All right. Lecture seven, we're looking at format options. Format options, okay, so in a youth group, you have different kinds of meetings, and what are those different kinds? What are the and what do you do? So if you're starting a youth group, that's probably the most intimidating thing. Okay, there's youth somehow we gotta, you know, help them learn more about God and learn how to apply godly principles to their lives. It's, it's one of the most important times in a person's life, they're, you know, young people are trying to figure out who they are and what direction they want to go. They're exploring who they are. They're exploring who other people are. They're exploring what the world is. They're exploring their faith. What is my faith? You know, maybe they were raised in the church and they just, you know, were following what their parents did, but now for the first time in their life, they're like, what well, what does this mean to me? And they're starting to try and make their own decisions. So you're creating this group, and as a leader, you're trying to help them figure that all out. But what do you do? I mean, what are some of the options of what you might do with them?

So let's look at that. All right. Options, number one, projects,

number two, activities. Number three, small group meetings. Number four, large group meetings. Number five, accountability partners. Number six, mentorship. So each one of these is a different way to organize young people around you might do a project, you might do an activity, might have a small group meeting, and what would you do there? Or a larger group meeting, or you might have accountability partners, or you might have a mentorship program. All these are different ways of trying to help young people. And I want to go through, spend a little time going through each one education. Sorry, one more you might you know there's things that you need to learn, that you need to teach them. Okay, ingredients to include in each option. So we have all these options, but there are some things that you could or and maybe should do with each one of the options, and I think the Bible is one of those. Even if you're doing a project, you're building a house, so you're you're or you're going on an activity, you're going on a hike or something, why not introduce the Bible? Maybe it's a, you know, a theme that you're working on, or maybe it's the verse of the day or the verse of the month, or it's your theme verse for the year. I don't know what it might be. And you might throw in a song, okay? Prayer. Song, okay, prayer. I mean, you can introduce prayer to any activity that you do with you. Why not throw in a song? Why not number four, something to discuss, create an atmosphere where all dare to participate. So whatever it is, there's almost like a mini Bible study attached to it. You know, you're going to rake leaves for older people, but when you get to the person's house, someone could read a verse, someone could do a song. At the end of it, you could say, you know, what did we learn? There's something to discuss. Okay, let's look at each option and sort of, you know, flesh each one out. So number one, we had projects. A project is, is like building something or fixing something, or creating something or or helping out in a certain area. So young people often will help out, say, with older members of the church or in the community that need, you know, some work done. Maybe they need a new roof put on their garage, or they need their leaves raked, or they need their house cleaned, or their house painted. Or maybe you're, you know, building a ramp for some handicapped person that needs a ramp to get into their house. All these are different projects that you can do activities. Attend a concert, a lecture, a play, go to a museum, a sporting event, a movie, visit a workplace. Go camping, fishing, hiking, play sports, go to a restaurant. Drama. You're going to some external event, something outside of your group, and it could be anything, but again, always spiritualize it. Always. There's a verse, there's a Bible thing, there's a prayer thing, there's a song thing, there's a little discussion about this thing. I mean, you could easily just visit the workplace of a lot of people in the church, and then those work people, you know, have the young people come up with questions like, how, how is it being a Christian in this workplace? What are the challenges? What are the ways that you do it? I mean, you know, there are ways to to help young people experience life and then see God in all those things, and to allow those things to help you, let young people connect to each Other and to God

small groups. Okay, so

let's say you have a small group of young people, let's say the huge young people's group, and then you divide them into smaller groups and you meet. Well, when do you meet? If it's just well, we meet once in a while. A group can't succeed. Meeting once in a while. It has to be regular. We meet every Monday or every other Monday, or we meet on Sunday afternoons, and this is the time that we do it, because kids will, you know, they're all over the place with their lives and their time informal interaction. I think when you get together, it's like, Hello, how are you there needs to be, you know, a time of recognizing who we are. Often there's some kind of food. Young people are always starving. Food is, you know, in the Bible, food is always a way that people, that God uses to help people connect. It fills us up. But when we eat with others, we socially get filled up, and spiritually get filled up. Study, you know, create an atmosphere where we all dare to participate that, you know, Bible study, or whatever the study might be. The key to all of this is participation. And yet what tends to happen is you have some superstar young people, you know, maybe two or three out of 10, and then they do all the talking, and then the more they do, the more the rest feel like they cannot compete, and they more and more do not dare open their mouths. So you as a leader, have to create an atmosphere where, where everyone participates. Hey, what do you think? Yes, questions. Not so much for knowledge, but questions that well, you know, you read this passage, and then you go, Well, what stood out to you? See, there's no smart or not smart answer. It's whatever stood out to you. And why did it stand out to you? See, everyone can answer that, even the person, the young kid who walked into your youth group, doesn't know the Bible at all. He hears a couple of verses for the first time. And then you ask, did anything stand out? Yeah, I didn't understand the whole thing. That's what stood out. Prayer, time, okay, again, Bible, maybe, maybe a song,

