Youth Group Troubles

[Dustin Young]

My wife and I have recently taken over our church youth group. This is our 6th grade through 12th ministry. Her father is the pastor and her and I both each have around 4 years of ministry experience. We have a somewhat difficult group of kids. They are mostly 8th graders and the bulk of them had a rough upbringing. We struggle to get them to participate in games quite often. They will just plainly refuse to play them and go sit in the sanctuary. This obviously throws a wrench in the lesson and most times we can't even do the activity. Any ideas on how to get them involved? It can be extremely frustrating, especially when we spend hours on a lesson plan and buying material for games. Is it something we are doing, or does every youth group struggle with this?

 

[Paidiske]

If they'd rather just sit and talk, why not create a congenial space for them to do that?

 

[d taylor]

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I personally believe there are enough games played what kids need, is solid teaching of The Bible.

 

[“Paisios”]

My wife and I have recently taken over our church youth group. This is our 6th grade through 12th ministry. Her father is the pastor and her and I both each have around 4 years of ministry experience. We have a somewhat difficult group of kids. They are mostly 8th graders and the bulk of them had a rough upbringing. We struggle to get them to participate in games quite often. They will just plainly refuse to play them and go sit in the sanctuary. This obviously throws a wrench in the lesson and most times we can't even do the activity. Any ideas on how to get them involved? It can be extremely frustrating, especially when we spend hours on a lesson plan and buying material for games. Is it something we are doing, or does every youth group struggle with this?

When I was leading my previous church’s youth group, we didn’t do any games. I didn’t try to compete with secular groups that were out there. We set aside the first 30 minutes for the youth to socialize and eat snacks, then gathered them for an opening prayer (often led by one of them if they were willing), then a few worship songs (also led by one of the members), reading of a psalm, then a lesson and discussion led by me (but it really was a discussion, not a sermon) followed by prayers including specific prayer requests by the group members with as many participating actively as were comfortable, then the last 30 minutes were free for them to socialize. Most of the kids were unchurched, many unbelievers, but they still kept coming back, despite no games or flashy entertainment and despite it being on a Friday night when there were many other secular attractions to which they could have gone.

 

[deanerenata32]

You make 12th graders play games? Aren't they a little old for that?

That's something I would expect you to do with preschoolers, not kids who are almost adults.

 

[mama2one]

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