Super Social Ideas for Youth
So, have you ever suggested a fun social idea to your youth only to have them say “Uggh not that again”. It’s happened to me! Trust me, I’ve been there before. So I decided to share a few ideas with you that might help to make your youth program a little more unpredictable.
Let me start by sharing with you my simple philosophy for Youth Ministry. It is based on Luke 2:52. The New Century Version says it like this “Jesus became wiser and grew physically. People liked him, and he pleased God.”
This passage was written right after Jesus had been in the temple at the age of 12. It is the link from Jesus’ childhood to his adulthood. In just one simple verse we see how Jesus moved and developed though the teen years all the way into complete maturity.
In this passage Jesus was growing, just like our youth are, and the bible describes Jesus having a four-fold development. He grew wiser, that’s mental development, He grew physically that’s physical development, People liked him that’s social development, and ultimately He pleased God, the result of Spiritual Development.
Youth wrestle with how to balance these four areas. On the one hand they want people to like him, while on the other hand they want to please God but it can be challenging to do both. Not to mention the struggles they have physically trying to live up to the expectations and close scrutiny of how their peers and society tell them to look and act while still trying to maintain a sharp mental focus for school.
As Adventist Youth Leaders, our desire is to help youth grow and develop like Jesus. So here’s a simple idea, when planning for youth try to create Social, Spiritual, and Service opportunities for them to chill worship and connect to God and their community in a fun, cool and practical way. Gather your youth together one afternoon after a delicious home cooked Sabbath meal and invite them to brainstorm and come up with as many ideas as they can for all three areas.
Let them know that you are committed to helping them grow like Jesus grew and that means that they will not only socialize and have fun together, but that they will serve their community others around them together, and strive to grow spiritually together. Then for each of your social activities you do, see how you can incorporate some sort of service element and maybe even some kind of short but meaningful spiritual experience as well.
It is also important to allow your youth to be a part of the planning and brainstorming process for your activities. So here’s an idea. Get your youth together after church one Sabbath, after having a delightful Sabbath meal, get a white board and divide it into three categories. 1. Social, 2. Spiritual, 3. Service. Invite your youth to brainstorm and come up with as many ideas as they can for things that they want to do to as a group that will help them grow, in all three areas. Then have them vote on the top five ideas they want to try under each category, and commit to do at least 3 ideas a month. You can assign youth to help coordinate each activity and get them involved in making their ideas become a reality.
Now here are five practical easy to do social ideas for your youth group.
Have a Friday night youth night at one of the youth’s house, Assign a person to bring icebreakers, you can find tons of icebreakers at www.thesource4ym.com/games or at www.youthministry.com. Serve a nice supper starting at around 6:30pm, after supper do several icebreakers and group games. Then have a 5-7 min short talk on service and how youth can make a difference in the community. You can find opportunities for youth to be involved by contacting your local Adventist community service center or online at www.volunteermatch.org or www.networkforgood.org. Have a sign up sheet available for youth to sign up to get involved volunteering 2 to 3 hours per week in a at least one service opportunity available in their communities. End with a prayer time and ask youth to share their “forecast” for the next week. Let youth share how their emotional weather looks like for the upcoming week and why. Then have them divide up into groups and pray for each other.
After Church on Sabbath have your youth go into the community and do a ministry like, feeding the homeless, visiting a nursing home or going to a orphanage. After about 2 or 3 hours of fun and interactive service in the community, bring your youth the to the church for supper for sharing. Have them share stories of people who they met and have a time of corporate prayer for the community. Then after sunset have a game night in your school gym with volley ball, tag football, basketball and more. Have board games available for those who like that, and have a kids zone for the smaller kids to play and enjoy. Don’t forget to have snacks and food. This is great idea to implement in your church every month, for example the 1st Sabbath of the month.
Have a Friday night “Create Your Own Cool” evening for your youth. This involves utilizing different rooms in your local church or school. In different rooms have different activities going all at the same time. For example in the sanctuary have a youth or young adult praise and worship team from a sister church or school. In the fellowship hall, play Nooma videos, www.nooma.com. In another room have someone leading a short inductive bible study. In another room have tables set up where with construction paper and clay where kids can draw pictures, paint and make things with clay that describe their picture of Gods love for them. In another room have a light supper and food. So have these five options going all at the same time, and allow youth to go back and forth choosing and creating their own worship experience options in 20 min segments. And the end of the evening, have a short final general session.
On a Sunday evening, or Saturday night, have an interactive game night with your youth. See how many people in your church have the “Wii Fit” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Fit and have your youth take turns working out and exercising with the Wii Fit. Have board games available as well and have plenty of food and snacks available. Invite some, underprivileged children from the community to join you. End the evening by sharing “forecasts” and prayer.
Have an ice-cream social. After they are finished eating, do a few icebreakers to get them connecting and sharing. Then hand out copies of the local newspaper. Have students get into groups and come up with 5 ideas from the newspaper of things they can do to serve, show love and meet the needs of the community, allow each group share their ideas and then have the entire group pick at the top 3 ideas that they would like to start doing to make a difference in their community. Close by sharing “forecasts” and having a corporate prayer for the community.
