How Often Do You Meet?

As a youth worker, I've always felt the struggle between the actual amount of time I get to spend teaching and working with youth and the amounts of time they spend doing other things that are required of their time such as school, school sports, choir, band, drill team, cheerleading, one act play, UIL events, Academic Decathlon, sleeping, chores, hanging out with friends, going to the movies, etc., etc. Naturally, I've always thought that an easy way to combat this was to give students more opportunities to meet for Bible study throughout the week and through more events and activities on weekends. Many churches meet only once a week, but I've always tried to meet on Sunday and Wednesday nights--Sundays for small groups and Wednesday for a combined group meeting. At each meeting we have about 30 minutes of hang-out time (refreshments, video games, table games, Christian music videos playing on the TVs), then about 15-20 minutes of worship, then we have Bible study (everyone together or split into small groups). After Bible study is over, we have about 30 minutes more of hang-out time. We also have Sunday School, however, that has never been an outreach-oriented time. That is mainly attended by the kids whose parents are members of the church and are attending a class of their own and our church services.

Today, though, I was emailing back and forth with one of our youth workers discussing some of the issues in our youth program. Although he was very supportive of our twice-a-week meetings, he seemed open to the possibility that having more than one meeting a week (besides Sunday School) may actually be a deterrent for some kids who feel like if they can't make all of them, then why should they come to any of them? I've always thought if they couldn't make one, they could always make the other, so in my mind, more meetings was a good concept. However, the more I think about it, I think he may be on to something.

So, I'm posing this question to you, my peers in youth ministry. How often does your group meet? What format(s) are those meetings. Do you have any outdoor recreation? Give me your thoughts on how your group responds to your scheduled meetings and leave them in the form of a comment to this blog. Your input is valued and appreciated.

Things to Consider Before Purchasing a Curriculum

I'm writing this post in response to a post on Tim Schmoyer's blog called "100 Blogs I Hope You Write." Being in youth ministry, few things are more important than the curriculum we teach. I've had both good and bad experiences with curriculum, so here are some key things I would like to consider.

1. How long is the study? How many lessons does it contain and how many weeks will the study last? Is that too short or too long of a period to study the particular topic? Will you have to break up the study for Christmas vacation or cut it off when summer starts?

2. Is the curriculum doctrinally sound? Different churches have different teachings about a variety of topics. Is this a curriculum that your Senior Pastor or others in your church would want you teaching? Will you have to edit the material to make it line up with your tradition? Some churches will authorize you to teach anything from the denominational publishing house (i.e. Lifeway for Baptists, Cokesbury for Methodists), but will also allow things from interdenominational publishers such as Group or Youth Specialties without having anyone screen your curriculum. Check with your senior pastor or church board to see about accountability standards for curriculum.

3. How long will it take to get through each lesson? This may be difficult to determine until you've actually done the first lesson, but needs to be considered. If the lesson will take over an hour to cover everything, the kids will be restless (especially jr. highers) by the end of the lesson and you won't have much time for announcements, worship, or games, if those are normally part of your program. Also, can you shave off some of the content in the interest of time and still get the message across?

4. Will the material in the curriculum be relevant to your kids? Sometimes Bible studies are developed to address certain issues in the lives of teenagers. Are these issues really relevant to YOUR kids? Once I purchased a curriculum that was great in and of itself, but it dealt with very heavy issues that many of our kids didn't face. Consequently it was really heavy and somewhat depressing in our context, even though it was still a very well-done curriculum with some of the foremost speakers, teachers, and writers in youth ministry today. I didn't finish the study because I felt like 13 more weeks of this would bring down my kids.

5. Does the curriculum fit your format? Do you want it for a small group study or for more of a sermon-style teaching format with more one-way speaking and less discussion? Many small group curricula can be adapted for the latter style of teaching, but there might not be enough usable material to justify buying a whole study.

6. How much does it cost? Depending on the size of your church and your curriculum budget cost may be a large or small factor. Video curriculum can cost more than just printed material, but will make up for cost in terms of holding the students' attention. Another thing technology has made available to us is downloadable Bible studies. By bypassing the cost of publishing the print media and the costs of shipping and making the material available directly to your computer, you can print and copy it yourself for a fraction of the cost of ordering a book. Some of the best (and cheapest) material I have used is available at Sycamore Tree Publishing.

What would you add to this list as important factors in purchasing curriculum? Have you ever neglected an aspect of curriculum and had negative repercussions? Have you ever purchased a curriculum that really was a home run? What factors made that study so successful?