Sharing the Lode: Mining Teens' Ideas
Every youth worker know that kids participate more eagerly when they've helped plan the activities. But pulling ideas out of teenagers is often quite a tug.
Glenn Davis, youth minister at First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has found some fresh twists to make his fall planning retreats productive.
"When both youth and parents are involved from the beginning, they get excited," says Davis. "Plus, we have the whole year planned by the end of September. We're not struggling each month wondering what to do next."
One weekend the junior highers go to a nearby camp for their Friday night through Sunday fun-and-planning retreat. High schoolers, however, aren't free on fall weekends, so after a Friday night football game, Davis plans an all-night lock-in event at the church.
Between recreation times, Davis schedules two planning sessions. The first is for brainstorming. Five "stations" are set up, each with an adult leader, to concentrate on each of the five areas of ministry: worship, study, ministry to the church (usually intergenerational), service to the community, and fellowship.
Youths rotate through each station, focusing their thoughts for 10-15 minutes on that area. Leaders, who have met previously and have some suggestions to prime the pump, try to lead the groups to general agreement before any idea is recorded on the large sheet of poster board.
"This forces our groups to communicate, to help refine ideas," says Davis.
For the second session, the rotation begins again, but this time the goal is to select the four best choices in each area. Again, each group decides together on how it will cast its votes.
At the end of the cycle (about 90 minutes), leaders tally the votes of each small group for each area and ...
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