Do you sometimes find your group to be out of control? I had this problem at one point. I racked my brain to figure out what I should do about the situation. One day it finally hit me sitting in one of my education classes! Set up what I call a group democracy. This idea came to me while were talking about rules in the classroom and how to go about that. One topic came up to have the class come up with the rules. So I took this to my group and adjust it for my youth group.

This is definitely best done at the beginning of the year within the first few meetings. I put up a piece of paper on the wall so that everyone could see the items we came up with as a group. Explain to the group once everyone gets there that you guys are coming up with the groups rules for the year. These are rules that as a group you think are important.

I feel like I should warn you. You’re group is going to come up with some random and some what off the wall items. Try to keep them on track as best you can. Most of the time some of the things do not apply to the group over all. Be ready to laugh. It can be very funny!

Here are a few things that we came up with:

· Turn off music playing devices (MP3 players, IPods, CD players, etc).

· Put your cell phone on at least vibrate.

· Respect others.

· Share (I had junior high kids and I kid you not that we had to put this on there).

· Try to do service projects.

Some things you are going to have to cater to your group. What rules worked for my group may not work for your group. You as the leader are going to need to add rules as well. I hope that I’m stating the obvious when I say that. You’re going to notice things that the youth aren’t going to pick up on for the most part. Some groups will pick up on things though.

After we were done, I went home and typed up all of our rules that we had come up with that week. The following week I brought the list back. I had all the kids sign it to signify that they agreed with them.

After all of this was done, I started noticing that the kids would start telling each other to stop something or turn something off because it didn’t follow the rules. It was neat! Just be careful of your “tattle tails”! These are the ones that don’t seem to quiet understand when to just let things go. I had one girl that was my “tattle tail”. It was a struggle for me to deal with her some days. It is almost like we should have added the “No tattle tailing” part to our group covenant!

Over all, this helped me out with my group and it seemed to end a lot of the problems we had. If I had any other disciplinary problems after that, it was something pretty severe. The “severe” outburst were mostly by people who had not been to youth group regularly or were the “problem child(ren)” of the group and that behavior stopped soon after it started!

Then the LORD said: “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. Exodus 34:10