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Assessing new students

July 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Matt: This is a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately. I have a whole new group of freshmen coming to my high school small group in the fall and I want to be able to figure out where they are spiritually. Once you assess your group as a whole you can begin planning out what lessons you need to do and the depth you can go. You don’t want to confuse new believers and at the same time you don’t want to bore those who are further along on their walk with God. Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Talk with their former leaders and get a heads up on each student. You may already know who their former leaders are and if not you can ask someone on your student ministry team if they can help you with this. I’m not looking for confidential information that students have shared with their former leaders, I just want to know where they are spiritually.

2. I know there are different “spiritual assessment” tests you can give students but I’d rather have a one-on-one conversation with a student. I think often times it’s too easy to put a different answer on an assessment test so that I can make you think I’m something I’m not. I worry that at first students might be more interesting in telling me what they think I want to hear than what is actually going on with them.

3. I mentioned it above, a one-on-one discussion over food or ice cream or Starbucks is a great way to figure out where students are with God. It also helps you start to build a relationship with them and at the same time they can learn more about you and begin to get more comfortable with their new leaders.

4. Pray. Ask God for help in showing you where each of your students are spiritually and what they need to know.

Steven: Both Matt and myself are going to be getting brand new groups of students, and I’m sure there are a ton of leaders that read this that are also gearing up for new students. So how do we assess our students and find out where to start with them?

First, realize that every student is at a different level. Even in a small group setting, you’ll have students that run the whole spectrum of spiritual-connectedness (not sure if that’s a real word). In my group this year, I had one kid who knew more about the Bible than I did (and I’m a biblical studies major), but I also had students who heard the Gospel for the first time.

Like Matt said above, I totally believe that one on one conversations are the best way to assess where a student is with God. In a group setting, it’s easy to hide behind what other people say and we as leaders can’t count on honest answers. One on one, students have more of a tendency to be real. Especially in the beginning, they probably feel safer in that type of setting too.

The last important thing to remember is to constantly re-evaluate. It’s great to get an initial reading, but things change with junior high and high school students super quickly. Every couple of months, be sure to look at where they are and how they’ve grown.

Filed Under: Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , ,

Summer Student Ministry: Grow Those Relationships

May 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

We’ve written about keeping in contact with students over the summer because we feel that’s a time when some students fall off the radar and we lose them from our ministry. Let’s face it, just because the school year ends does not mean that problems and issues for students end. It’s also a great opportunity for some one-on-one time with students. Check out this awesome post from Andy Blanks at YouthMinistry360.com on how to take advantage of summer. We have a tease below, head on over here for the rest.

Summer. It’s a different animal for so many youth workers, isn’t it?

There are a lot of you reading this that are looking forward to Summer because it’s a break! You’ll pretty much shut down the programmed aspect of your youth ministry. Save for a Summer Camp here or a Mission Trip there, you’re looking at a few months of no youth group. (Which evokes mixed emotions, for sure.) Others of you will more or less keep programming the same during the Summer months. (But the dynamics are different. With students and leaders traveling more often, and with a more laid back schedule, you’ll watch attendance be spotty at best.) Still, there’s a third group that will land somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. You’ll have some sort of programmed activities, and you’ll definitely hit the Camp and Missions scene.

Whatever Summer looks like for you, there’s one aspect that we all have in common: Summer is the perfect time to grow relationships with individual students.

To some this will seem like an obvious statement. But to others, the first response might be to disagree. If your tendency is to see Summer as a time to “check out,” let me challenge you to see Summer as fertile ground for strengthening your relationships with students. For those of you who would say that building relationships in the Summer is actually more challenging, I would agree in one regard: it takes a different kind of effort on your part. You’ll have to be more intentional about seeking out students. But I believe it’s worth it . . .

Filed Under: Repost, Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,

Reaching different students in different ways

March 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of my favorite things about student ministry is the time I get to spend talking to students and ministering to them one-on-one. I think that’s when the real ministry moments happen and students are able to break down the barriers they so carefully and purposefully createaround themselves when they’re with other people their same age.

When it comes to individual ministry though, something I’ve had to learn is that not all students respond to the same type of communication. That kind of seems like a no-brainer, but it didn’t come so easily to me.

Here’s one example in the small group I have this year: I have one student that responds amazingly well to just sitting somewhere, ignoring everything else that’s going on and talking face-to-face. We’ve had the most amazing, connecting moments doing this, and that’s when the most ministry has happened for him. On the other hand, I have a guy who has a big problem focusing in a one-on-one, face-to-face setting. I’ve had to learn that actually communicating via text with him is the best way for him to focus and get something out of our conversations.

