Youth Mail

QT's

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:11:00 +0000

A while ago I think there was a post about writing QT's for your youth group.

It would be worth tracking that down come to think of it.

However, I stumbled across another QT option.

I went to my local Christian bookshop and discovered that they have old stock of QT books for teenagers. They usually have trouble selling the back issues because they are dated (the daily entries are for the 14 of September, for example). Once that year is finished they are a bit hard to sell.

My bookshop said that they will give these back issues to me for free! So QT's for our youth group are sorted for a term!

Why not ask your local Christian bookshop?

Scott

Welcome!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:39:00 +0000

We had an evangelstic youth group meeting on the weekend.

And I was faced with how to do a welcome that was interactive and fun, without making the new kids feel like they were exposed or singled out. Here's what we came up with, it worked out well.

You read out a list of statements, if it's true for the kids, they stand up.

Everyone can see what people got up to in the past week without anyone feeling awkward.

You can also throw in a follow up question (examples to come!)

Stand up if you . . .

slept in till past 10am on Saturday

got a detention this week (follow up qu for those standing: What for?!)

saw a move in the last week (follow up qu for those standing: What did you see?)

got a new item of clothing in the past week (follow up qu for those standing: are you wearing it now?)

etc

Simple, quick, get's the kids invovled and doubles up as some 'catch-up' time too!

Scott

Boring announcements?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:58:00 +0000

One of the facts of life is that we need to get info to the kids in our youth group.

If you have announcements or a news slot each week, it can sometimes get a bit tricky thinking up ways to keep it fresh.

So how about this . . .

Get a message that everyone needs to hear (it could be about a camp coming up, when you are having your small groups, a social, whatever)

Go to google translator and get it translated into 3 or 4 different languages. Print these out on slips of paper.

When you get up to make the announcement, say that today you need some help to get this message across. Get some kids up to read out the message in the different languages.

After this is done, ask the group if they can guess what the message actually means (you can have a bit of fun with that.)

To finish, you read out the English version and conclude with something like . . .

"So you see "x" is going to be awesome, no matter where you come from or how you say it!"

TIP:

If you have people who speak other languages in your group, perhaps you could prep them before hand to make the announcement in their language (especially if it is not well known to others)

Thanks to Paul for this idea

Welcome!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:54:00 +0000

Here's a welcome idea that worked well for us on Sunday . . .

Write a short little poem or a few lines of some song lyrics that welcome people to your group.

They can be funny, or a bit more deep. The idea is that you have 3-5 lines of 'welcome words'.

Then divide the kids into groups and give them each a copy of the words and tell them that they have to come up with a song style in which to perform these words.

(We had one group do a 'crooning' rendition and other do a rap etc)

Then each group, gets up and 'performs' their welcome. It's a heap of fun, and everyone gets a chance to be invovled in the welcome.

Thanks to Julie Atmore for this idea.

Back to School

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:08:00 +0000

Our kids spend most of their time at school, so why not tap into that?

You can run a short segment in your program which 'checks in' on how they are going at school as Christians, the challenges they face, the victories they win, the questions that trouble them.

You may be surprised at what good stuff the kids are getting up to for Jesus, or you may discover areas that need attention. It encourages them to take their faith into the week and it's awesome for them to hear of their peers who are standing up for Jesus.

Here's a few ideas . . . .

Kids often have to give orals in english class. Some of our teenagers have chosen to speak on something christian, or even give their testimonies! Ask your kids if they have such opportunites, work with them on it, let them give it a test run infront of others at youth, get them up after the fact to tell everyone how it went.

Why not split for prayer at your next meeting and use it to pray for school CU groups? You can get the kids to share a bit about what they do at their group, and then pray for the various schools represented.

You could run a sharing time when kids tell of a highlight or a lowlight for them in the last week as Christians at school. Spend some time praying about these things.

There are lots more ways to make school an opportunity for the gospel and a mission field for your kids. If you have any ideas that worked - send them here! (scott@stjames.org.za)

A fresh Start

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:01:00 +0000

It's time for a fresh start!

