Facing Your Fears as a Youth Leader

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Guest Post By Chloe Perrin. Volunteer Youth Worker, Musical Theatre Tutor and Youth Charity Trustee.

 

About three years ago, I was sat in an office telling my Supervisor that I’d love to do a gap year with the local Youth For Christ centre, provided that I only had to do background stuff like admin. Not, under any circumstance, did I want to come into contact with any actual front of house youth work or young person of any sort.

One year later I was wearing a sumo suit while flinging myself at one of said young people in an attempt to knock them out of the circle in a sumo fight to end all sumo fights.

Granted, I’m a young youth worker (only been in the business three years) but I feel I have a bit of authority on the subject of conquering fears, considering that my fear was one of the biggest and most ridiculous fear that can hinder any other youth worker of any age: I was terrified of teenagers.

Now, before you laugh, I think we can all agree that teenagers can be flipping scary. They decide what (and who) is cool this year, half of them think they’re smarter than they are and the other half are smarter than you so don’t even try. They can be scathing and have the ability to make you question every life choice you have ever made with one sarcastic comment.

All that said, those are also the reasons why we love them so much.

Whatever it is, be it young people themselves or something entirely different, every single youth worker in the world has fears, and those fears, no matter how big or small, have the capacity to block us from doing truly amazing work with young people. Here are some of the simple ways I managed to face my fears as a youth worker:

 1. Don’t pretend you’re not scared.

Look at that massive pile of admin you need to do, all those emails you need to send, all those kids waiting to hear the Bible study masterpiece that you’re presenting. How easy would it be if we could just close our eyes and those things would vanish in a puff of smoke?

You can stare at those emails while your heart plummets and mutter “I love emails so much” over and over all you want, but it’s not true. Acting like you love giving bible studies while you’re shaking with fear won’t work either – young people can smell a rat from a mile away.

Just remember when you’re facing these situations that no one important is expecting you to love every aspect of your job. And if your job is upfront youth ministry, no teenager will ever think less of you for being nervous – quite the opposite! If anything, it makes you human, and they’ll appreciate that more than anything.

Be upfront with your colleagues. Be honest about what scares you. Hidden situations only get worse.

2. Do what you need to do (within reason).

Step back. Take a breath. Ask yourself, what will make this situation less terrifying? For me, it was knowing that I had other more experienced youth workers with me, and I could take a few minutes in the back room if it got too much.

This is easier with some things than others. For example, if you need to take breaks between each email to stuff your face with chocolate then do it! Think you might need to call someone up you trust to help you through some admin? Do it!

If you need to ask for help, do it. Needing help doesn’t make you weak. There’s a reason God created more than one human. We’re not meant to go it alone.

3. JUST DO IT (Shia La Beouf voice)

My last piece of advice would be, NEVER let the fear stop you. There’s a part of me that still fills with fear when a new young person enters the room and I have to go and welcome them, but I never regret it when I do.

Who wants to look back on their time as a youth worker and see a list of things they never tried, or gave up on too early? The Bible isn’t made up of stories of people who would have but didn’t. It is, however, made up of stories of people who were scared but did it anyway, because God was with them.

And that’s the most important part (surprise). God’s with you. Anything good you do hasn’t actually been done by you anyway. God did it through you. It works the other way too; if you have Jesus at the centre of everything you do as a youth worker, then it won’t matter if you mess up; God meant for that, too. God doesn’t just use our triumphs, he does wonders with our failures too.

 

Of course, there is so much more to learn about conquering fears, but hopefully you’ll appreciate these little drops of advice.

Now I’m off to go swing a pair of orange-filled tights around my head around for the entertainment of my truly brilliant young people.

 

About Chloe

Chloe Perrin is a twenty two year old Christian who’s been doing youth work with Youth For Christ since her Gap Year, which has been going on about three years now!

When not doing youth work, she is a musical theatre tutor for children aged five to eighteen (keeps her fit!), and has lived in North Wales since she was born, and will continue to live here until they kick her out.

She also plays the saxophone but saves that for parties.

You can find her at any Comic-Con in the country, and her life ambition is to dress in cosplay more than in her regular clothes.

Youth Event Generator!

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Tired of feeling creative? Need a break from the constantly spinning world of social creation? Fear Not! The Ultimate Time-Saving Youth Event Generator has you covered!

Youth Work USP

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What is your Youth Work USP? What do you bring to the table that other young people’s activities don’t?

Often completely alien to the compassion and chaos of the youth work world is the cold and competitive rigours of business. The latter is where USP – that’s unique service provision or unique selling point – comes from.

