Lately I have been really down on myself for several reasons. Mostly because I just feel so overwhelmed with grad school and working as a youth minister. I love my job and I love these kids here in Cordell. There have just been so many things running through my head when it comes to youth ministry. My original idea was to do a lot of fun things to attract kids and then try to teach them the Bible. But I slowly found out over the past few months that the kids that are attracted by fun stuff are kids that are here for the wrong reason. The most common name for these kids is church-hoppers. They go wherever the most fun is. I admit, I was getting several kids here, but they were not being affected by the Word of God. I tried to set up Bible studies with some of them, but to no avail. They would just come to class once and be a problem and not come back except for the fun stuff.
The problem with fun stuff (like lock-ins, 5th quarters, and anything else fun) they take a lot of time to plan. That time cuts into my teaching preparation. So I was showing the visual Bible on DVD and doing very little preparation because I had events to plan. The kids were bored with class but loved the fun stuff because I prepared diligently for it.
I finally realized that this is kind of backward. I should diligently prepare for teaching God's word and put events second on my planning agenda. This may seem like common sense, but it was not readily apparent to me in the heat of the moment.
So the reason I was overwhelmed is because all of these church-hopping kids brought tons of baggage with them and I felt like I was not getting anywhere with them here. So I started preparing diligently for class and devotionals. I have been doing this for only the past few weeks and I see a difference. Not as many kids are here but the kids that are here want to learn and worship God (for the most part, they still have their moments). The church-hoppers are not here to disrupt the class, and there are actually a couple of them who have continued to come and my hope is that they will be changed by God's Word.
3 comments:
Bravo Josh. I hope the new route goes well for you. You're so right... God's word is always better than anything we try to do ourselves.
Take care, and give your wifey a big hug for me!
That's something that I learned very early on, but my main concern was the time constraints we have with kids. If I can only influence a kid 2 hours a week, 8 hours a month, 96 hours in an entire year, I want to make sure that I am teaching them the gospel, what it means to be a Christian, and how one comes to be saved. If I spend any of that time teaching them how to dribble a basketball, or how to suck down a pop while spinning in a circle, I have lost.
That doesn't mean we don't have fun times, but fun never trumps learning during the service times, it can't.
Just love those church-hoppers, love them a lot, but never mold your program to suit them.
Perfect example and then I'll shut up. I asked all the kids what I could do to make the Wednesday night service more interesting. The number 1 response, "Let us play more basketball."
Looks like you're learning some good lessons.
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-Ash
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