Youth Mail has become a bit dusty sitting on the shelf, so with term 3 here, it's time to dust it off and go for it!

I'm hoping that some of the friends I made at this years Cape Town Mid Year Conference might come and visit and add their 2 cents.

Remember how it works?

If you have a good idea for something at your youth group - a game, a mixer, a camp idea, something that helps prayer to work etc, email it to me:

scott@stjames.org.za

Then I can pop it on the blog and you're famous.

Don't forget to sign up on the right hand sode of the page either, that way each new post will magically appear in your inbox.

I'm waiting your mail!

Scott

Christmas MV

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:31:00 +0000

Here's another Chrissy idea . . .

Why not try a memory verse?

Why not flip to Matthew 1:21?

"She will give birth to a son and you will give him the name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."

We did this one last week with actions and it went down a treat.
Here is our action MV of Matt 1:21

"She will give birth" . . .
(Give a short sharp scream. Yeah, I know, but it was the most ungross way of putting an action to 'birth' that we could think of!)

"to a son" . . .
(cradle an imaginary baby in your arms)

"And you" . . .
(point out towards the kids)

"will give" . . .
(extend 2 hands out as if you were giving something)

"Him the name Jesus" . . .
(as you say 'Jesus', point up with your 2 pointy fingers)

"For he will save his people" . . .
(on the word 'save' extend your arms re: dying on the cross)

"from there sins."
(On the word sins, put both hands over your heart)

"Matthew 1:21"
(Find a guy int he room called Matthew and point to him, 1 finger for 'Ch 1', then flash 21 fingers for "21")

Simply, easy, effective.

Thanks to Kirsty, Zoe and Julia.

Christmas is here!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:28:00 +0000

Guess what?

Christmas is coming!

Because most youth groups break at the end of school term, we usually miss out on doing any Christmas teaching. I’m so over that, so why not get Christmas in early this year?

Here is a new spin on the nativity play that is heaps of fun, get everyone involved and will get your kids thinking about the real Christmas story.

The idea:
Have some leaders act out the Christmas story, but they do it full of mistakes. Some obvious, some more subtle. They present it as if they are doing their final rehearsal for a Christmas play. The ‘director’ reads out the scene and then the leaders act it out. At the end of each scene the kids get together and write down all the mistakes they spotted. If you have more than a few kids, break them up into groups or 4 and at the end of the 3 act play, the team who spotted the most inconsistencies win.

How it works:
You can pick a leader to be the ‘director’ and he calls his ‘actors’ (other leaders) up the front to act out each scene. At the beginning of the scene, the director reads out what will happen. This ‘script’ (see below) is full of mistakes that the kids have to spot. The leaders willing act out this messed up version, assuming it is correct.

At the end of each round the kids have 2 min to review it and come up with as many of the mistakes as they can. At the end of all 3 scenes, the director reveals where all the mistakes where and the team who spotted the most, wins.

Here is a 3 scene version of the Christmas story – complete with plenty of mistakes!

Scene 1
Here is the Christmas story as recorded in all four gospels.
The angel Michael appears to Mary telling her she will have a baby. Joseph discovers she is pregnant and he keeps it a secret. At this time, Caesar Claudius told everyone to go to their home town for a census. Mary and Joseph rode a donkey to Bethlehem.

Mistakes:
Christmas story only in Luke and Matthew
Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary
Joseph decides to divorce her quietly
It was Caesar Augustus
We don’t know how they got to Bethlehem.

Scene 2
Once they reach Bethlehem, the inn keeper tells Mary and Joseph there is no room at the inn. So they go to sleep in the stable. Angels appear to the shepherds in the fields and sing ‘Holy Night’. Once the shepherds heard the news they went straight to tell Herod and then traveled to find Jesus. Jesus is born in a stable. The shepherds then tell Joseph that Jesus will save his people from their sins.

