Wake up call! School is starting again and it’s time to gear up for the fall. This post is about gearing up for the middle and high school ministry.
Here are some ideas to help you gear up for the middle and high school ministry:
Pray: Don’t overlook the step of always praying before you begin to start doing. Don’t just pray about God’s stamp of approval on your plans – but rather break it down into that simple beginning prayer of asking the Lord what He wants you to be doing and be quiet enough to hear and allow some time to see what He brings to your mind.
Construct Your Team: Who is going to be in your youth team? What adults do you think would be a great player for middle school ministry? Are there people from last year that worked well? Are there people from last year that didn’t work so well? It’s good to work through these questions and get to a place where you have prayed and constructed your list of potential middle and high school staff helpers in your youth ministry.
Hold a Staff Meeting: Gather your team together to go over the plan for the year. You may want to handle this a couple of different ways: 1)take the last two weeks off of the summer before school starts and devote those consecutive Wednesday nights to just your staff people. 2) Have a half-day meeting where you thoroughly go through everything and have a time of prayer. Make sure that you touch on positives and negatives of the previous year/s of ministry that has already taken place. If you have been doing this for awhile – have some of the staffers chime-in about their experiences to encourage the new people (hopefully not scare them away).
Watch a Movie Together: I would suggest a movie like: Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Excellent movie about a new 6th graders depiction of what it was like entering into middle school. My boys and I watched it this weekend and it was just great. This would be a great movie to watch together with your middle school staff. For high school I would suggest Napoleon Dynamite, Footloose, or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – or another movie that you would find appropriate that depicts high school so that your staff can go back to that time when they were high schoolers and remember how things were and how they can better minister to students knowing what they know about life today.
Fall Kick-Off Date: Have you set up an official date to kick-off your youth ministry? If not – plan what you would like to see happen and how it would be laid out. A new product that I put out this year is the Barn Bash – which would be an excellent Kick-Off event that you could try, but it may be better for some later closer to October and November. The reason that you want to have an official kick-off is to add some excitement and to officially make that transition from summer to school year. And by having something special you may attract and keep some new students going into your fall ministry.
Do a Fun Night: Focus on doing something that reflects what middle and or high school students would be up for. Maybe it’s go-cart night or lazer-tag. Whatever you choose – have it be something fun that you could see your middle or high school students going to and hanging out with them. This will help get your staff’s attitude into middle and high school ministry mode. It may mean – doing a bon fire and singing some songs together with an acoustic guitar. You know your group of volunteers so do something that you all would have a great time together.
What sorts of things do you do to gear up for the fall ministry?
Welcome Youth Worker, Youth Pastor, Youth Director, Youth Minister, Youth Guy, or whatever other creative name your church has come up with....
