God’s Word is not an Appetizer

written by John Byrne of the Rock of Southwest in Littleton, CO.

On May 29^th my wife and I celebrated our 16^th wedding anniversary.  It was a good night.  Our plans were pretty loose, but we ended up at Olive Garden one of my wife’s favorite places to eat.  I enjoy their food as well, but the bread they bring out right when you get there is amazing.  If I am not careful I will be full by the time the real food arrives.  I have to pace myself, and by that I mean eat one loaf and ask them not to bring another.  As I think about taking students deeper into God’s word I often wonder if we spend too much time serving appetizers and not enough time serving the main course.  Students may go away full, but have they really been fed?

It is much easier to serve chips and salsa than it is to serve a healthy meal and more often than not that is what the students want.  A message built around a cool story with a verse pulled out of context is much easier than taking a passage of scripture and doing old fashioned exegesis.  For years I did the cool story bit.  Over time I began to realize that I had been taking verses out of context and using them to fit my message.  Even when I wasn’t using these verses in the wrong way I was still just serving appetizers.

How do you serve just the right amount of appetizer and make sure students are still hungry for the main meal?  It might be easier than you think.  Let me suggest a few things:

• Use what you are studying personally for your messages.

When I was in Bible college I had professor after professor tell me I needed to have personal study that was different from what I was teaching or preaching on.  Fortunately God designed me to be a rebel.  I just couldn’t figure out why this was a good idea.  Now I study a text and it is both personal and it is what I teach on.  This is better because the text hits home with me first before I teach on it.  It is better because I am not trying to study two things.  I can combine my efforts.

• Read the text when you preach.

Maybe your students are different than the ones in my youth group, but mine barely know where the New Testament is and they often are confused as to whether a book is in the New or Old Testament.  Reading the text and having them actually open their Bibles is important.  The word of God is what is sharp, living, and useful.  My stories, jokes, and illustrations are only useful as appetizers.  God’s word is the main course.  If my presentation is terrible, but I got students to open up God’s word and actually read it, that’s a win!

• Teach through books of the Bible.

It sounds boring and irrelevant to teach through a book of the Bible.  Well, it is old but it is definitely not irrelevant.  We make a big mistake if we think we have to make the Bible relevant, it doesn’t need our help.  Our job is not to make scripture relevant, but rather to help people understand it so they can see its relevance.  Last fall I did a relationship series using the book of Ruth.  The students who were there could probably still tell you the basics of that story.  Not only did they learn about relationships, they learned God’s word.  I just finished up a series on Haggai.  Most of them didn’t even know Haggai was book in the Bible and now they can tell you the basic premise of the book and probably a little about its historical context.  They are building a foundational knowledge of the Bible and learning to go deep in their faith.

• Use stories and illustrations strategically.

I have not always done a good job of using illustrations.  It isn’t because I forgot to use them or I didn’t tell the story well, but because I would find a funny story and force feed it into a message because I wanted to tell the story.  If you want to tell funny stories, be a comedian.  If you want to preach the word of God, be a pastor.  Stories, jokes and illustrations are helpful as long as they don’t become the focus.

As youth leaders we need to always point to Jesus.  The writer of Hebrews puts it this way, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”

John Byrne
Pastor of Student Ministries
The Rock of Southwest
www.pjs-web.net

How to write Bible study lessons for youth group

I got the idea for this blog topic from my friend Tim Schmoyer.  He offered up 100 blog post ideas for others to write about so I grabbed this one of the list.

I actually enjoy writing Bible study lessons for my high school small group.  It is a process I have been working on and refining for several years now.  When I was a full-time Youth Leader I was a huge proponent of writing lessons for 1 of my 2 weekly meetings with the teens.  This is the process I currently use that has become the most effective way I have ever led a Bible study.

A little over a year ago Greg Stier introduced me to the ALT-ernative teaching style which has since revolutionized the way I do lessons.  The idea is that you follow the ALT acronym: Ask, Listen, Teach.  You ask a question of the group to get discussion going, you listen the teens as they share their ideas and beliefs, and then you teach what God’s Word has to say about the topic.

ASK.  When my buddy Sam and I kicked this off in our small group we had each teen write 3-5 questions on a 3×5 card.  They simply needed to be spiritual questions that they desired answers to.  As we sorted through the cards we saw various types of questions: what is God like, why do bad things happen, how far is “too far,” what do I have to do to be saved, what’s the point of prayer, etc.  Each week we would rifle through our stack of questions and determine what we would study the following week.  We could have come up with spiritual questions on our own to kick-off discussion in the group, but found it was a great move to let the kids do this for us.  1) the questions were from the teens themselves so they spoke to their personal needs AND 2) they more readily engaged in conversation because they were their questions, not ours.