Mistakes:
The inn keeper never says that to Mary or Joseph
The angles sung Glory to God in the highest
The shepherds never went to tell Herod
An angel told Joseph that Jesus would save his people from their sins

Scene 3
Later that night, the 3 wise men come to find Jesus in the stables. They give him gifts and worship him. King Herod gave the order to kill all the babies born at that time in an attempt to eliminate Jesus. So Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Rome. Then the wise men and the shepherds sing carols all night long.

Mistakes:
We don’t know how many wise men there were.
The wise men arrived about a year later and met Jesus in a house.
Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Egypt
The wise men and shepherd never met, and never sung carols together.

When we tried this, we had a lot of fun letting the leaders ad lib these scenes. So we made sure we read the outline of events out at the end of each scene too, so that if the kids lost the plot by laughing so much, they would still be able to remember what needed correcting.

Thanks to Corne for this idea.

Tough Questions Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:07:00 +0000

Here is the 3rd and final installment for hot tips on how to answer those classic tough questions.

Look for the question behind the question
Most of us are not impartial seekers of knowledge, but come to an issue from an angle. It’s a great head start if you are the one giving the answer to have some idea about where the question is coming from. For example:

Are they scared or confused? Answer it with assurance

Are they struggling with certainty? Answer it with hope and encouragement

Are they curious? Answer it by stretching their thinking

Are trying to justify a bad behaviour? Answer it with a rebuke

Are they asking so they can respond to their friends? Answer it aplologetically (with a gospel defense)

Are they asking for about a specific situation? Answer it with an application

It is also worth noting that the question they ask may be the doorway into the real issue behind the scenes.

EG: 'Why does God let bad things happen?' , could be on the back on their parents recent divorce.
'But how could God send people to hell if he loves them?' might be coming from someone whose best friend is not a Christian.

Get the picture?

Scott

Tough Questions . . .cont.

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:24:00 +0000

This is part 2 of last weeks post about some guidelines for helping us to answer hard questions that the kids ask.

What about Jesus?
In answering any kind of question about Christian things it is essential that you pause to reflect on how the death of Jesus will influence the answer. After all, He is the author and perfected of our faith and therefore he must impact every corner of our lives.

This will become particularly important when answering questions from the Old Testament so that you don’t confuse the application from 3000 year old Israelite to a 16 year old Christian living in the 21st century. It will also be helpful in answering questions where there is some ‘grey areas’.

While there might not be an explicit command in scripture to fit the question, we will need wisdom to decide how best to honour Jesus in that situation. When it comes to application, Jesus always matters, his death always counts.

It’s a matter of the heart
People are not like computers – it’s not just a matter of punching in the right answer to produce the desired behavior. Even if you have the most water tight-theologically correct answer, it may just bounce off them like bullets off superman.

Why?

Because understanding God’s word is a matter of the heart. Our hearts have a default setting against God. Even after we become Christians we still battle against the old self and its sinful nature. The business of answering people’s questions is not one of simple information download, but happens in the context of transforming their thinking and softening their hearts to come more and more under the authority of Jesus.

Of course, changing hearts is God’s area of expertise, so that means we have to pray (before during and after we give the answer!) It also means we will have a better chance of the answer taking root if we know something about the teenager and can follow it up relationally and not just informationally.

The questions are easy, it's the answers that are hard!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:15:00 +0000

One thing you do a lot of in youth ministry is answer tough questions.

Over the next few weeks, Youth Mail will endeavour to give you some hot tips to help you feel more confident as you field some of these tricky questions. Feel free to email scott@stjames.org.za to add some other reflections from your own experience that you think might be helpful. (And if there is a particular question that you have to tackle and it is keeping you up nights, let us know! we'll kick it around and try to help!)

This week's 3 tips for answer tough questions.

1. It’s OK not to know
The worst thing in the world is to pretend you are an expert on something you know nothing about. Teenagers can spot a fake a mile away and although you mean well, it will undermine your credibility and their confidence to ask you questions next time round. It’s OK to say, ‘Actually that is a really tough one. I’m not sure right now, but let me check up on it and get back to you!’ Then go chat with your minister, start doing your research or drop us an email! Not only will you show your group they are important enough for you to go to all that trouble, but you might just learn something yourself too!