You might believe that business, sales and marketing strategies should have nothing to do with Christ-saturated youth ministry. You may believe that I’m leading you into a callous, sub-biblical and secular world of professionalism. You may also believe that I’ve simply watched too many episodes of The Apprentice – which might possibly be true!

The truth is, however, that you are probably already employing such strategies – albeit under the guise of mission statements, vision casting and prayer meetings. Business uses different language to ask effectively the same question: how can we best steward resources to have the biggest possible effect?

USP is key to this and incredibly important to nail if you want to succeed in youth work.

If you cannot clearly articulate and communicate what it is that your programs uniquely offer to young people that is above all the other trappings of the world, then they have no reason to join you.

If you can’t say loud and proud what makes your offerings so much better than a Friday night on the slosh, or a Sunday morning xbox fest, then it could account for why you only have three people showing up!

Too many youth programs hide their unique services and values under generic activities that are also provided by just about every other competing activity. Live music and entertainment can be gotten from loads of places – it’s called youtube and a sneaky pint.

Your Youth Work USP

What is it you do that other potential activities don’t?

– Do you offer a safe and compassionate community where outcasts are welcome and accepted?
– Is it direction on how to connect to the maker of the universe?
– Are you giving opportunities to feed the poor and help the homeless?
– Do you give help becoming a holistic person?
– Are you offering the key to fulfilment found in Jesus?

What is your USP? Find it, nail it, and clearly communicate it!

The USP of one of my groups is a welcome invitation to be part of a family that takes care of each other and seeks truth together. This means my ‘youth group’ works for ages 11-25, and is full of both fun activities and spiritually searching worship and study.

This USP attracts many young people who feel isolated and rejected in their own family, and it attracts those who are interested in philosophy and spirituality more generally. The USP drives what we do each night and helps form the culture of questioning, mentoring and peer-to-peer care outside the meeting times. We’ve seen many young people saved from this group!

If you want to attract spiritually aware, community producing, open-to-Jesus young people – then ‘market’ that as your USP in all of your publicity materials. That niche will be on the lookout and they will come!

Once you have developed and grown those young people, then you can set your sights broader as young people will always attract more young people. Too many of us do that backwards – start with an impossibly broad club that competes with secular groups and then try to niche it down. We overfeed on hype which seemingly works well for a couple of years (without a lot of commitments to Jesus to show for it), then we crash, burn and close down.

Find your USP! Be proud of it. Market to it and develop those who come. Then you can build a broader mission strategy off the back of that community. Winner.

More info

If you’d like to think about how to find your USP, check out an article I wrote for leadanyone.com here. If you’d like personal help developing your USP, understanding how to more clearly articulate it or building a group off it, then get in touch via the training page. Thanks!

Evaluating Ministry – Post On Lead Anyone.com

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A wee while back, I was approached to write a couple of articles of Leadanyone.com by it’s founder Joel Preston. The whole site is full of quality articles and I would heartily recommend it to you.

The first of my articles went up online, and you can read it here. It’s a simple set of tools used to evaluate objectively your ministry projects. I hope that it’s helpful!

Don’t forget to let the Baby Jesus out of His Cage at New Year

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“Ooh! I better go take down the manger scene. If baby Jesus got loose, he could really do some damage.” [Ned Flanders].

The Beginnings Of Jesus

Have you ever stopped to consider the amount of damage that Jesus can do? At Christmas we talk about his humble beginnings; coming in a feeding trough rather than a Ferrari Enzo, or – perhaps more traditionally – a chariot.

Even that beginning, however, was dangerous and reckless. Only a small proportion of babies survived childbirth in those days, and those were under the best of conditions. Met with the harsh realities of a back alley birth and an ill-equipped teenage mother however, hygiene was hardly on Jesus’ side.

Jesus then grew up under the scrutiny of a strictly observant Jewish community who were all too aware of his scandalous beginnings. He probably spent much of his childhood looking over His shoulder.

Danger, scandal, fear and struggle were inevitably never far from Jesus’ experience.

The Authority Of Jesus

The son of a carpenter with rough hands and a keen eye for detail were married into the sinless and acutely spiritually aware character that Jesus developed. Jesus is God, make no mistake, but He is also a man with strength, the heart of a warrior and just the right kind of fierce pride.

Jesus stood and spoke with the authority and command of a leader. Although I’d like to think of Him as the arch-socialist; reaching out first to the unwanted, the weak and the destitute – my conservative friends would probably beat me up. And rightly so.

