As a parent, it’s always tempting to want to talk about the successes of my kids and show photos and generally talk about how wonderful they are (if you’re not a parent, you probably can’t relate to this feeling—sorry). As I prepare to write this short article, I feel the same way about our new baby that we finally birthed this summer. The final two years of our six-year teaching curriculum—called LIVE—launched last month (we’ve had 4 years available for 9 months). As much as I’d like to brag about LIVE and show it off, you can poke around the product yourself (http://live.simplyyouthministry.com/) and see why over 1500 churches are excited about its flexibility, ease-of-use, affordability, and biblical quality.
Whether you use our curriculum or one of the other good ones that are out there, here’s why I’m a fan of good, easy-to-use curriculum…it’s volunteers. Here are three benefits that volunteer youth workers receive when we provide them with good curriculum for leading their small group or Sunday school class:
1. It makes volunteers confident
The number one fear that I hear from potential volunteers is, “I don’t know the Bible very well.” I obviously want men and women to have a desire for God’s Word, but they don’t have to have a Bible degree to be a good youth worker. When I put solid, biblical curriculum into their hands, they will have a solid foundation to begin with and don’t have to begin their preparation from scratch. There’s so much fear that volunteers live with when they enter a room full of teenagers with questions that any help we can give them to help them teach the Bible and answer questions is a great resource to aid these caring adults.
2. It makes volunteers available
The essence of this point is what Simply Youth Ministry was built on…from Day 1, I wanted to be able to provide youth workers with resources that work so they can spend less time creating them and more time with teenagers. This is the same principle that appears when volunteers are given good material that is easy to use. Here’s what I mean: if a volunteer can give me three hours a week, I’d much rather have those three hours spent in relational youth ministry with three different teenagers than to have the volunteer locked away in his/her study preparing for the week’s lesson. They can’t do that if the material isn’t good and easy to use.
3. It makes volunteers team players
This is definitely more of a personal opinion than a fact, but I personally like all of my volunteer leaders being on the “same page” with what we’re teaching our teenagers. There were years when I allowed volunteers to teach “whatever was on their heart,” and it became chaotic, and the quality was dependant on the teaching skills of the volunteer. When I would prepare to teach my weekly message, I really had no idea of what our students were learning in their small group. Now, because we’re all discussing the same material, it’s better for our volunteers, it’s better for our teenagers, and it’s better for me. I feel like we’re all heading in the same direction.
