Today I received an interesting email from Stan who is a fellow youth leader. The interesting part is that it’s an Ethiopian Church. It’s really cool check it out: http://www.eecdenver.org/ Stan needs some youth ministry suggestions and ideas.
Here is his email to me and I would like for you to leave your response by commenting:
Steve,
Ran across your blog while gong over next year plans for my youth group. Thought maybe you had some thoughts on a challenge I am faced with.
Some Background. I am in Aurora CO (we attended Invincible and yes Greg does not age) I oversee a youth group of about 70 second generation Ethiopians. We have a space (retail shop) of our own for youth, separate from the church. It’s nice but here is the challenge; we currently mix our middle school and high school youth. I have been using a large group small group kind of model to keep similar ages together, cannot really say this works. It seems to work for our space. Our church recently went to two services and I could divide the youth between the two with some challenges. (parents. volunteers and my sanity) We do schedule separate events for the middle and High School about once every other month. Our youth group currently is mostly middle schoolers (a lot of 7th graders) We do have a midweek service, combined. Well that kind of gives a picture. I am curious what thoughts you may have and how you might handle the situation.
Blessings
Now that you have had a chance to read what Stan had sent to me – those that are skilled with Ethiopian ministry 
– kidding, please leave your thoughts via comment.
Personally I have always felt that separating the age groups is best if possible because jr. high and high school are just really different in many ways. Maybe something could be done to facilitate this in your building or scheduling different times for Jr. and Sr. high.
I’m also wondering if the culture shapes how you do youth ministry?
What SAY YOU for Stan?
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We separate Jr/Sr High for the lessons. (We have about 50 teens attending weekly.) Though our weekly meetings are on Wed. night. I worked out a schedule where one teacher will teach a single lesson to the Sr. High one week and Jr. High the next. The lessons run concurrently so I always have two teachers teaching. We have the space in our church to do this and it seems to work much better than teaching everyone together. It also helps the teachers to prepare one lesson for two weeks instead of one each week.
One of the other reasons we separate is b/c Jr and Sr High teens are in different places in life. You have the Junior in H.S. who is maybe trying to decide on going to college or military after H.S. and you have the 7th grader thinking about what game he’s going to play on his Wii when he gets home.
HIS,
Phil
I wonder if we have let the culture dictate what we do to an unhealthy extent. I agree that there are huge differences in Jr. high and High school students, and my weekly activities include a night aimed at Jr. High and another aimed at High School – but I wonder if it’s really necessary or healthy for our students?
Our society has separated people by age, and told us we have to keep them separate to be “effective” in accomplishing anything. But in Christ, cultural barriers (like age) should give way, shouldn’t they?
I’m not saying there’s no place for separate groups for different ages, but I think that should be done with a view toward assimilation into the entire church (not just the youth group). Along with age targeted groups, I think we also need something intended to connect our older teens with younger (and adults with kids for that matter).
Anyone seeing any good ways to do BOTH well?
actually just made the move to this kind of model. for the past several years and prior to my take at the helm we were doing two separate events jr. high and sr. high. i combined this year to try and create a different sense of energy. we’re focusing on developing relationships and growing the students. my core group is 9th and 10th graders…we’re light on the upper classes, but i think that is as much because of the crazy schedules. i’m still growing our adult leaders and since were’ a young church (6 yrs) that is my short term goal. i have also begun a mid week sr. high small groups encounter and that seems to have fit the desire as this point. my desire is to take a season and grow our students spiritually. the reactions i’ve gotten thus far…are all positive. on a side note i would love to try services for students over and against big church times, but we don’t have the space or the volunteers.
Great question and it sounds like stuff is going well. First off, realize that i don’t know the story of any of your students, so i’m not perfect:
but…
I’d first work towards seperating your jr and sr. high ministry. i would guess that you’re losing high schoolers (or at least they’re not as committed) since there are 7th graders flying around the place.
for me, that would be step number one.