Thursday, March 23, 2006

An Idea For A Youth Group Activity

I've been teaching our teens' class on Wednesday nights. I try and find ways to integrate cartoons, video clips, and various visual aids to make the class engaging and memorable. I think in teaching teenagers, there is a line that has to be drawn, because sometimes we cater so much to their lack of attention spans, we make the problem worse. Most of our young people just need to learn how to think better without needing so many lights and sounds to get their attention. But that's another post...

Since most of them spend all day in a classroom bored, like I did, they are especially unenthusiastic about church on Wednesday nights, and I've been trying to find some activities to integrate with the class material to help them get something out of it, and be able to actively participate. I had an idea that we tried yesterday, and it went pretty well, so for any of you who are looking for youth activity ideas, here's on:

I wanted them to think about how to integrate their Christian faith in the various life situations in which they find themselves. I compiled a list of Scriptures that teach a principle for Christian living, and then I made a separate list of all kinds of places--some realistic and some rather unrealistic--in which the teens might find themselves. I cut up all the scriptures and locations and put them into two different cups. We break into two groups of 5-6, they draw one from each cup, then they come up with a skit that embodies the Scripture being taught in the setting they selected.

It has the potential to be a lot of fun, and it's been a good way to immediately get some of our visitors involved. The first week, the skits didn't go as well, but last night, they took them a little more seriously, and did a genuinely good job.

If you would like to try this yourself, dear reader, you can download the lists I used here.

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