2. Teaching Time
Take the opportunity of answering questions to slip in some teaching as you go. You may be able to use a question on suffering to introduce and explain the word ‘sovereignty’ (the doctrine that God rules everything with total power and control) as part of your answer. Or maybe if you are fielding a question on ‘should Christians drink alcohol’, you could set it up to teach them about the principle of not demanding your rights for the sake of the weaker brother (Romans Ch 14). It is unlikely that you would devote a four week series to some of these things in your regular youth meetings, but you can cover them (with application!) in the careful answering of a question.

3. Silly questions may not be so silly
When you hear a question about dinosaurs and the book of Genesis, you may be tempted to groan and roll your eyes. And you would be right if you said that T-rex in the garden of Eden is not central to the gospel message. But while it’s not a big issue on the bible’s agenda, it is obviously a big issue for the kid asking the question. He wants to know if the bible is relevant to what he is learning at school, if the knowledge of God has any connection with worldly wisdom and if he can come to understand the bible for himself. That of course won’t give you any specific insight into the dinosaur debacle, but it will help you to appreciate that there is more at stake in that kind of question than just big scaly lizards.

More to come . . .

Sharing Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:35:00 +0000

Whether it is for a get to know you game, a spotlight or a welcome, sharing questions get used up pretty fast. Here are some new ones to keep your fridge full.

Can anyone send back some more?

What's your favorite room in your house? Why?

Most prized possession (can be non tangible e.g.: sense of humor)

Favorite part of going to see a movie (buying popcorn, picking seats, watching ads, previews, reading credits etc)

How do you answer your phone?

Favorite childhood toy?

In what order do you dry yourself after having a bath or shower?

What would you order at a Chinese restaurant?

If you could bottle a smell what would it be?

Is there anything you’ve ever seen on an infomercial that you were tempted to buy?

If you could get a special team of doctors to replace part of your body with a bionic replica, which bit would you replace and why?

What would be the greatest “double bill”. I.e. 2 singers or bands together in one concert?

How do you like your potatoes cooked (potato chips, fries, hash browns etc.)

How do you like your corn? (on the cob, creamed, popped etc. )

What were you doing at 5:30pm yesterday?

What is the dumbest thing you have ever spent money on?

What is the best gift you’ve ever given?

Make the weirdest noise you can.

What is your favourite reptile?

What is your least favourite chore (job) at home?

Mixing it up

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:23:00 +0000

On camp last weekend I discovered a great mixer / crowd breaker.
It goes something like this.

Get all the kids to stand in the middle of the room.
Explain that you are going to play a game that will get them to meet each other and have a lot of fun.

The game works as follows:
The leader calls a number and the kids have to quickly organise themselves into groups of that many people. You form a group by getting your members into a huddle (ie: arms around each others shoulders, or simply grabbing hold of each others jerseys).

Once all the groups form, whoever is 'left over' sits up the front with the leader.

If there are any groups with too many people (eg: you called 4 and the group has 5) they must expel one member (usually the last one to join). If a group has too few people (you called 4 and they only have 3) the whole group is out.

Once you are satisfied that the round is completed, go ahead and call another number, and the game continues.

If you want to, you can add a rule that allows 'stealing' from another group.
In other words, if they have to get into groups of 6 and one of the groups is a member short, they can 'steal' someone from another group by pulling them into their own. This option can be a lot of fun, but then you may want to consider putting a time limit onto each round of say 10 seconds, so once the whistle goes at the end of each round, no more stealing is allowed.

It is a fast pace, noisy, crazy game that is great to animate a group that is a little flat.

If you want to add to the game to make it work harder for you, why not add a pause between each round and give the groups that have just formed a sharing question or get to know you question. Maybe you would like the groups (which will be different each round) to also share their names with each other. For those who are out of the game and sitting down the front with the leader - they can also do the sharing question amongst themselves so they don't miss out.

