importance of connecting with students on an individual basis and get helpful ideas on how to engage a variety of students in meaningful dialogue. You’ll explore and learn more about connecting with six specific types of youth.
Smart Phones In Sunday School Class
Stop yourself from snapping to the default of, “No Cell Phones Allowed.” A cell phone free environment can be upsetting to teens who are locked on to the screen. Do not be intimidated by kids looking at their smart phones during class. They are listening to you at the same time they are looking at their phones. My attenders were actually comparing our Bible lesson via text with their friends who attended other churches. I was secretly pleased to note that my class was the more popular (but don’t spread that around).
Use their phones to enhance the class:
Have them look of things on the Internet that pertain to the topic. Have them look up words like diadem and ephod. Send them to Bible Gateway.com to look up Bible verses. Have them do a search about different Bible translations.
Remember, you want your Sunday School Class or Youth Group to be a comfortable safe place for them as unlike school as possible. Have them post pictures of your group on their social pages. They can check on kids that aren’t there, maybe even find a video that illustrates the lesson.
52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid
How to Engage with Kids Who Can’t Seem to Pry Their Eyes from Their Devices! Jonathan McKee Auther
The help you need to have meaningful interaction with your kids instead of always overreacting to their unhealthy consumption of technology and media. In a world where over 80 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds now own a smartphone, parents are searching for ways to pry their kids’ eyes from their devices and engage them in real, face-to-face conversation. Mckee—drawing from his 20-plus years of experience working with teenagers, studying youth culture, and raising three teens of his own—provides an abundant supply of useful tips and creative ideas to help you bond with the Smartphone Generation.
