POSTED by Katie Edwards
A few months back I started meeting with a group of my students to plan our weekend junior high church service. We meet once a month for an hour in my office to share ideas and plan. I try to get a good mix of gender, grades, schools, personalities etc. and it is typically never the same group twice. It’s a super low key/no frills meeting, but it has become one of my favorite times of the month.
How the meeting is structured:
- We start with snacks. (An essential for any brainstorm session with students)
- Then we go to the whiteboard. (A second essential for a good brainstorm sesh)
- I throw the series theme/topic on the whiteboard, along with some basic service elements. “Elements” such as music, message, games, etc.
- Then we just start talking and sharing ideas.
- I ask questions like, “Would you bring a friend to this?”, “Do you think this is funny?”, “Will others students like this?” ,“How could you grow in your walk with Jesus from this?” and so on.
- At the end of our time together our students feel a sense of ownership in our ministry and I walk away with tons of ideas and a more relevant picture of what my students like/want/need.
I know it’s tough to put one more meeting on the calendar, but this type of touch base with your students could be totally worth your time. Honestly, I walk away after each meeting feeling totally inspired and more in love with students.
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Kurt Johnston leads the student ministries team at Saddleback Church in Southern California. His ministry of choice, however, is junior high, where he spends approximately 83.4% of his time. Kurt is also the founder of www.simplyjuniorhigh.com, and he writes, speaks and looks for opportunities to encourage other youth workers. He likes to surf, ride dirtbikes and hang out in coffee shops. He is married to Rachel, and they have two teenage children, Kayla and Cole
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Scott Rubin is the Director of Elevate, the junior high ministry of Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. He's mostly a middle school pastor, but he also writes some, speaks some, and blogs some. He's the co-author of the book Middle School Ministry, and a few other titles too. He likes sports, summer, his wife Lynette, his 3 sons, and often wishes that Lake Michigan was actually an ocean.
This is gold! I love it. I am passing this on to youth pastors in my sphere of influence.
Great idea! I was thinking I needed to do something like this a few days ago, but didn’t know if it would work with jr. higher’s. Sounds like it does, so I’m going to try it! Thanks!