However, it wasn’t some bullish masculinity that empowered Jesus’ leadership abilities. It was the obvious spiritual connection to His Father, spoken through a seamless command of the scriptures. In the first few chapters of Mark when Jesus is performing miracles and casting out Demons we are told time and again that it wasn’t the miraculous that drew people to Him, but the authority that was carried through the words of His mouth.

The Controversy Of Jesus

With Jesus came the division among families (‘I did not come to bring peace but the sword’), growing displacement (‘foxes have homes but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’) and urgency for life (‘let the dead bury their own’). There was always a forward momentum and active motion to the Ministry of Jesus. Even care for the poor (who ‘you will always have with you’) was subtly sidelined in the wake of recognising exactly who He was.

In one breath he encouraged beating swords into ploughshares, but with the next he fashioned the makeshift whip of cords. Such was the paradoxical zeal that He had: both absolute peace for humanity, and right worship of His Father. These, of course, are only a paradox before you are saved.

The Violence Of Jesus

There is violence to the life of Jesus. Not one that he sows, but one that follows Him around like an ambitious plague. Every way walks he finds ready a gang of insurgents rallying to him as a military leader. Even at his birth, thousands of firstborn sons are culled, in the vain hope that he would be stopped.

His journey to the cross is marred with illness, lack of sleep and beatings. He is abandoned by his family, forsaken by his friends devoured by his enemies. Nailed to the cross for all to see – the true warrior of David, dying a traitor’s death. ‘Why do you strike me’ was the only confused protest that we hear leave his lips.

The Victory Of Jesus

Jesus’s victory over death and resurrection has a wake behind it. A journey of violence, of political upheaval, of terrorist threats and personal slander.

Only a warrior comes into this world in the reckless way that He did, sinlessly. Only a warrior grows up under the shadow of violence and remains sinless – even under the constant onslaught of the Devil. Only a warrior dies an obscenely unjust and brutal death sinlessly.

The baby Jesus could really do some damage if we let Him out. Living in the wake of the authority of Jesus is the right thing to do today.

Let’s let Him out of His cage this year, yeah?

Changing Youth Work Jobs – Bx Belshaw

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Guest post by Bx Belshaw. Full time, experienced Church-based Youth and Families worker. A great story of change, challenge and and courage as she moved from her first full time ministry position into a new job.

 

Christmas season in a new church – and for me a new church denomination – is always a time of intense questioning. Do you have an advent liturgy? Is there a Christmas Day service? What happens on Christmas eve, at Christingles, and at carol services? Do you send Christmas cards or make donations? Where does the Christmas tree go? What is a nave arch? The list is endless! However, the Christmas season in a new position helps you get to grips with your new church context like no other. Even as I write this at the start of advent I am aware of how right my choice was to move on from me previous youth work job.

This time last year I was living in Wales, just over two years into a post that was growing, and mostly in unexpected areas. When I had arrived there had been no youth, children’s and families’ worker, so I had started from scratch and tried to build on what I saw God doing in the area. I had made some amazing friends, met some amazing colleague’s and made some wonderful contacts. I was feeling comfortable and happy spiritually, in work and with my social life.

When I decided it was time to move on, you should have heard the cries of ‘no, you can’t, you’ve not been here long enough, there’s more for you to do.’ Largely this came from my young people, and ecumenical colleagues. One of the reasons I knew it was right to leave was because the leadership in my church didn’t put up the same arguments. I paint a rosy picture of my last youth work post, but alongside the triumphs I had felt there were many struggles and power plays that had left me feeling warn and bitter.

I asked many questions of myself as I went to move on. Was I leaving before the time that God had appointed? Was I leaving for the right reasons? I decided that one way to help with that was to apply for new jobs and tell my church that I was moving on. I also applied for further training, but sadly it was not my time. I doubted whether what I was doing was right, but I had itchy feet and was on the move.

Getting Going

So I applied for other jobs similar to the one which I was doing. The application process – although time consuming and sometimes difficult – was a joy. I gave me an opportunity to think back over successes and mistakes that had happened in my ministry and left me with the sense that I had achieved so much. It was a clarifying moment. I was moving on for the right reasons and I was not moving on because I had failed!

The job that I am now in had a fantastic application pack, which gave plenty of information about the church, the area, and the expectations of the post. This was really helpful. One of the struggles with applying for a new church position is that many of the application packs I received were not helpful or clear. My poor mother spent three hours formatting one form just so I could open it on my computer. I found sometimes it was helpful to email back places to clarify things like wage, hours, and interview dates – hoping it made me seem enthusiastic and not to annoying, but also helping me get the right information.

