Practical Youth Ministry Tips

Do you have a couch that every one of your students is running for to sit on? Maybe you have a room filled with throwaway couches and so there is no special seat. Whatever your seat arrangement, you can set up a special seat in your youth room that can become something everyone wants. Enter, Upgrade Your Seat (or Audience Upgrade). A few years ago at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference they had a section they called the “Oprah seats” where Josh Griffin and Jake Rutenbar would come out and give away prizes to those sitting in a certain section. That was totally fun and a whole bunch of people got some cheap little gift, like a box of Mac & Cheese.

This is a twist on that idea. Most of us don’t have 3,000 students in attendance and making a section be the winner is not necessarily workable. BUT, we can make one or two students be the winners and get a nice seat while you are at it. The great folks over at GameShowBlog have a graphic you can use too. We used it at a recent retreat we had for high schoolers and had several different ways they could get their upgraded seat. Essentially we gave random students an opportunity to seat in a comfy seat right upfront and they had all sorts of goodies we gave to them.

How to give it away
We used twitter (even if your students aren’t on twitter, they can follow you on their cell phones by typing “follow your twitter handle” and sending that to 40404). We tweeted “the first person to grab the pen out of my hand gets to Upgrade Your Seat. We also taped a little alien figure to the bottom of one of the chairs. One time we had the first person to give us a note from one of their parents.

What to have there
Find a nice love seat or easy chair. Make it so it is big enough to fit more than one student. We got little end tables and put one on either side of the love seat. On each table there were all sorts of snacks (chips, cookies, cutie mandarins, popcorn, etc.). We also put out several different kinds of soda. You could put a hot, juicy steak there if you wanted to. Just make it worth it. You want students to want to win that prize.

What it does
It gives your students something new to get excited about.
It It makes someone feel special.
They get to bring a friend or a few and that is always fun.
Makes for an easy “game” when you really don’t have time for one in your session.

If we are all honest, we each deal with our own set of insecurities. I think a major insecurity for people working in youth ministry is knowing what to say after the small talk of “Hey. How’s it going?” is over. Even the most outgoing person can struggle with this. I want to share something with you that can dramatically decrease the stress level of not knowing what to talk about when you are with someone.

Basically it is the art of asking open ended questions. Closed ended questions are questions that have one word answers like “yes” or “nope” or “nothing.” How many times have you asked your child (or your parent has asked you) “How was school today?” And the answer was “fine.” I always laugh when I think about my mom asking my younger sister about school. This was a typical conversation.

How was school?
Fine.
How was your music lesson?
Good.
How was soccer practice?
OK.

Then she would walk to the refrigerator and stare at what was in there for a few minutes hoping something would grab her and then walk to her room. OR was that me? I don’t remember. Anyhow…not the deepest of conversations.

Better questions are Open ended questions. These are questions that require at least a sentence response. They can’t be answered in one word. They elicit thought to how they are answered. Here are a few open ended questions that you can use any time. Well, they are the start to an open needed question…you fill in the blank based on what the topic is.

What would happen if…
I wonder…
What do you think about…
In what way…
Tell me about…
What would you do…
How can we…
How did you…
What was your favorite part of…

I love open ended questions. I use them all the time. You may not always get the answer you want, but you are giving others the opportunity to reply in a way that gives you more insight into their thoughts.

Let’s go a little deeper with open ended questions.

Close your eyes for a moment. Seriously. Close them. No peeking. (OK, I guess this would only work if we were having a conversation audibly, but try it after you read it) Now imagine your favorite french fries. Picture them clearly in your mind. See the container or plate they are served in. Look at the color. Are they steak cut fries or thin, crispy fries? Are they really greasy? Is there a lot of salt on them or are there spices on them? Smell the fries. Take a deep whiff. Picture yourself taking a few of them and putting them in your mouth. How do they taste? Did you dip them in ketchup? Are you one of those weirdos who puts vinegar on them? Do you like them straight up plain? Mmmmmmm….

Fries is going to be what you think about to help you remember a specific set of open ended questions to ask students.
F.R.I.E.S. Each letter stands for something that will help you when you are not sure what to talk about.

Friends – ask about their friends. What do you like to do with you friends? Who is your best friend? What is the craziest story you have from being with your best friend. Do you have any friendships that have gone south you wish you could heal and start hanging out with again? (what happened? and what do you think you can do to start the healing process?)

Relatives – tell me about your immediate family? Who in your family are you closest with? Who do you struggle the most with? What is your favorite memory from your childhood? What is your favorite family vacation memory? Who is the oldest living member of your extended family? What is the coolest story they have told you from their own childhood? (they haven’t told you any? ask them to) Who is the “crazy uncle” in your family?

Interests – What do you like to do in your free time? What is your favorite movie? TV show? Band? Singer? Current song? If you had an entire weekend where you could do anything you wanted to and money was not object, what would you do? What do you spend the most amount of money on?

Extra-curricular – What kind of organized activities do you like to do after school? Are you on a sports team or in a band? Why do you play what you play? How did you decide you wanted to do that? What’s the best injury you have received from being part of that? Do you have a shareable scar?

Story – Tell me your story? What is your life like? If I were to trade places with you for a week, what would I experience? How does God fit into your story? (or does He?) What do you want to do when you get older? What dreams do you have that you feel like will never happen? Why?

Ask open ended questions. They will help you get to know your students so much better.

Be a better listener.

Make sure you walk away from a conversation with a student having listened to them talk more than they listened to you talk.

Ask good questions.

You know that student who seems to have the ability to totally derail any quality conversation you are having with your small group? Yeah, that one. I know, you feel guilty for secretly praying his family would move far away. It’s OK. We  all have him in our group. Knowing you are not alone is good, but what can you do about it?

His name is Micah. He always has something to say. Always. He was part of my small group for the last 3 years. Whenever someone would share at a volunteer staff meeting about some struggle they were having, inevitably Micah’s name would pop up. One week I had had enough. I wasn’t going to let Micah ruin our quality sharing time in our small group anymore.

I had a plan. It was a two-fold plan. First, I took him out to a local coffee shop and talked with him. I told him all of the thing I appreciated about him. I asked him what things in his life were encouraging and what things in his life were discouraging. Micah has a story. It’s not always the easiest story. I knew some of these things, but he shared more details. It gave me more empathy for him. Perhaps a little more tolerance. But it was not enough to make it bearable on a regular basis for him to continue to be disruptive. I told him that it was hard for me to lead our group when he would take our conversation completely off topic and turn everything toward something completely irrelevant.  I was gentle, but he received it.

Part two: I asked if he would be interested in helping me lead our small group the following week. His eyes and ears perked up and he listened for more info. I asked Micah to take time over the following week to prepare 30 minutes where he would take us through a passage of Scripture. It could be any passage he wanted to use. I also asked him to be prepared with 5 questions for us to interact with.

Small group the following Monday night came and several things happened when Micah’s turn came to lead. A) He read his Bible. That was a big task in itself. He has made it clear that he doesn’t like to read anything. Ever. B) He was completely involved in our discussion time because he was leading it. C) He asked the guys several times to be quiet and listen or interact. Even when someone was responding to a question he had asked and someone else interrupted. They listened. D) He got a little insight into what it was like for me at times with how he behaved.

Was he perfect? No. Did this make him completely stop derailing us after that? No. It did, however, lessen the amount of derailment. It gave me the opportunity to remind him of how frustrating it was for him when others interrupted when he was leading.

What have you done to help with “that” student?