Let the Fun Begin!

 

Youth ministry is nothing without fun.  Some people are just more naturally gifted at being fun than others.  Those people are usually extroverted.   They're the people who are the life of the party.  They're the ones that everyone looks to to bring the activities.  And they usually don't disappoint.  If you're like me and are not typically the life of the party, here are a few hints to make your youth ministry fun.

1. "Hire" volunteers who are the life of the party.  Or if you have a big youth ministry with a big budget, actually hire someone who will bring the fun.

We are all gifted in different ways and each gifting is important (Romans 12:3-8).  Often what gets celebrated and highlighted is charisma.  But what is also as equally important is serving behind the scenes.  The temptation is to get jealous of others who do have up front gifts.  Avoid getting jealous of those that help you in youth ministry that you think may have a "better" gift than you do.  They don't.  It's just different than the one God gave you.  Yours is equally just as important and as useful to the body of Christ as theirs is.

Good leaders are not afraid to hire better leaders than themselves.  Putting aside your pride makes your ministry better.

2. Make learning fun.

One thing I set out to do years ago was to try to make the teaching time the most fun time of the night.  That's really hard because many teens come to youth group just for the games.  My teaching time may not always be the most fun time of the night, but striving for that makes sure it will at least be interesting.

Last year we were talking about our values in our own youth ministry.  Talking values in youth ministry may seem boring, but we had fun with it!  I split the group up into smaller groups of about five.  I gave them a list of the values that the youth leaders and I had agreed up being values of our youth ministry.  I then gave each student the same amount of fake money.  Each group had a set amount of time to hold their own values auction.  They bid on which value they would spend money on.  That gave us a starting point to talk about what values were the most important to each person.  They had a lot of fun with it.  Yes, it takes time to be creative.  And doing it each and every week may be strenuous but it is worth it in the end.

3.  Don't have fun at the expense of your ministry.

Some people may love having so much fun that they never get to the serious stuff.  Or in the spirit of having fun they go over the line.  For example, making fun of someone may be funny to the rest of the group, but to that person it is humiliating.  Another example of something not to do in youth ministry is something illegal.  Do something illegal as the leader in a youth ministry?  Yes, it's happened.  Maybe you want to take a group of students to the movies.  You have the money for the movies but you think it would be funny to sneak everybody in.  You do this to become the "cool" youth leader, but if you get caught you've lost the trust of all those students' parents.  If you lose their trust they won't allow their kids to attend your youth ministry.  It may be fun or funny to do something illegal, but if you get caught, bye bye ministry.  When you say "goodbye" to your ministry, think of the people you won't be able to help or needed your leadership at an important time in their life.  Just think before you act.