In two previous 'future' posts, 'consumers or servants' and 'learning to serve', I suggested that guiding our young people away from a consumer mentality into one of discipleship, engagement and mission is one of the biggest challenges youth leaders, certainly in the west, face today. I'm confident that our teaching would bear more fruit, our prayer be more vibrant if witness, mission and social action were an integral part of youth ministry.
Here are my 5 reasons to help answer the question, 'Why should I be involved in mission?' Use this as a personal reflection, as part of a presentation or perhaps an outline for a youth group study.
Continue reading "The future of youth ministry - 5 reasons for mission." »
The first in a new series of discussion starters for your youth group. Use this discussion starter to introduce a study evening on the Ten Commandments and take as little or as much as you need.
We encounter directions, instructions and rules every day. Do they help us? If we had the power, what rules would we make? Does God have instructions for our lives? What are they? Why are they important?
CAN YOU FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS?
Ask for four or five volunteers and direct them to sit behind a table in front of the rest of the group. Explain they have volunteered to do a short exam! They need to take it seriously and normal examination conditions will apply i.e. no talking and leave the test papers face down until the start. Stress that they have only five minutes to complete the test. Ask the rest of the group for complete silence to help them concentrate, as time is short. Tell the candidates that when they finish, they must not talk or seek to communicate to any other person in the room, until the five minutes are over. Distribute the papers (see below) and in a solemn voice instruct them to begin.
Most, if not all the young people, faced with the time pressure will plough right through the test ignoring the first instruction and not become aware of question 20 until they have completed 1-19.
Continue reading "Living by the rules - a youth group discussion starter" »
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