This past weekend I took my JR High students to Forest Home Winter Camp. Not only do I love ministering to middle school students, but I love Forest Home Christian Camps—out of all of the Christian camps I have been to, Forest Home knows how to do it right. The food is great, facilities are great, programming is great, JR director is great, location is great, and the worship and teaching are always right on!
Ministering to middle school students is also great. Middle school students actually listen , respect, and obey you. If you say: "Hey, lets jump up and down and scream" they will do it. Middle school students are so dependent and clueless. It was sooo funny, throughout the entire weekend only one boy out of 14 took a shower. Needless to say our cabin stunk bad and it did not even phase any student that our cabin stunk, but they also stunk! The weekend was a blast! Although throughout the four camp worship sessions, I paid close attention to how the speaker was connecting, communicating, and illustrating his four messages to the middle school students.
In these four speaking session, I was asking the questions of: Do these students understand what is being said? What are great spiritual topics to teach to JR High students? What teaching/speaking method works the best for JR High? What stories should be shared? Can students understand the hard theological topics within the Bible? How long should a JR High message be? Does a JR High message need to include the JR High students’ participation and interaction?
Through my contemplating, reflecting, and asking I concluded that when delivering a message to JR High students it needs to be clear, concise, simple, narrative-based, short (15-20minutes), high energy including much randomness, and heavy usage of props, pictures, movies, and illustrations.
Communicating to JR High students is completely different than communicating to SR High students. JR High students are concrete thinkers while SR High students are abstract thinkers. JR High students are intuitive. They like to feel life. They need to feel Jesus, than learning about Him. A JR High communicator needs to layer his or her message in the affective. One can successfully do this by relying on the story of Jesus. All throughout the gospels Jesus uses stories to teach His followers. Jesus’ teachings are simple, but yet very profound. Jesus rarely tries to hammer out complicated doctrine for only the elite to understand. Bottom line: We as JR High communicators need to be sensitive to where JR High students are at spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, and cognitively. Before we connect the middle school student to Jesus, we need to first connect with them. We need to establish a rapport with the students in order to achieve the task of delivering Jesus. It should be our goal as Youth Pastors to get middle school students to know, trust, experience, love, and obey Jesus.
10 comments:
Jr highers listen, respect, etc. So true! HS'ers are a whole diff. ball game.
The best thing about Jr Highers is that they can still tell when someone does not love them and respect them as people. All the other stuff is great but if you look at the numbers of the students in your youth ministry for middle school there is a strong correlation between middle school ministries that have a youth pastor that loves them and respects them for who they are and a youth pastor that does not. The ones that do love and respect those students have a lot of success with this age those who don't, well they fail. When I was a youth pastor I found that middle school students are a lot smarter than one would think. Therefore, I would communicate to them, not over them, or at them. This is key for a good middle school/jr. high youth pastor/speaker to understand with this awesome age group.
drew girton,
Yes and no. You need to develop your thoughts more.
So Drew what are you saying?
You suggesting that a youth pastor need to love and respect their kids and speak at them.
What does it mean to speak at them? Use language that they will understand? I am not sure what you mean there?
drew girton,
Is that why you quit the youth ministry? Did you learn that after the fact?
Seth - wow, so when do I need to turn in my dissertation on this? I didn't know I was being graded.
Jeremy, what I meant by speaking at them is telling them everything they need to be doing. Such as, ordering them around like their parents. This concept of teaching is not doing much good for the student’s spiritual development and knowledge. Granted, the middle school age still needs black and white although they still have enough person-hood to be able to think on their own two feet. I have had many bright middle schoolers who have done really well with teachings that make them think. My hope was to see students growing instead of telling them what to think and believe and producing mini-drews. I wanted them to start taking steps in a positive direction not to tell them what they should do. Develop leaders and thinkers don't tell them how they should act, they're not robots. Plus, I am not saying to speak over their head...that’s not it either.
And... Yes, using language that they understand helps but not dumbing down your vocabulary either. Treat them as people not as little kids cause they get that all the time. We need to be using language of the culture to connect but not using it to let them think you are "cool." My main point is treat the students as people, and try not to talk to them as their parents do, as hard as that may be it is possible if you are a good communicator.
Seth,
I NEVER quit Youth Ministry. I love those students very much and still have a relationship with many of them. However, my calling was to that place for a period of time. I believe that ministry is not just inside the Church's walls but everywhere one looks. It all depends on how you view ministry.
p.s. i learned that 3 months into the job after failing week after week.
Because middle school students are so extremely self-conscious, I've found that they won't ask questions aloud in any format unless they are 100% comfortable. Asking questions, in my experience, is essential to the student to develop learning (and for me as an educator to know if I am hitting the mark or way off or if I used a word not in their vocabulary that I need to define).
Providing opportunity in a comfortable environment for a youth to ask difficult questions is a key task in my ministry. When a youth is asking questions, they are thinking about what you say, they are engaged and interested especially when you are answering a question that hits close to home.
Their questions will reflect where they are and what their needs are without me having to guess or make assumptions.
I don't work with HS students, so I can't really speak for them, but "anonymous question time" provokes the best conversations in my weekly classes and bible studies.
DG thanks for the clarification. Totally makes sense.
Alaina-- thank you for your comment on the art of questioning. You are right on the $$$ there.
I believe that the beauty of jr. high students comes from their new found sense of independence. They are ripe for anything that smacks of interest in their lives. Drew nailed it by speaking of love and respect. To give respect (and not faking it) to a junior high student opens up many doors to ministry with that student and many times their friends. What a delightful age filled with wonder and a perfect chance to create a new identity with them in Christ.
Actually, very similar to college students.
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