But before you start making a grocery list, keep reading. I’m not talking about doughnuts or pizza. While these nutritional staples are vital to any youth ministry, I’m really talking about spiritual food—the meat of a substantive youth ministry. Teenagers crave that, if unknowingly. And too often we forget this.
Too often instead of feeding students the solid food of the faith, our aim becomes merely entertaining our students, providing an atmosphere that is fun and comfortable, and, well…entertaining. We go to extraordinary lengths to create an environment that feels just like the everyday world in which our students live. Yet too often we end up creating an atmosphere in which we’re really just trying to compete with secular culture for students’ attention using the same means the world uses. It’s easy to spot how flawed this approach is.
Teens Need to Be Fed
The teenagers you work with need something else. They need to be fed. And you need to feed them. What do I mean? Glad you asked…
Teens need you to feed them with the food of the Word. This is primary. Any youth ministry founded on anything other than God’s Word is misguided at best and deeply flawed at worst. Sound too harsh?
Consider this: In a culture where youth are busier than ever, with more commitments and pressure than any generation before them, the two hours or so a week they spend with you might be the only meaningful time in Scripture many get. How would you grade the job you’re doing of feeding teenagers God’s Word?
When I talk with youth ministers about how to feed students spiritually, I emphasize three thoughts.
If You Feed Them They Will Come: 3 Tips
1. Make sure to teach students the “big picture” of Scripture.
Teens don’t know the Bible because we don’t teach it to them. We teach them a passage here, a verse there. They’ll never get the macro view this way. They’ll never understand God’s redemptive story unless we teach the Bible that way.
2. Don’t forget context.
Try hard to place every lesson you teach in the context of its surroundings. Who wrote the book? When was it written? Why was it written? Where does it come in the overall timeline of Scripture? Teaching contextually helps your teenagers better understand both the specific passage they are studying, and its importance in God’s grand scheme.
3. Hammer home the application.
If students aren’t applying what you teach, they might as well be reading a history book. Help them understand how the specific spiritual truth you are addressing can change their lives. If you feed students the Word, I promise they’ll keep coming back.