Interview

As a bizarre person I don’t mind interviews so much. I find it’s easier to bounce off other people – which an interview situation gives the go ahead for.

In the interviews for the job I took, I found the church friendly, welcoming and honest. They showed us around, tried to give us a glimpse of the role, the whole church and how two interact. Part of the process was to give a five-minute presentation on forgiveness as if you were giving it to school years 7-9. I took giant blue flippers, (which they have never let me live down) and thankfully I stood out for all the right reasons, making sure that I had read the task and understood it fully beforehand. This was not something that all the other applicants had done.

My other two tips: take a breath before answering question, it gives you that space to think; and have at least one question to ask them. For me, as I was moving denominations, I wanted to know what preaching opportunities I would have.

Finding Support

I briefly spoke of my Mother who is an integral part of my amazing support network. She spent many hours proof reading every application I sent. She was one of many people who prayed with me, chatted with me, and sat with me as I wrote yet another form, or groaned about how there wasn’t a standardized form all churches used that you could then send off to all the possible jobs. (Inputting qualifications is just tedious!)

It was my support network who sat around me on holiday when I received the voicemail after my interview for my current post (which I really wanted), and it was they who listened to it first to see if it gave away any clues to what their response would be.

We are Polar Explorers

I was invited to join them for their summer holiday club (Scripture Unions’s Polar Explorers) before I started. This gave me the opportunity to see them in action, meet the rest of the staff team and see more clearly how the church operated and how I might fit in. I was – and still am – adventuring into the unknown.

Sometimes I still think that I have done the wrong thing, and question whether I am really supposed to be here. Usually these fears are put to rest quickly as – I imagine – there will always be doubts in all Christian ministry.

It’s been terrifying and exhilarating, and in it all I’ve held John Wesley’s words in the back of my head:

‘I am no longer my own, but yours…

let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,…

you are mine and I am yours. So be it.’

To sum up…

  • If you’re thinking about moving on, try making some small steps and fill in some applications, what the worst that could happen?
  • Go to interviews till you find the right fit – they may say no, but you can also say no.
  • Find support! Chat and pray it through with others and get them to proofread and screen your calls.
  • Remember that you belong first to God, and He has the plans for your work and life in His hands.

 

About Bx

Rebecca Belshaw (aka Bx!) is 24 and works for a church where she has a ridiculously long job title summed up as ‘the person who looks after those who can run.’ Bx loves living by the sea, camping and dragging people out geocaching.

She is passionate about preaching and talking to groups, although you will often find her sat behind the tech desk.

Bx has a BA in theology from Cliff College and enjoys encouraging all people in expressing their love for Christ through their talents and gifting.

A Youthworker and a Bible Walk Into A Bar

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Culture and the Bible. These are the two indisputable pillars of effective youthwork. If you don’t get the former you can’t communicate the latter, if you can’t apply the latter you will make no difference to the former.

“There are two fundamental necessities in Christian Communication. One is that we take the world we live in seriously; and the other is that we take God’s revelation to us in the Bible seriously. If either is missing, the communication will be ineffective.” [Christian Youth Work, Mark Ashton & Phil Moon]

There is a youthwork culture in the UK that is really starting to push the envelop, dig deep and get innovative in cultural relevancy. This is absolutely fantastic! I fully embrace and stand by this.

I fear, however, that the Bible is taking more and more of a back seat.

The Famine of God’s Word in Youthwork Culture

I’ve been to almost every major, mainstream Christian youthwork gathering in the UK this year. These were amazing events with great people, and mostly solid, encouraging teaching. Most of all they were a showcase of good ideas to learn from! However they were also symptomatic of a serious famine of the Word of God.

I can count on one hand how many talks I’ve heard at Youthwork gatherings this year that genuinely opened up the Bible.

“Opening up the Bible means swimming around in its depths and drawing us into those hidden truths.”

This spills over to published materials too. Bible reading resources are driving further down the lane of ‘prooftext with reflection’ often without any discernible link between the passage and the attached thoughts.

If we don’t open up the Bible we lose perspective, focus, authority and foundations. What are we playing at?

We Don’t Know How To Open Up The Bible

Let me clarify what I mean by ‘opening up’ the Bible. Just reading a standalone verse and paraphrasing it a few different, interesting ways is not opening up the Bible. Reading a verse, picking a word from it and giving a talk on that word is also not opening up the Bible.

