written by John Byrne of the Rock of Southwest in Littleton, CO.
On May 29th my wife and I celebrated our 16th 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:
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
I am totally stoked for the full day ahead of us here at Epicenter. Greg is rolling out an entirely new sermon and content – I can’t wait to hear it! On another fun note, I just met Jeanne Mayo. What a cool moment in life.
I have come to appreciate more and more lately the incredible opportunities being a part of the Dare 2 Share family has brought me. Far above meeting cool people and heroes of Youth Ministry or even the fun trips I get to go on, it’s realizing the maginitude of the mission of Dare 2 Share:
Mobilizing teenagers to relationally and relentlessly reach their generation for Christ!
That gives me chills as I sit back and ponder what that means, the mission that we have accepted. It’s amazing. I look forward to the next two days here at Epicenter as we download this mission to 2,500 Youth Leaders. May God bless our efforts to advance His Kingdom!
I know. Those two words together seem almost an oxy moron, but it’s true. I spent my entire day in two uniquely different meetings but were both amazing experiences and opportunities.
My first meeting was an all-day Leadership Retreat at work – Dare 2 Share. I love our Leadership Retreats because they are great opportunities to step out of the trees and take a panoramic view of the forest. The two big high lights for me today were discussing Strengths Finder 2.0 and looking ahead to our next fiscal year (July 09 – June 10). It was an awesome experience as a team to look at how God has wired and gifted us. From there we are able to see as a team where we have strengths and how to maximize our potential at Dare 2 Share. Considering the rough times the economy is bringing it was perfect timing to wade through it all. Looking ahead to FY10 was exciting as it shed some light on where we are headed as a ministry and we got to discuss some big picture ideas. I love taking looks ahead as a ministry and then helping determine how we are going to get there.
Meeting number two was a first time experience for me. At our church, Northern Hills, we have a Teaching Team that shares the responsibility of teaching & preaching. The main pastors carry the majority of that load, but there are a few more of us that have the opportunity to preach once every few months. Tonight was a planning meeting for our upcoming series on Psalms. It was my first time being a part of the bigger picture strategy of helping prepare and speak into the entire series. As exciting as it was to be a part of this meeting, I am more excited to dive into the series later this spring!