okay? Larger groups, okay,

consistent time, again. Now, maybe the maybe, maybe you have a small youth group in the first place. So every time your group meets, it's a small group, but let's say sometimes, maybe you want to meet with other churches. Small Group, it's a larger setting. Maybe it's once a month, maybe it's quarterly, that you meet, but, but you need some kind of consistent time again. There needs to be so informal interaction. But in a large group, see, in a small group, you have more of like a Bible study atmosphere, you know, where everyone can have something to say, and the goal is participation. But in a large group, see, we don't have enough time to have everyone say something like that's why, in a church service, you have a pastor who gets up and he does the sermon you don't have. You know, 85 sermons here this morning by the 85 people that are there. And the larger the group, the more formal the situation is. So now you have a speaker, you have maybe testimonies, you have. Larger groups are a great place for recognition. You know, this young person went off and did a mission trip, and we want to honor him. Larger groups are great for singing and prayer and. And showing videos and things like that. Okay, no, the larger the group is, the more formal it is, the more you have to have a real program. The smaller the group. It's more informal and it's more interactive. And you can, you can just sort of see where it's going and sort of facilitate it. You know, to keep everyone talking and sharing in a larger group, you have to give the illusion of participation, because there's so many people. Hey, how many people here today read their Bibles this morning? Okay, so now there's 100 people, and they can raise their hand or not raise their hand. I'm getting people to participate, but it's sort of the illusion of participation, because we don't have time to I can't follow up and say, Well, why didn't you? And then listen to 100 answers. Accountability partners, okay, some youth groups, you know, maybe they have a small group meeting, maybe they have the larger group meeting, or maybe they don't, but if they do, maybe they want to add this piece, or maybe this is what the whole youth thing is. It's just accountability partners. We're going to put youth together, and we're going to have them hold each other accountable. I would say three partners at most. Because if you start getting more than that, somebody stops talking, you get the group dynamic where you have the talkers talking and the non talkers not talking with three. You know, it's small enough that you can't hide in some ways, and yet, there's enough numbers to keep it interesting. I guess you need a consistent time. How often are we going to meet informal interaction? Maybe they do acts together, you know, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, in some ways, with accountability partners, what you need is, you know, a list of things that we're going to cover. What are we actually going to cover? Accountability is really trying to remain true to our Christian walk. So how are we being? You know, maybe you know, as youth are getting to that age where sexuality is becoming a bigger thing, like, like being chased in, say, a bunch of you know, three boys get together. They're accountability partners. And the problem of pornography these days, because it's everywhere. It's on your phone, it can be you can't hardly hide from it, right? So let's say you have some young Christian men who want to remain true to their future wife one day, and they don't want to fall into the trap of pornography. Well, they have a there's a question since we let man last met last week in what ways were you tempted? What things happened around you that tempted you? Did you fall into temptation? What did you know? What happened? Okay, so this is a safe place where people can can be held accountable to things that there's that they're struggling with, or that they're trying to do. It's a wonderful if you can get accountability partners going. It's a wonderful thing. Key ingredients to youth accountability, trust, yeah, kids aren't going to share, they're not going to open up, they're not going to confess anything if they unless they trust. So there has to be some, some building, you know, if I share in this group, are you going to tell other people? Transparency? We have to be able to share what's really going on if I'm hiding if things happen to me this week, but I don't dare tell you, then our meeting soon will become boring and uninteresting, because we never share anything clear goals. What are we trying to do? What areas of our life are we trying to hold each other accountable for? Two areas, three areas, four years, regular check ins, okay, how often do we meet honest feedback? Okay, so when? And by the way, feedback is something that is asked for if I share some secret struggle that I'm going through in my life, and then you respond with a lecture. Okay, Steve, this is how you fix it. Well, then I'm not going to share next time. Okay, so I share. What I need is sympathy from you, understanding. If I want your your your feedback, if I want your advice. Then I'll ask for it. See, and if you create a good group where there's a lot of trust, then the members of the group will ask, okay, here's what I'm struggling with, and I don't really know what to do, guys, what do you think? See? Then you have permission to share. If you if someone doesn't give permission, if they don't ask for it, then now you're lecturing and preaching. Number five, encouragement and support. Encouragement, you can do it. Support, try again. You know, you know, we need accountability partners. Because we're weak. We need accountability partners, because there's strength in numbers. We need it because we need to face some of the things that are going on into our lives, and we need a place where we can be totally, absolutely honest and yet accepted and loved and then encouraged to do better. Number seven, prayer, scripture may be a theme song again, just like all the other groups. So in some ways, an accountability group can be the whole youth program mentorship. Now, mentorship is a little different than accountability. Mentorship is where someone who knows something is trying to help somebody else learn that thing. So, number one, everything under accountability groups, so trust and, you know, sharing and meeting regularly and check ups, all of those things are true in mentorship. The difference is, it? Mentorship is the leader. The person that is the mentor is trying to help someone else learn something that the mentor knows. So you pick an area or two that the mentee would like, would like mentorship in, right? So here's the person who needs mentorship. Maybe they want to learn how to play the guitar. Okay, I know how to play the guitar, so I'm going to teach you. I'm the mentor. You're the mentee and and so I'm going to try to help you do what I do. Or maybe it's learning how to pray. Maybe it's learning how to give a youth group talk. Okay? I want to mentor some people that want to become leaders, that want to be able to share their testimony, or, let's say it's a testimony. Okay, we're going to, we're all going to learn how to share our testimony, but you don't know how. I know how, so I'm going to help three of you learn how to share your testimony. I know how to do it. You don't know how to do it. So let me try to help you. And then you assess, how's it going. This is, by the way, this is a great way to get young people helping one another. It's sort of each one teach one. Every every kid in a youth group is good at something. They know stuff in some area, whatever it might be. And there are other kids who want to know that stuff too. So let Why don't we match people that are good at something with those who want to learn how to do that thing, whatever it is, it doesn't even matter what it is. It's like