Opening up the Bible means swimming around in its depths and drawing us into those hidden truths. It means exegesis, context, study and clarity. It means bringing a passage to life by using the passage itself!

I’m becoming increasingly concerned that we don’t know how to do this.

My wife, an editor, is currently trying to re-write someones Bible Study that is trying to teach that David defeated Goliath because of his own prodigious experience and skill; not because he trusted in God despite his lack of experience and skill. How could we get a passage so dramatically wrong?

The Bible Makes Our Hearts Burn Within Us

Read Luke 24:13-35

How did Jesus reveal himself to the two followers walking to Emmaus? “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” v.27.

And how did they respond? They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” v.32.

“If you want young people’s hearts to burn within them in response to meeting with Jesus Christ, then you must, must, flippin’ must open up the Bible to them!”

If you want young people’s hearts to burn within them in response to meeting with Jesus Christ, then you must, must, flippin’ must open up the Bible to them! Yes, please be culturally relevant, but if you’re not going to bring God’s Word with you, you’re better off just staying at home!

If you want to communicate God’s heart, use His own words! There’s nothing wrong with the material – we must teach it until it burns within the hearts of this generation.

“However, if we have to err on one side or the other, we must not lose our hold on Christian truth. The simple message of God’s love for sinful humanity and of his forgiveness of our sins for the sake of his son has extraordinary and immense power: our incompetence as communicators is not able to destroy its ability to reach non-Christian young people.” [Christian Youthwork, Ashton & Moon]

How To Be The Ideal Youth Worker

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What makes an ideal youth worker ideal? What ingredients do you need to add to the mix? What specific traits and skills should we be developing to fill holes in our youth worker template?

This was a brilliant question posed to me in a training session this morning. I’m going to attempt to summarise my answer here.

There are several tiers to an ‘ideal’ youth worker starting with the nonnegotiable and working down to specific specialised skills. All of these should be developing, growing and organic.

We all love diagrams right? Here’s one I made earlier.

There are no ideal youth workers, we all know this, and every youthworker will be different depending on context. However I feel these principles are mostly transferable. They are the basis for what I expect from myself and my teams. They also form the framework of my interview process.

Love For God & Young People

At the top of the pyramid are the most important: a love for God and a love for young people – and a keen flow between these two. If you don’t have these you’re following the wrong trail.

F.A.T.

Second we see the key traits of longevity; faithfulness, a commitment to God, people, projects and ministry life; availability, a – within safe boundaries(!) – accessibility to people and projects; and teachability – a proactive willingness to learn and grow that is accountable and open.

Commitment to …

This tier contains the essential faith-driven lifestyle commitments: An ever growing passion for reading the bible, prayer and worship personally and within community.

Development of…

Here we see specific skills that will be useful regularly in all kinds of youth work. Listening skills are always valuable, as is the ability to think and problem solve creatively. A growing theological understanding is also important, alongside learning different ways to communicate this understanding. Finally it’s key that every youth leader is trained in best safeguarding practice.

Specialising in…

The final tier includes the main areas where a youth leader should think about specialising. Not all of these will be essential to every youth worker.

Relational practice can be developed in many ways, but comes down to forming lasting, impressionable bonds with young people. Activity basis is taking specific gifts, talents and passions that you have and developing them in ministry contexts, for instance sport, music, drama, debate or knitting.

Inclusivity is always important but will rely on your context. This may include working alongside various ages, social and health difficulties, specific cultures or members of the LGBT community. Similar to this is working with those with different learning styles; key if you are doing lots of communication work and schools projects.

Parental support is particularly valuable if you’re doing church-based ministry as family worship is always the end goal. Finally management is vital if you’re overseeing projects and people.

This last tier is always the least important and is always the area that changes most throughout your youth work experience.

How to apply this in team management

These five tiers should form the basis of in house growth and training.

You should have the top two tiers sown solidly into the regular fabric of your projects, ministry and recruitment process.

The third tier is checked up on through community involvement (generally) and through regular individual supervision sessions (specifically). I try to do individual supervision in various ways once every 6 months, and team supervision annually.

The last two tiers should form the basis of group training that you run and attend. The top of these should be three-line-whip sessions for the whole team with regular annual repeats, and training for the last should be made available to those who want it.

 

 

Youth Bible Study Techniques

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There are Bible studies and there are ‘Bible studies’, the former are awesome – and the latter, perhaps not so much.

