Teens and Youth 3 - Organize the youth ...

Friday, May 21, 2010. God loves the youth! And he wants to be there for them, on all levels. That has consequences for our churches, and for our society. Let's talk about churches first, today.

Youth Service

God wants to be there for our youth. He wants to serve them as he serves the older folks. Usually, important ingredients of this service are the worship services on Sunday mornings or evenings. We meet, we come together in the name of the Lord, we sing songs, we pray, we listen to teaching, to a sermon, and learn from the Lord. All this should be there for children and kids as well!

Over time we have been attending different churches, since we moved country and towns several times. So we got to know different ways how youth work can be integrated into church life. The best way I have seen is the following setup: the youth has its own service, its own worship room. They join the adults for the initial 15 minutes of the service, then they leave and move to their own hall. Here, there is a full service taking place, carried out for a particular group, for young people.

The youth service can be a lot of work. You need a team to do this, you need dedicated people who serve the youth in the name of the Lord. But I have also learned: the Lord is here. He is there, in the middle of the youth service. Here you can learn a lot, even as an adult. Faith does not need sophisticated or boring teaching. Faith needs a fresh view, love in your heart, a song on your lips. A youth service can renew your faith. It can guide you sometimes better than the services for the older people. The Lord wants this type of meetings, since he loves the youth.

Youth groups during the week

But as for adults, the youth needs more than just one meeting per week. We all need to be together with other believers. We need to pray for each other, we need to spend time together, we need to get to know each other better. Young people need some kind of youth group. They have different names in different countries and different churches. Usually, particular age groups meet one afternoon or evening per week. Teens might meet Fridays from 6pm to 8pm, with something going on even after that once every 6-8 weeks. Other young people meet Thursdays from 4-6pm. That depends, of course, on the school system in your country. Some schools finish at 12:30 like in Germany, others at 3:30 or 4pm like in the UK. The church will adapt its schedules to the world it lives in.

The youth can grow, when we serve them in the name of the Lord. That is important. We all need service. We need people who play music in our services. We need leaders who dedicate time and effort. We need love, keeping us in a heart, praying for us. So we need to serve the youth, by our decisions, by our prayer, by our dedication and practical work. We need to finance people who do the work on a regular basis. We need to invest our own time. We need to prepare the way for those, who have time and desire to carry out the details. Let us serve the young people as we serve the Lord! ... more texts