Our high school ministry is in the middle of what has become the highlight of their youth group calendar every year. It’s a student-driven weekend service called “You Own the Weekend.”
You Own the Weekend is a six-week series in which the students from six different local high schools run the entire weekend service.
I thought I’d share some of the basic details with you for a couple reasons:
- First, because it has proven to be an incredible momentum booster for our high school ministry,
- Second, because any youth group can do it regardless of size.
You might not have as many schools as we do, but the concept of letting students own one weekend translates to almost any youth ministry setting.
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Starting Your Own Student-Driven Weekend Service
Here are some basic details that might help you if you decide to try your own student-driven weekend service:
- We schedule our student-driven weekend service strategically when the highest percentage of high school students will be available to participate if they choose. We wait until after football season and drop it right in between winter formal and prom. We also use “You Own the Weekend” as the launch of our summer camp registration push. We want to expose as many students as possible to the opportunity to go to camp, so promoting it during “peak” attendance makes sense.
- Each school is assigned a weekend and an adult leader as their “coach.” The adult leader works with the schools every step of the way to plan their service.
- Students from each high school are responsible for every aspect of the weekend; no adults are allowed on stage. Students pick the theme, give announcements, lead music, make the videos, teach the lesson, and do the follow-up.
- For the most part, upperclassmen take on the highly visible roles while underclassmen contribute by shopping for supplies, decorating, and completing other tasks.
- We let students get as creative as possible! Schools have invited their entire marching band to come perform, asked teachers to share their testimonies, borrowed the mascot uniform to do announcements, and other fun ideas.
Alternative Student-Driven Weekend Service Ideas:
- Do you have a smaller youth group? Consider one or two weeks that aren’t driven by individual schools, but are simply “owned” by the students who sign up to be part of it.
- Another option: Instead of individual schools owning each weekend, break the weekends down according to class. Freshmen own one weekend, sophomores the next, and so on.