you could have your own little your own little university, you know, where each youth student is a teacher in some area, and everyone is a student in some area. And wouldn't be great if everyone was doing that. And you imagine if young people, you know right away when they were young, had this sense that they have something to offer the body of Christ is that, isn't that really what we want? We want young people, not always in the take look you young people, need a lot of help. I'm your leader. I'm here to save you. I'm here to teach you. I'm here to do everything for you, and then the pastor does everything for you. The church is here to do everything. Well, someone has to be the one giving. Why don't we teach young people right away that they have something to offer? That's what the Christian life is all about. Being a disciple, ultimately, is about making other disciples. Some people think that a disciple is just someone who follows. Okay, I'm the disciple. I'm following you. I just follow, follow, follow, follow. No, a disciple is one who eventually goes out and makes disciples. That's what a disciple is. The 12 disciples followed Jesus, but then they went out and made disciples. So why don't we teach them right away? Jesus. That he sent out the 72 they hardly knew what in the world they were doing. Jesus said, Well, you know, enough. Now go out there. Why don't we do the same thing? Make goals. Okay, what are we trying to learn? This is what I'm trying to teach you. And this is, you know, how long I think it's going to be for you to learn. And here's how we're going to break it down. You know, if I'm teaching you to play the guitar, this is, this is where you start. Okay, you have to learn how to tune it. Without tuning it, you can't do anything. So that's step one. Step two. What's step two? Learn a chord. Okay, what's a chord? Well, here's, this is what it is. It's going to be hard, it's going to sound terrible, but you can do it. You have to practice 15 minutes a day. If you don't practice 15 minutes a day, you will not learn how to do it. Don't kid yourself, you know. So that's what it's going to take. Make a plan. Okay, how are we going to do this? How long is this mentorship thing going to be? How long is my course going to be accountability and encouragement? Okay? Again, clear goals. If you learn anything there, it has to be broken down in its steps. Someone has to, you know, carry us through. And there's expectations people, people are not going to learn unless they follow through with something. If you want, if you want to learn anything you have, you have to do it, and it's and the person helping manages it for you, and He does it by accountability? Come on, you didn't practice at all. Did you this last week? No, I guess I did. Well, are you going to do it or not? Otherwise, we're wasting our time. And by the way, you can do it. If you just do it, you will learn it. I guarantee it. Okay. So no matter what it is, okay. So that that's some of the format. You know, it's not rocket science stuff. You have to meet. You know, in some ways, you have to meet. Okay? You have to deal with prayer, music a little bit, maybe prayer, Bible. You want people participating. You want people learning things. I mean, there's all these different ways that I just shared with you, and you can mix and match them any way that you want, but ultimately it comes down to meeting with kids. I mean, even if you don't know what you're doing, meeting with kids and responding to their needs is everything. Now I've emphasized, like, you know, this format stuff, because if it's total chaos, and by the way, the young people, it can get to be chaotic real quick. Young people have energy. They and they're very distracted. They're, in a way, add, you know, the whatever they're doing one thing, and then they see something else, and they can switch out a dime. They're they're all like trying to hide from attention. And they all want attention. They have all these emotions and the hormones going. And so if you don't have things reasonably organized, you're either going to organize it or chaos is going to organize it. And in the end, kids don't like chaos. They just don't like chaos. They always fight against order, okay? They gravitate towards chaos, but they don't like chaos, so put some order into what you're doing with the youth, and we'll see you next time

Last modified: Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 10:37 AM