It was hard for me to make that adjustment, because my natural tendency is to assume everyone communicates the same way. Obviously this isn’t true. We just need to be able to find a way to key in to whatever a particular student needs most.

Question: How have you had to adapt the way you communicate with students to minister effectively? Let me know here.

Filed Under: Counseling, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Keeping tabs on students over Christmas Break

December 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

“What are you doing to keep in contact with your students over Christmas Break, Steven?”

Well, mysterious voice, I’m doing a few things. None of them are difficult or terribly time-consuming, but they all show your students that you’re not just the guy that shows up once a week and then disappears.

  • Texts every day. I will usually send a generic text to all my guys every day to start a conversation. Yesterday I sent out a typical, “Hey! How was your Christmas?” I had 6 guys text me back right away and start a conversation.
  • One-on-ones. Breaks are a great opportunity to spend some intentional time with individual students. They’re more available and often get bored sitting at home, so they want to get out of the house.
  • Impromptu group stuff. I haven’t done a ton of this in the past, but it has some good potential. It would be something like texting all your students, “Hey, I’m going to be at Chick fil A at 6:00. Come on over if you want to hang out!” This would probably be easier with high school students than junior high because of the freedom of driving.

These 3 things are simple, but encourage solid relational ministry over a usually static time in the year.

Question: What do you do to keep in contact with your students over a short break? Tell us here.

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The best ministry moments happen after the organized plan is over

November 16, 2011 by 1 Comment

Last night I had one of the best nights of small group ever. It wasn’t the lesson. It wasn’t the topic. It wasn’t even the snack before we got started. It’s the conversation I had after the organized lesson was over.

The conversation I had last night reminded me of something. Even though we can plan to have a great lesson that we think our students need to hear, we put in a ton of effort to prepare it and get great discussion questions ready and then we execute it PERFECTLY, nothing beats one-on-one relational ministry. The topic we spent an hour talking about last night was good, but the fifteen-minute conversation I had with one student made the night great. We took a huge leap forward in that one student’s life.

This post is two things: 1) A huge praise to the God that made everything happen and gave me the words when talking to that student last night and 2) a reminder to all leaders: Do not get so caught up in your plans that you miss the opportunity for the unplanned. That is when great ministry happens.

Filed Under: Counseling, Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Ministry after the lesson

September 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Matt: Sometimes we have a plan for our students, and at the time it seems like its going to be a great night and a great lesson, but it just doesn’t go over as good as we thought it would. Sometimes I think I “over plan” a lesson. I get frustrated that my students don’t seem to get as much out of a lesson or a small group time as I put into it. That’s when it will hit me that those were my plans and maybe not the plan that God had for that night. I’ve learned that my job sometimes is just to plant the idea with students and then they have to take it from there. I’ve gotten good at letting the Holy Spirit take charge over things I know I can’t change or fix with a student, but I sometimes lack the patience.

This past week I had a good small group time with my students. We had a great discussion time after the lesson, and I felt good about the night. Later that night I got a text and then a phone call from one of my students who was going through a tough time and had a lot on his mind. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about the issue with the entire group yet and he just wanted my advice. We ended up having a phone call that lasted almost a hour. Afterwards it dawned on me that I probably did more ministry work that night with that one student than I did with all of them earlier that night.

That’s how student ministry goes sometimes – sometimes God will use you in a way you never expected or planned. You have to be open to Him using you in a way you never expected. That’s often when the real ministry work happens.

Steven: Two weeks ago, I experienced the frustration that Matt talked about above. The group time wasn’t exactly what I had planned – the boys weren’t focused, there were disruptions and distractions galore, and not much got done. By the end of our discussion time, I was pretty frustrated that the guys wasted a night of what could have been a potentially great night.

Then something cool happened. After the discussion was over, I could tell one my guys was hanging back a little. He’s the type that as soon as group is over, he’s sprinting out the door to get to his mom’s car, but not this time. I asked him what was going on and he said he wanted to talk about something from the discussion tonight. In my mind I was thinking, “Holy cow, you actually GOT something from tonight?” Keep in mind, too, that this is one my guys that is very private and not very talkative. He’s also the type that comes from a Christian family and seems to have it all together (we all know that person doesn’t really exist in real life). He told me some stuff he was struggling with, and it was a great moment.

I learned (or re-learned) two things that night.

  1. Just because things don’t go your way, doesn’t mean they didn’t go God’s way. I thought the night was a total waste, but it ended up being something that was extremely helpful for one of my guys.
  2. You never know how a particular message will affect your students. I wouldn’t have expected to have the talk I did with my student that night. I didn’t think the issue we talked about was something he struggled with, but I had my eyes re-opened.

Question: Does your small group time go the way YOU want it, or do you allow it to go the way GOD wants it?

Filed Under: Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,