It looks to me pursuing the shelves of my local Christian bookstores, that the vast majority of youth Bible study resources on the market today are the prefabricated and pre-answered formulaic type. You don’t necessarily study any Bible! Instead you study somebody else’s thoughts on studying the Bible. Does anyone else feel cheated and cheesed by this? If we don’t it’s possible that we too were reared on these ‘prefab Bible studies.’

Tell me, does this excerpt look familiar?

Title: David, Giant Slayer!

Aim: To show that even the smallest person can knock down their giants with a little faith.

Read: 1 Samuel 17:31-50

Ask: Do you think David was afraid to face goliath? Why not?

Say: David had faith that God would fight for him!

Ask: A giant doesn’t have to be a real giant. A giant could be a school test or a bully. What giants do you face at home and at school?

Ask: How do you think having faith like David’s would help you face those giants?

Pray.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this short excerpt, but it’s not really a Bible study is it? It’s a thematic, application-driven chat bouncing around a couple of verses in a passage without cracking them open and getting to the goo-of-awesomeness inside.

How about approaching a question set like this instead:

Read: 1 Samuel 17:48 (in context of vv.31-50)

Ask:

– What did you notice in the verse – Anything at all?

– If you we’re leading, what questions would you ask from this verse?

– Who was ‘The Philistine’ and how did he compare with David?

– What is ‘the Battle line’ and why were only two of them on it?

– How did both of them approach each other?

– Why do you think Goliath first arose, then came, and then drew near? Why three stages?

– Why do you think David ‘ran quickly’?

– What or who was running with David? (Look back at v.47)

– What do you think this verse teaches us about God? (Don’t be satisfied with one answer).

– How does it teach us about people who follow God and people who hate God?

– What does it teach us about size?

– How about fear?

– When you face obstacles, how do you approach them?

– What things in your world mock God like Goliath did – how do you think David would respond to them?

– What ‘David qualities’ from this verse would you like to add to your identity?

– What Goliath qualities could you do without?

There’s some key differences in this approach:

First, the verse itself is dictating what questions should be asked.

Most people you work with are not going to be Bible scholars. Every other word is going to create complications and confusion. So why not let that be the way into reading the passage?

Second, the questions begin observationally, move onto interpretation and end with the application and reflection.

The train is led by what you see, how you read the passage then follows, which informs how you act on the passage. This is often the exact opposite to the approach demonstrated earlier.

Third, this is question-driven not formula-driven.

Question-driven relies off who, what, when, where, why and how – whereas formula-driven relies on seeking exact answers to set up the teaching point that you (or your handy resource book!) need to make. Prefabricated studies are like knock knock jokes; the person hearing the joke needs to understand the joke formula or the punchline will fail!

Forth, the application flows directly from the passage it doesn’t have to be shoehorned in.

You might end up in a similar place application wise, but the grounding for it is much more secure.

Fifth, this teaches a method of reading the Bible that doesn’t rely on you – it relies on the text.

You and me – we’re fallible; shock, horror. The Bible? Not so much! Young people will be able to use this Bible reading technique on their own, carry it with them to university and help them spot Bible loving churches throughout their life.

Sixth, the Holy Spirit has more room.

The Holy Spirit is never divorced from the Bible itself, so you are allowing the Holy Spirit to speak more clearly because you are allowing the Word to speak more clearly. You also trusting conversation and discussion to the Holy Spirit for guidance and quality.

Seventh, the young people are directing the discussion.

Particularly in the early and late questions. This allows you to know much more about the young people that you’re working with, it helps them feel like they’re being heard and it develops you as a family, a team and a community.

Youth Bible Study Techniques

My Youth Work Survival Kit!

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Ever had to do a last minute session on the fly? Me too – and it can be a real knock to your youth work ego and savvy when you’re fumbling around trying to make a point from a can of tinned carrots and run a game using your own rolled up sock!

Therefore I keep in my car at all times a ‘youth work survival kit.’ This includes a few Bibles (obvs!) but a few other things as well:

– Deck of cards

– A jenga set with a series of open questions written on the blocks

– A set of story cubes

– Gaffer tape

– Pens & Paper

– A ball of string

– Pegs

– Post It Notes

– Mini frisbee

– A copy of ‘name your top three’

– An inflatable beach ball / ice-breaker ball

– Blu Tac

– A power extension lead

– A bluetooth speaker

– A ping pong ball

– A packet of straws
– A couple of tealights & matches

This all fits in a shoe box under my driver seat – right next to my first aid kit! – and it has saved my youthy bacon on several occasions!

I’d love to know what you keep in yours, so post a comment and let me know!