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Honoring & engaging your last year students
Posted by: Heather Flies
Some of us call it junior high ministry… some call it middle school ministry… some have 6-8th grades… some 7-8th grades… in our ministry, we have 7-9th graders. I know, it’s weird, but I love it! I love having students for three full years and I LOVE the depth and maturity my 9th graders bring to our ministry.
As much as I love it, with any three-year program, and I would argue even two year programs, it’s a challenge to keep that “top grade” engaged and fed. Year after year, right around January, I hear statements like this from my top grade students:
–> “The seventh graders are so immature.”
–> “I don’t like the games we do.”
–> “I feel like you’re teaching to the 7th graders, not us.”
–> “I already know all this stuff.”
I’m not kidding, it’s the SAME comments EVERY year. Even though we have a specified doctrinal class (year-long) for ninth graders only– even though I use Greek and Hebrew in my teaching– even though we engage 9th graders in leadership. My initial response, if I’m honest, is to be annoyed, personally hurt, or indifferent.
This last year, however, my volunteer staff and I decided to take a different approach.
1) We were proactive: On our 8th grade retreat (just two months before they officially became 9th graders in our ministry), we had a straight forward conversation about the tendencies of 9th graders. We challenged our incoming 9th graders to be different– to sit in the front row, rather than the back. To engage the 7th graders and mentor them rather than ignore them. To understand that we all need to be life-long learners & there is always something they can learn from the teaching.
2) We asked questions: One of the first weeks in January, we asked the 9th graders to stay after for ten minutes following our mid-week program. We acknowledged, right off the bat, that they probably had noticed some differences between them and the 7th graders– they all laughed. We said, “We want to honor you guys as our 9th graders– what are some things we could do that would help you to feel ministered to?” They had some great ideas!
3) We listened AND responded to their ideas: For the remaining months, we chose one week to pull the 9th graders out half way through our mid-week program and go deeper into the topic. During our “Love Spectrum” month for instance, we had 9th grade-only conversations about sexual pressures & temptations– a conversation we would have had to be more conservative about if 7th graders were in the room. We also set up a couple 9th grade duos to coordinate the games for our mid-week program.
4) We created an event just for them: Last week, we held the inaugural “9th Grade Formal Dinner Cruise” on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota’s finest and largest lakes (we have nearly 14,000 lakes! 
. We gathered a group of 9th graders a month before the event and asked them to design the night’s program. We marketed it as a 9th grade only event– “You have the opportunity to do something we’ve never done before!” The response was amazing! Girls found after-prom dresses at Macy’s for $23 and guys borrowed jackets and ties from their dads. We met an hour before hand and took great pictures– most same gender, trying to promote the idea of it being a 9th grade event, not a date night. Then, we cruised for three hours, enjoying food, mingling, and the “Red Carpet” theme.
From talking to many middle school ministers, I know this is a challenge for everyone– whether your top grade is 8th or 9th. Much of it is developmental, I believe, but there are things you can do to engage them and honor them. Trust me, it’s worth the time and effort!
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We actually have 5th through 7th graders, but we still have the same problem. I realized about a year ago that I was trying to teach up to the 7th graders to keep them engaged, and we were not properly engaging the 5th graders. So, we have specifically brought the level down and engaged the new 5th graders as soon as they come in, and we are going to be adding things for the 7th graders just like you said (leadership, special programs, etc.). We are still talking developing these items with my team and formulating them, and then I had a very unique experience last week. We run a VBS-type experience during our church’s yearly revival conference (Sunday through Wednesday, morning and evening sessions each day). On the Saturday morning before it started, I was sitting in our youth room organizing all of the things we needed for the games, and finalizing the teaching for each of the nights. That Saturday morning, a portion of our youth room was being used for the church’s Angel Food Ministries food distribution program. The grandmother of one of my 7th grade student leaders runs the program, so he is usually there to help volunteer. There was some time between when they had finished setting up and when they actually had to distribute food, and there was also plenty of volunteers, so he had some time. He came over to where I was sitting and we did the regular small talk, and as he saw that I was doing the final preparations for the conference, he asked me what we would be doing during the week. I talked to him about the general theme, and it said it sounded interesting, then I handed him a notebook that had my plans (games, lesson outlines, etc). He just started reading it, and I just kind of went back to finishing up some notes about one of the messages later in the week. About 90 seconds later, he said, “I don’t understand this”. I asked him what he was looking at, and he was looking at one of our games. I explained it to him, and he said, “that seems too complicated”, and I said, “well, what would you do”. The feedback he provided was really brilliant, and we implemented it, and it was probably our best game all week. He started to look at some of the other stuff, and made a few other small comments, all of which we implemented, and all of which were successful parts of our program. It has really energized me to include the 7th graders, particularly the leaders, into our planning process and have more opportunities for feedback.
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