* A humorous example used in this book is from a youth retreat where students participated in an activity where each student would climb up to a reasonable height, jump off a column, and try to grab a trapeze (there was a pond below the students, don’t worry).

Later in the retreat, one of the speakers for the camp used the jump for a “taking a leap of faith” analogy. A female student at the camp came up in tears to her youth pastor later and was upset because she wanted to give her life to Christ, but was deathly afraid of having to jump off the ledge and into a pond.

She missed the metaphor. The abstract thought didn’t connect.

This is Mid-High Ministry. In this chapter, the authors do a great example of helping youth workers understand the reason why their students can get lost as they are learning the art of abstract thought.

I strongly reccommend this book for youth workers (both paid and volunteer) and parents of mid-high students. If you would like more info contact me or check out the link here.

There are 5 parts I think are in a typical small group night in our youth ministry (add a 6th in the comments if you would like). These don’t happen each week, they don’t always happen in order, but these are definitely things we want to happen regularly in our high school small groups.

COMMUNITY || Talk about life and hang out.
It feels most natural to start off a small group night with a relaxed atmosphere. Students usually show up over the span of the first 15-minutes of group, so some casual non-programmed time up front talking about the water polo team or the hilarious new Youtube video is usually time well spent. Plus, it’ll give you a little honest glimpse into what your students are into when they’re not with you at group.

ACCOUNTABILITY || Spend time sharing the good, bad and ugly in our personal life.
Transition the time of hanging out into a time where you talk about real-life stuff that’s going on. If there’s something we talked about the week before that might make a good transition, throw it out there. It doesn’t have to be super serious – some nights it will and some nights it will be random, funny stories everyone shares. Begin to focus the group and talk about personal discipleship decisions, Bible reading, girls/guys, purity, etc.

TEACHING || Instruction encourage students in their walk with God.
Part of the purpose of small groups is giving students a lesson/teaching, so we spend a few minutes talking over a story, passage or principle from the Bible. They key is helping them make it personal.

CHALLENGE || Ask them to take a step forward.
What is your challenge this week? Students are asking “so what” I issue a challenge to the group. Maybe the challenge is a resource I want them to tackle with me. Maybe it is a article I read online I copied for them to check out on their own. Maybe it is a prayer I ask them to pray. Either way, make sure you invite them to take a spiritual step forward.

PRAYER || Spend a few minutes in specific prayer for the members of your small group.
Cover last week’s prayer requests quickly and then jump into what is on the hearts/minds of students this week. Usually the group ends in prayer than quickly moves to the COMMUNITY stage again for fun/games/stupid for the last bit of time in the evening.

I encourage all youth workers, especially those involved in FamilyChurch.tv youth ministries to Check out Joshua Griffin’s blog “More than Dodgeball“. Josh does amazing things with the high school students at Saddleback.