LISTEN.  This was sometimes the difficult part.  The temptation was to hear what teens said and jump all over it, but this only led to squashing the conversation before it ever started.  The awkward moments kicked in when we did ask questions that they didn’t immediately dive into and discuss.  This really requires you as the Youth Leader to stop and practice patients.  The other thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to agree with what the teens are saying but you want to cultivate an environment where they feel they can freely share their thoughts.  Sometimes you simply have to say things like, “Isn’t that interesting?” “Tell me more about what that means to you,”  “So what your saying is…” “Does anyone else agree or disagree?” “Why do you believe that?”  All of these questions encourage further discussion without affirming a particular view.

TEACH.  Each week I would actually get the kids to agree to the fact that we would dive into God’s Word to understand what it had to say about our question/discussion.  By getting them to agree to this part of the process, they were more engaged when we would read Scripture.  Also, because I had listened to them and heard them out they were more willing to hear me out.  You will have to be on your game and come prepared with multiple passages to go to.  When you throw out a big question like, “What are views of God?” you will get a variety of answers that might take you down different roads.  Depending on the conversation you might need to address God’s holiness, His forgiveness and love, the trinity, Jesus, the Creator, etc.  It can be a little messy, but your teens will love the rawness and authenticity.  If you get stuck, don’t lie or gloss over it.  Simply communicate that whatever point they have brought up is a great question that you don’t have the answer to and then commit together to find the answer in God’s Word.

Preparing lessons like this will be the easiest and most difficult thing you will ever do.  It’s easy from the standpoint that you won’t have to write a three point teaching outline, make fill-in-the-blank handouts for your teens, etc.  It will be more difficult in that you can’t always control where the conversation goes, you will have to be in the Word daily to have a stronger working knowledge of the text, and if you are working with volunteer leaders it will require more of them in the same way.

This is the most non-traditional approach I have ever taken to writing Bible study lessons for my teens but it has offered the most indepth discussions and incredible learning opportunities.  My teens have kept the discussions going outside of our meeting time and frequently reference previous conversations we’ve had much more readily and easily than any teaching outline they have ever been taught through.  I challeng you to give it a try and see what God does through your conversations.

D&W: a Chapter a Week

This week’s idea for going “Deep” in your Youth Ministry:

I love using curriculum when teaching my high school small (we just got done with Gospel Journey Maui).  Assuming that it’s theologically sound and allows you to discuss with your teens scripture and biblical truth like GJM, then it’s all good.  I have found an additional benefit to using curriculum is that it typically takes less prep time so it allows me to tend to other priorities in my ministry (and I know we all have seasons of ministry where we feel like we don’t quite have the time we’d like).  There are times where I find it necessary to take my kids deeper into God’s Word.

When I want to take my kids deeper, there’s nothing better than simply discussing a chapter of a book in the Bible each week.  A good friend of mine and co-laborer in Youth Ministry, Sam Holmes, is just now wrapping up the book of Romans with his small group.  Yes, I said Romans.  Jam packed with rich theology and deep truths, Sam and his teens have jumped in head first into this amazing book of the Bible and are unpacking and discussing it each week.  They have a deeper understanding of Christianity and their own faith as a result.

As I get ready for next fall when the school year kicks off I am thinking of diving into the book of Acts with my teens and exploring with them what the 1st century church was all about.  I want them to see and experience what it was like immediate following Christ’s resurrection when the first believers responded to the grace of God and what they were compelled to do with a new purpose and mission in life.  As we navigate through Acts, I will be teaching using the ALT-ernative teaching style from Dare 2 Share.  It allows the teens to ask questions, share ideas, and then dive deep into God’s Word.

For those of you who are already implementing this practice into your ministry setting, how is it going?  What have you studied?  How have your kids responded to reading a chapter a week?

For those of you who are doing something different with your teens to disciple them and get them growing deeper in God’s Word, share what your doing.  We’d love to hear other ideas here at Deep & Wide Youth Ministry!

HS Small Group 4/7/09

It was so good to be back with my high school small group this week.  One week we were off due to Spring Break and last week I was out of town for Dare 2 Share as Greg was speaking at Jeanne Mayo’s Epicenter event in Dallas.  I have missed my kids and it was great to get together with them tonight.  We wrapped up Gospel Journey Maui a few weeks ago and are now looking ahead to something new.  To kick things off tonight we watched clips for the new Blaze Promo DVD.  After that, I had a few ideas I was going to lay on them, but as God would have it they actually had a better idea. 