Thanks to Corne for this one.

Holiday QT's

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:58:00 +0000

In my part of the world, we have school holidays coming up at the end of the week.

Have you thought of sending your kids off into the break with some Quiet Time material?

If they are not meeting regularly with your youth group then it takes a pretty motivated kid to keep up his spiritual imput. So why not help them out?

You could write 5 QT's, photocopy them and hand them out at your last youth meeting of the term. Include a cover page that explains what a QT is, how to do one and some hot tips to be able to pull the whole thing off.

You might already be all over this - but if you want a nudge I've got a couple of things that could help.

1. The Quiet Time Holiday Pack that we gave out to our youth kids this week. If you want it, email me and it's yours.

2. A little 'users guide' on how to write a quiet time for your youth group. Just drop me a line, and I'll zap it your way.

And if you're reading this and have something similar to offer, let me know and we will post it!

Scott
scott@stjames.org.za

Grid Game extras

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:34:00 +0000

A few extra things.

When you put the points on the grid, why not include a few grid references with 0 points or someother kind of surprise?

EG:

-100 points
Take 100 points from the other team
Double whatever points you got in the last turn

You get the idea.

Oh, and thanks to Byron for coming up with this game!

The Grid

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:05:00 +0000

Here is a new angle for the classic quiz style games.

You will need:
A list of bible quiz questions.
A 'game board'.

The gameboard is the twist.
It needs to be set out like the grid from the game 'Battleship'

In other words, running along the top of the grid are letters (A, B, C, D etc)
Running down the side of the grid are numbers (1, 2, 3, 4 etc)
As a result your game grid has a piece of paper for each coordinate (eg: B2, C4 etc)

The paper has nothing on the 'outside' (showing the audience) but on the reverse side there is a number which represents the points. These should be mixed up randomly. (eg: 10, 40, 20, 60, etc)

The game works like this.

You need 2 teams.

On their turn, the team is asked a bible question. If they get it right, they get to nominate a coordinate on the grid (eg: A5). The game leader then turns over that piece of paper to reveal the amount of points they won by answering that question correctly. Once this has been recorded, it is the next teams turn. You can continue until all the pieces of paper have been revealed or until you reach a predetermined 'winners score'.

The beauty of this game is the surprise element.
Becuase they 'choose' their own points by nominating the gride reference, a hard question might only earn them 10 points whereas a dead easy question could earn them 50 points!

Tips:

Decide how big your grid will be - this will determine how many questions you need. (A 5x5 grid will require 25 questions)
Decide the 'spread' of the points. Will they be playing for 10, 20, 30 or 40? Whatever you decide, let the kids know what is avalible, otherwise they won't know if they got a good score or not!
Decide if the person who answers the question for the team is the same person who nominates the grid reference. (You could do it either way)
Maybe if it is the first time you are platying the game in your group - the leaders could do one question as an example.
For a twist, you could get the teams to nominate their points first and then answer the question.

Scott

Role Play

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:21:00 +0000

Have you ever tried your hand at some 'role playing' to help your group?

I'm no expert at this by a long shot, but let me give you a quick run down of what we tried on Sunday.

Next week we are having an evangelstic bring a friend meeting.

We wanted to make sure our kids felt comfortable inviting their friends.

So we split them up into 5 groups and stationed leaders around the room. Each set of leaders 'role played' a personality that they might encolunter when asking their friends to come to our youth group. Examples included: bored, disinterested / angry, mocking / too busy etc.

The kids spent 4 min with each set of leaders practicing their 'inviting skills' and how to use the invite we gave them. Two min were spent on the role play, 2 min on the debrief giving them tips on where they did well or badly. After the 4 min were up, we blew the whistle and they moved onto the next station.

We found it really helpful and eye opening.

We discovered the kids DO need coaching on how to have a simple 'let-me-invite-you-to-youth' conversation!
It gave them a 'dry run' before trying it out with their friends.
We could give them feedback and advice.
It was lots of fun and a break form the normal program

You can use this activity for lots of different purposes. Imagine doing role plays on 'How to love your enemies' or 'Showing Favourtism'.

