Working with teens and pre-teens is not an experience everyone wants to have. Many believe the only way to survive is to be young yourself. Many churches report however, that seniors are volunteering in large numbers to work with this sometimes difficult age group. They make some of the best leaders of youth ministries San Antonio TX churches have ever seen. Most of these volunteers have some strategies in common.
If you are leading a group, you have to make it fun. If it isn't, you will quickly lose your crowd. You can make up silly games, have sleep ins, and recruit rock bands for parties. On the surface, they might not seem to have much to do with ministry, but every activity has to have a purpose behind it. You might be encouraging shy kids to participate or forcing everybody to work together. Whatever it is, there must be a gospel message at the foundation.
There are always kids that hang back. They might have been forced into your program by their parents or followed someone they have a crush on in order to get their attention. It doesn't really matter why they are there. It's your job to engage them and try to pull them into the group. It takes time and effort, and doesn't always work, but this is one of the challenges of the job.
Along with the fun activities, gospel lessons also have to be fun and interesting. Kids can be turned off by preaching. If you take the time to engage their imaginations and demonstrate how ancient stories are relevant to their lives, you might get them thinking. Instead of making yourself the center of the discussion, open the dialog, sit back, and let your kids take over.
It's important for you to really understand these kids. You have to be sensitive to which ones will grab the spotlight away from others and which ones are terrified of being singled out. You need to understand where they are on their spiritual journey. Instead of asking directly, which will embarrass most of them, you have to let them open up on their own terms.
Meeting the parents is important for youth ministers. This is especially true if you are working with younger children. You want the parents to leave their kids feeling that they are in good hands. If you sense a kid has problems at home, or seems to have parents who don't want to be involved, you can reach out without forcing yourself on them.
Becoming a youth leader is serious business. It's not a job you should enter into lightly. There are going to be kids in the ministry who have had bad experiences with unstable and unreliable adults. They may look to you as the only consistent, positive presence in their lives.
Teenagers are not babies, and they aren't adults. They are in flux between the two. This is a critical time, and you can make a difference.
If you are leading a group, you have to make it fun. If it isn't, you will quickly lose your crowd. You can make up silly games, have sleep ins, and recruit rock bands for parties. On the surface, they might not seem to have much to do with ministry, but every activity has to have a purpose behind it. You might be encouraging shy kids to participate or forcing everybody to work together. Whatever it is, there must be a gospel message at the foundation.
There are always kids that hang back. They might have been forced into your program by their parents or followed someone they have a crush on in order to get their attention. It doesn't really matter why they are there. It's your job to engage them and try to pull them into the group. It takes time and effort, and doesn't always work, but this is one of the challenges of the job.
Along with the fun activities, gospel lessons also have to be fun and interesting. Kids can be turned off by preaching. If you take the time to engage their imaginations and demonstrate how ancient stories are relevant to their lives, you might get them thinking. Instead of making yourself the center of the discussion, open the dialog, sit back, and let your kids take over.
It's important for you to really understand these kids. You have to be sensitive to which ones will grab the spotlight away from others and which ones are terrified of being singled out. You need to understand where they are on their spiritual journey. Instead of asking directly, which will embarrass most of them, you have to let them open up on their own terms.
Meeting the parents is important for youth ministers. This is especially true if you are working with younger children. You want the parents to leave their kids feeling that they are in good hands. If you sense a kid has problems at home, or seems to have parents who don't want to be involved, you can reach out without forcing yourself on them.
Becoming a youth leader is serious business. It's not a job you should enter into lightly. There are going to be kids in the ministry who have had bad experiences with unstable and unreliable adults. They may look to you as the only consistent, positive presence in their lives.
Teenagers are not babies, and they aren't adults. They are in flux between the two. This is a critical time, and you can make a difference.
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When you are searching for information about youth ministries San Antonio TX residents can come to our web pages online today. More details are available at http://www.mountzionfbc.org/youth now.
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