There are 52 weeks in a year. What are you going to do with your youth ministry over the course of that time? Well, there are four months every year with 5 weeks. You can do an activity on those fifth weeks. So now we’re down to 48. I suppose you can take away 4 more for holidays like Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving... 44 weeks.
44 weeks. You need 44 weeks of curriculum for youth ministry. That seems daunting.
Where do you begin?
let the Holy Spirit lead you
Every youth pastor is different. For that matter, every youth group is different. Different cultures. Different church sizes. Some churches combine middle school and high school ministries. Some don’t. Some youth groups meet on Wednesday nights, others on Sunday mornings or evenings. Some youth pastors are on staff full time, some are part-time, and many more are entirely volunteer. I’ve been in youth ministry for 10 years, and I’ve been a youth leader/pastor for 6 years. I’ve met/known/trained many other youth pastors. The one thing we all have in common is wondering at one point or another, “How do you know what to teach next?”
The obvious primary answer is to let the Holy Spirit lead you, which must always be at the forefront of our ministry, regardless of our role. But if you don’t plan and administrate well, you’ll very quickly become the youth procrasti-pastor, and you’ll have more stress on your plate than you can handle.
What I’ve come to realize over the years of leading youth and student ministry is that you have a lot of turnover. With middle school, every three years you have a completely new set of kids. In high school, it’s every four. So we should have some sort of guideline for setting our vision and direction for teaching that not only helps us learn to preach better, but also instills some core doctrines and life applications in our youth.
It’s all in how you prepare.
In my church, I preach to our high school students every Wednesday night for about 40 minutes. We typically have a 9 a.m. Sunday School-type class for them too that changes every quarter. I don’t preach to our middle school kids weekly, but I do oversee all of our student ministry from grades 6 to 12. My thought process has become this: What should a saved student who grows up in our student ministry—after seven years of investment—know, believe, and value when they graduate high school? Whether you teach for 40 minutes with student-led worship before and after, or you teach for 20 minutes with 20 minutes of small group discussion, you need to have direction for the year. Here are some things I’ve gleaned over the years; some the easy way, others the hard way.
I’m a firm believer that 4-6 weeks is a great limit to the majority of your studies/series in youth ministry. I won’t die on that hill – in fact, we taught through the book of Joshua in 13 weeks, although that isn’t the norm. Sometimes our summer series are 8 or 10 weeks long, but the majority of the time I’m sticking to a 4-6 week model. Why? There are several reasons which just come from personal experience and preference. I’ve noticed that it’s easier to get kids continually excited about a series that you haven’t spent 15 weeks in. Teenagers have short attention spans, so it’s good to switch things up regularly. Again, that’s not to say that you can’t change it up, but I like to have a normal pattern for a template. Also, if you keep to a 4-6 week pattern for studies, you can map your lesson-planning out easily around the calendar.
Additionally, it’s always good to preach through short epistles like James or Philippians, but it is also very good to establish understanding of certain subjects in your students. I know some of us cringe at the thought of “topical” preaching, but it’s only topical in the sense that you picked the topic for the series. Let your individual sermons be expository. It’s all in how you prepare.
With all that in mind, the following is a very simplistic way that I have learned to break down the year of preaching. Maybe this can help give you ideas as to what subjects you might teach your students and when. These are of course just suggestions, not rules. We’ll start the calendar with September, because most youth ministry happenings revolve around the school year.
September – Vision Casting
Set the tone for the school year. I like to always challenge the kids to something specific for that new school year. What has God laid on your heart this year – perhaps a theme or theme verse? Use that to challenge kids and get them started off on the right foot!
October – Can be seasonal. Wildcard.
When I list a month as being a potential “wildcard” month, I mean I teach whatever study God lays on my heart. Of course, you ought ultimately to do that every month, but we are trying to lesson-plan.
I usually don’t do seasonal-themed studies for October, but sometimes I’ve done something like “The Walking Dead” – a study of Romans 6-7 and what it looks like to live dead to self and alive to Christ. Ultimately, anything zombie-themed seems to be a winner these days.
November – Thanksgiving. Serving. Worship.
I personally always want to hit something like this every year, and what better time than November? Get introspective and practical with your teens. Are we truly thankful for what God has given us? What is worship? How do we worship? Do we have the minds and hearts of a servant? All of those are broad questions with many facets, and can be studied in as much detail as you like from different passages of scripture.
December – Christmas!
At our church, the youth meet on Wednesday nights. We always have two consecutive weeks off at the end of December for Christmas and the New Year. The last Wednesday before that break is always a Christmas party. So, the Christmas series is a two-week series for us each year. Spend two weeks discussing different characters of the Christmas story or details of Christ’s birth. Or, my favorite, spend some time discussing the OT prophecies, followed up by the fulfillment of those in Christ’s birth.
January – New Year. Goal Setting. Resolutions. Renewed Vision. Wildcard.
January is a fantastic month because you can make it whatever you want! Do your kids need a reminder about your youth group’s vision? Cast it. Want to take advantage of New Year’s resolutions and get kids to resolve to read their Bible, pray, and share the gospel more this year? Preach it. I usually wait and see what the Lord shows me over the holiday season. It might be something like I just mentioned, it might be a particular subject/study he’s been laying on my heart. January can be a great time to kick off a book/epistle study. Whatever you do, use January to kick off the new year right!
February – Relationships. Love. Sex. Purity.