One of my 12th grade girls actually led a night of our Gospel Journey Maui study and the teens loved it.  She loved it.  I loved it.  What I learned tonight is that just about all of them want the opportunity to teach a night of study before the school year is over.  As we discussed this possibility, it also came up that not everyone in our group feels super tight with each other.  So, I combined the ideas and paired everyone up with someone they may not have opportunity to spend much time with during the week and it will be their responsibility to lead the group’s discussion for the week.  Here are some of the guidelines that we agreed upon:

1. The pairs are made up of 1 guy and 1 girl.
2. They will check in with me at least twice the week they lead to go over their lesson.
3. Our small group is driven by discussion, so they must use the ALT-ernative teaching style.
4. Each member of the teaching pair must present the GOSPEL during group.
5. Every point they make or that is discussed needs to be supported by scripture.

Here’s the cool thing – none of the balked at the assignment or guidelines.  They embraced them.  In addition to that, they are looking forward to the weeks that I throw them a curve ball and we cancel study and go to the mall or an afterschool hang out to share their faith with their friends.  They are actually looking forward to all of these opportunities.  All I can say is that God is amazing and is doing something special through this group of teens.  I can’t wait to share what happens over the next several weeks as these teens continue to relationally and relentlessly share the Gospel with their peers and dive deeper into their relationship with Jesus…

D&W: ALTernative Teaching Style

The ALTernative teaching style is something that grew out of Dare 2 Share’s recent project, Gospel Journey Maui, that was filmed in January of ‘08 and release October of the same year.  Greg Stier, founder and president of D2S, applied this method throughout the week of filming and has since put these ideas to paper and shared them with Youth Leaders nationwide.  It had a radical impact on the week he spent with 7 teens and twenty-somethings of various religious worldviews as they discussed some of the BIG questions in life and is sure to have the same type of effect in how you do Youth Ministry.  It has definitely been transformational in how I do it!

The following overview will definitely give you enough information to begin implementing this into your Youth Ministry, but nothing will prepare you more than simply diving in and applying the following principles.

ASK - Ask questions.  Ask questions without expectation or an agenda.  You need to ask questions and truly want to know what your teens have to say.  It may take a few attempts at this, but it won’t take long to create an environment that is open and where teens feel the freedom to share their responses.  It might take them back at first if this is not normal for your youth group setting, but you continue to encourage them that they have the freedom to share and while everyone might not agree all the time they certainly need to respect each other and not take things personally.  Dare 2 Share’s Gospel Journey Maui does a great job posing some incredible questions (and laying out this entire teaching style).  I have also asked the teens in my small group on occasion to write questions they have on 3×5 cards and we actually use their questions as the foundation for our discussions.  They even get more engaged in the conversation if they realize you are using one of their questions.

LISTEN – Listen to what your teens have to say.  The more you listen to them, the more likely they are to listen to what you have to say in return.  This is extremely valuable in this process and how you do here will translate into your overall effectiveness as a teacher to your teens.  In addition to earning their respect, by listening you will better understand where they are at and exactly what they need to learn.  As the conversation progresses, your teens may even have additional questions that they will want you to answer.  There is nothing like being asked by your teens to answer their questions and teach them the things they are wanting to learn.  How many of us as Youth Leaders / Teacher wish we walked into a room each week with our teens and wished they asked us more and more questions.  Personally, this is what has amazed me the most as I have implemented ALTernative teaching into my small group…as I listen and we have true conversations, they actually ask more and more questions.  I no longer have an issue having to fill our entire 90 minutes each week.  I have a problem keeping us within the 90 minute time frame.  Great problem to have!

TEACH – While this step sounds simple, it can be the most complicated in the process.  You need to have some flexibility here.  If you started your lesson by asking, “Who is God?” and in your mind had prepared to support Him being Creator, but as your teens responded to your question they landed on the fact that Jesus is God and began wrestling through the Trinity and Jesus being fully God and fully man, your refernces to God being Creator and having scripture passages to support that won’t resound well with your kids.  In fact, they’ll probably think you didn’t listen to a word they said because the point you are trying to teach has nothing to do with where they went with it.  While we can try to prepare for everything our teens will throw at us, the truth is we can’t.  Here are a few suggestions:

1. Stay in the Word daily.   The better you know God’s Word in general, the better equipped you will be to speak to the various questions your teens will ask or the points they will want to learn more about.
2. Be honest with them.  If you don’t know the answer, tell them you don’t but commit with them to find the answer in scripture and come back the following week to discuss it after some research.

This format isn’t necessarily new news either.  You can actually find examples of this all throughout scripture, especially in the New Testament.  Several times we read Jesus asking a question of the crowd, listening to their responses, and then teaching them where they are at.  One of my personal favorite examples of this in scripture is the discussion Philip has with the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8.  You see Philip ask the Eunuch some key questions, listen intently to his responses to better understand where he was at, and then teach him truth based on scripture.