If you have tried this before and want to add some thoughts - please leave a comment!

The Olympic Spirit

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:24:00 +0000

The Olympics are on (in case you missed it!)

I love the Olympics, but it has drawn the spotlight on China, particularly their oppression of various groups. Sadly, one of these groups are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

So, why not pray for China?

Apparently, with the Olympics in town, Chinese authorities have had a severe crackdown on house churches and pastors. Below are some links that might give you some info to work with . . .

http://www.persecution.net/china.htm

http://christiannewswire.com/news/4457300.html

http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/indepth/articles/olympic_crackdown/

Why not have a prayer time for the Chinese Christians at your youth group during the Olympics?

You could run your whole meeting around an Olympic theme, and maybe even use some of these passages for the bible teaching time:

2 Tim 4:6-8

Phil 3:10-14

1 Tim 4:7-8

Go for gold!

Freebie

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:04:00 +0000

This week's youth mail is all about grace.

It's a free gift.

There is a family at my church who have a volley ball net they would like to give away. But I already have one. But maybe you don't. So here's the thing . . .

Who wants a volleyball net?

For camps, socials . . . volleyball??!

First back to me at scott@stjames.org.za walks away with the net.

Scott

PS: probably for the local Cape Town readers, but if you want to organise transport . . .

Is your welcome very welcoming?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:51:00 +0000

From time to time, God gives us what we long for - a new kid turns up to youth group!

Sometimes we get so excited that we kind of forget that we need to DO something with this new kid if we want them to become a 'regular' kid. The usual rule of thumb is that if you just leave the newbie to their own devices after they pay you a visit, then they will do to you what you have done to them . . .leave.

Have you thought through how you welcome and seek to KEEP newcomers to your group?

Is your current system working? Why, why not?

I've decided to rethink the way I do it, and here are some of my musings (by no means complete - please leave a comment or email me to make it a better list)

On the day they arrive, do they get anything? A welcome pack for instance?
It could be real simple - a brown bag with a letter from you, a flyer for the next youth event, some sweets and an age appropriate tract - like 2 ways to live. Cheap, easy but when you walk away with some free for you - it leaves an impression, right?

Do they get a sms or facebook or email contact before the next meeting?
Something like, "Thanks for being with us last week - we're on the same place, same time this week - look forward to seeing you there!"

Do they get a personal contact?
Sms is fine, but it's not real relationship. Do they get a phone call or even a visit from you or another leader?

Could you give them a buddy?
What about getting a long standing Christian kid in your youth group to be their buddy for the 1st month. This kid could make sure they get a email etc and contact with another member of the group could be more powerful than a message from you. It's also a great way to get the kids serving in their own group.

Do you pray for them?
How about praying by name for the new people each week as leaders, and also at the appropriate small group or discussion group that they would fit into if they do come back?

Is their a school connection?
A kid in your youth group who goes to the same school as the visitor can touch base with them at school during the week.

A letter to the parents?
How about you have a standard letter to the parents of a new person. Week by week you can just add in their name up the top and send it home with them. It could express appreciation for letting their kid attend the group that day, let them know what usually happens at a meeting, and introduce yourself and the other leaders. I think it's fair to say that the more a parent knows about the place and people their kids are hanging out with, the happier they will feel to keep sending them along.

Is there anything you can add?

Scott

Another use for chocolate

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:51:00 +0000

Are you familiar with the chocolate game?

You sit in a circle, with a dice, block of chocolate, knife and fork and some dress up clothes.
You each take turns rolling the dice, if you roll a six, then you jump in the middle, put on the clothes, then start cutting the choc one square at a time. You can then eat what you have cut, one square at a time.

It's a classic, right?

But nothing particularly useful about it, apart from the fun.

I figured a simple way to make this old game work for you.

