#Youth with you how to#

Perform required background checks for volunteers and staff working with youth.

Provide training for youth teachers and leaders, especially on discussion and listening skills.

Don’t assume that a young adult is necessarily best suited for the job.

Recruit adult leaders for youth activities who are knowledgeable, committed, spiritually mature, and effective in communicating with young people.

Provide excellent adult leadership for youth activities Involve youth in planning and leading mission activities.

Integrate “service learning” into Christian education to teach discipleship.

Provide training in spiritual disciplines - prayer, Scripture reading, acts of mercy.

Experience is often more important than information about faith. Faith must be experienced before it can be articulated.

Emphasize experience-centered learning.

Articulate the basic tenets of the faith clearly and often.

Allow them to find their voice and worship God in their own musical languages and styles. Help youth make connections between their music and faith.

Get acquainted with the music kids spend their time listening to.

Empower youth to rewrite hymns and prayers in ways that are meaningful to them.

Give teens permission to ask questions and talk about their doubts.

Use current events as discussion topics.

Recognize that discussion and conversation are essential to faith formation.

Offer a first-rate program on human sexuality to which parents would want to send their kids.

Honestly address issues related to sexuality.

Ask if your youth Sunday School curriculum is seriously addressing the questions kids are really asking.

“Get real” with Christian Education for youth

Teach parents the importance of just hanging out with their kids.Provide support groups and resources on family concerns and child-raising issues.Consider an intergenerational format for Christian education that has youth and parents study together.Provide resources for practicing and discussing faith at home - for praying together as a family, for observing Christian holidays, and conversing about faith issues.

#Youth with you how to#

Start a study group for parents of teens aimed at helping them understand how to nurture their teenagers’ spirituality.Getting parents involved and serious about their own faith is the best way to get youth involved and serious. Support faith formation in the parents of youth.Know that parental influence is the primary factor determining the religious commitment of youth, even for older teens.Encourage youth to be involved in all aspects of church life.Įquip parents to nurture their children’s faith Appreciate that youth ministry is more than youth group.Invite them to suggest ways the church can help them grow in faith. Solicit input and feedback from teens themselves, not just parents and adults leaders. Don’t make young people be like you before they can be like Jesus.Shake off stereotypes of youth as irreligious, rebellious and difficult.Understand young persons as participants in ministry, not objects of ministry.Appreciate and validate youth as persons of sacred worth with legitimate spiritual needs and responses.

Here are 50 Ways your congregation can strength ministry with teens and their families. How can your church help youth claim a vital faith? No question is more critical to the future of the church. Keeping Our Sacred Trust Ethics Training.Maintaining Boundaries in a Digital Age.Preventing Misconduct - Keeping Our Sacred Trust Online Ethics Training.Clergy Age Trends in the United Methodist Church.