You set it up the same, the rules are the same,

HOWEVER,

Instead of putting on dress up clothes after you roll a six you could:

say the memory verse
recite the names of 5 other people in the group
answer a bible quiz question
give the details for the upcoming camp or social

You get the idea?

This way you can play the chocolate game and make it work for you at the same time!

I tried it on Friday, it worked a charm.

Scott

Sharing question for the new term

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:38:00 +0000

Here is a great sharing question to start term 3 with:

'If you could choose any partner to compete with in The Amazing Race, who would it be?"
(they can be dead or alive, famous or local)

It is a great question becuase it can be twisted to intro something on relationships, unity, friendship, life as a race or guidance (which is what we used it to introduce)

Some funny answers we had were 'my geogaphy teacher', 'my grandad (cause he is really old and knows lots of stuff), and 'Jesus'!

Thanks to steph for this one

Holidays cometh!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:12:00 +0000

What can you do for your group when holidays come rolling around?

Do you just cut them loose and hope they all come back next term?

Why not try some of these ideas?

Put together some quiet time material for the kids to do themselves over the break. You can write your own or photocopy it from existing booklets.

Kid's often get bored in their holidays (remember, they have no car, no money etc) so why not set one date during the holidays to get together with the kids. You can do a movie, a trip to Spur, whatever.

Why not sms, email or facebook them some prayer ideas while your youth group is on break?

If one of the kids in your group is playing sport, why not get the rest of the kids together to go watch the game and support them? It may not be the kind of thing you could swing in term time, but it might work in holidays!

If you have a set of solid Christian parents attached to your group, you could ask if they would host a holiday supper or even sleepover for the kids.

Most of these are pretty low maintenance but can make all the difference for the kids who have already played 300 hours of playstation.

Scott

Musical Bibles

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:39:00 +0000

OK, I'm breaking one of my rules. This is a game that is untested (I'm trying it this coming Sunday with my group). But it seems hard to screw up - so here it is.

You will need music, 3 bibles and little prizes.

Get the kids to sit in a circle. Give the three bibles to three kids in the circle (not right next to each other - spaced out. Not to spaced out kids though . . . you know what I mean).

At the start of each round announce the target verse. Eg: Mark 10:45. (You will need about 10 verses at least for the whole game - one verse per round)

Start the music and the kids have to pass the bibles around the circle just like in the party game 'pass the parcel'. When the music stops, the three kids with the bibles on their laps have to instantly scramble to look up the target verse for that round (eg: Mark 10:45). The first one to stand on their chair (or run into the centre of the circle) and read it out loud correctly, wins that round and receives a little prize (a sweet or something).

You can play as many rounds as you like.

It will work with a youth group of 10 kids as well as bigger groups (but if your group is 30 + you may want to run 2 separate circles at the same time.)

It could be a good game to get the kids familiar with their bibles and also gives you an opportunity to introduce some verses into the meeting that emphasises the topic that day (eg: love, discipleship, suffering etc) or to get familar with a book or section (eg: all the verses are from the Sermon on the Mt or the book of Colossians)

To spice it up, add more bibles for greater competition.

If you're brave, give it a shot and tell me how it goes. Can we make it better?
Can we find a better name for it?

Scott

Keeping it together

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:51:00 +0000

Youth Group Folders

Most of our youth groups have some 'small group' component. It might be discussion groups, buzz groups or even just splitting the kids into boys and girls. Why not conisder giving the kids folders to keep their bible study sheets or worksheets together in one place..Here's how it might help.

1. It sends out the message that the time spent in these groups is valuable and worth recording and keeping.

2. It will eventually provide a resource pack of what you have been learning in youth group over the term / year

3. It is something tangible for the kids to take home with them - something to show for the time they spend together.

4. It will help create a structure and expectation for the groups future.

You can go cheap and easy with some manila folders or something a bit more fancy with plastic sleeeves. Doesn't really matter, as long as the kids can personalize it and make it their own.

Many youth groups and small groups have found this a really helpful way of reviewing the previous weeks topic as well as keeping the anticipation of 'what am I going to get for the folder this week!'