While I promise that I don’t do this every February, I definitely strive to do a sex and purity series at least every other year. And of course, you could do this study any month of the year, but why not do it when the world is pushing it anyway? Doing this every year can be a bit much, but in my opinion a high school student should go through this study at least twice before graduating. Maybe you can alternate years when you talk more about relationships in general, and other years focusing on sex and purity specifically.
Tip – Always inform parents before doing this type of study, whether it’s with an info care you send home with students or whichever form of communication your church uses – social media, emails, app notifications, etc. Just explain to them what you’ll be teaching their student and let them know that they have the right to withhold them if they should decide to for whatever reason. I always remind parents that my job is come alongside them and to help them raise their kids in the fear and admonition of God, and I would never question or judge their decisions in raising their child. I also tell them that they can join us any of those weeks if they desire so. Most parents will just be grateful that you informed them, and that goes a long way. Most will be thankful that you are doing this study. Some may want to talk with you, and that is good too! Be honest about what you are teaching. The goal is never to be graphic or cavalier with this subject, but to give biblical teaching and guidelines on love, marriage, sex, and purity.
There is no wrong answer; you just need to find what works best for your youth group and your church!
March & April – Wildcard. Resurrection.
Easter happens in the spring every year, and you can springboard from that if you wish. Honestly, I use these months every year to do different topics or studies that I’ve been praying about.
Tip – Always keep a notebook (paper or electronic – I love Evernote) with sermon series ideas that you think of while drinking coffee, working, or perhaps using the facilities (no judgement here). I also use these months at times to give guys I’m training a chance to teach. This gives you a bit of a break from sermon prep, but also allows more time to plan for future months! I like to always be three months out in my planning. I don’t write my messages 3 months in advance, but I have an idea of where we are going. This keeps me from finishing the last message of a series and then having 6 days to figure out where we are going next.
Not to mention, we should always be training up our counselors or disciples, and having time to prepare and preach a sermon (or a 2-4 week series, depending on their capability) is important for their growth.
May – Summer Camp. End of School Year. Evangelism. Wildcard.
In my area, the schools typically let out for summer break around the last week of May. Our church always has our annual youth summer camp the first week of June. So, May is themed someway around camp, evangelism, inviting friends to camp, and praying that God would challenge us at camp. Depending on your area’s school calendar, you can decide what is best. It could be a wildcard, or just an end of the school year wrap-up.
Summer – June, July, August
There are typically 13 weeks in the summer. One of those will be a fifth week of the month, and at least one or two more of those will be an activity or summer camp. So, you have about 10 weeks during the summer to preach.
Use this time to do a longer study if you wish. Summers are notorious for low attendance, but your core kids seem to always be there. Maybe do a book or topic study that can build those kids up. A longer study like Joshua would fit well here, or a study of the life of Christ.
You could also use this time to do a small group study if that is something you don’t normally do. You could all meet together for a truncated teaching time and then split up to discuss questions about the sermon. Or you could meet in different individual homes. I will say that it can be hard to build momentum if you meet in separate home groups, so you might want to limit it to 4-8 weeks and reconvene together in the larger group sometime before school starts.
Get creative with the summer months! Depending on what state you live in, school begins and ends at different times, so use it to your advantage. Maybe you want to do a study in June and/or July, and then do a back to school series in August instead of September. There is no wrong answer; you just need to find what works best for your youth group and your church!
Tip – As with anything we do in ministry, always be willing to critically examine anything new you try after it happens. Be honest with yourself and get feedback from counselors, leaders, and your senior pastor. What was the purpose of what you tried? Did it succeed? Did it fail? Why did it succeed/fail? By the way, don’t be afraid of failing! If you never fail, you aren’t trying. Just be sure to “fail forward”, so to speak, and learn from your mistakes. I have many stories about sincere ideas that just fell flat! Learn from what works and what doesn’t, and modify your strategy going forward!
What is the vision?
Finally, make sure to keep it fresh. I’m certainly not advocating that you teach the same sermon for the same thing every year. I like to have the same core topics every 3-4 years, but not the same exact content. That can lead to laziness in your leadership or just robotic schedule-following which trickles down to your kids. Your minimum will always be your follower’s maximum – and that includes students and volunteers alike.
With all that being said, here are some key studies I think students need to hear every one to two years. This is just my personal opinion based on experience; nothing more, nothing less. Remember, the key to teaching is repetition. You might feel weird doing a similar study again just 12-18 months later, but I can assure you that a lot has happened to a 15 year-old in that time.
Subjects I believe should be taught regularly, every 1-2 years:
The Gospel – always!
Work the gospel into your messages wherever naturally possible! But recognize that sometimes we can neglect our saved kids by focusing on the lost kids. It’s likely that the majority of your kids are saved. They may be carnal, but they are saved. You absolutely need to share the gospel for the lost kids and the fakers. Just don’t neglect training and teaching your saved kids.
Authority (Romans 13)
Sex, Love, Purity (with parental notification)
Serving/Ministry
Prayer
Evangelism/How to Share Your Faith
Old Testament Stories and/or Principles
Our kids should know OT stories about Israel, the tabernacle, crossing the Jordan, and simple OT pictures (e.g. 1 Corinthians 10). Use a series or two per year to do something in the OT if you don’t do it more often.
Apologetics/My Friend’s Faith/Evolution
I lump these all together because they have the same goal: knowing why you believe what you believe and being able to give an answer. We must be cautious, however, to teach this with grace. The point of knowing what our friend believes is not to feel superior to them, but to know how to better share Jesus with them. The point of teaching about creationism vs. evolution is to combat the secular biology teaching in public schools, not to create contentious quarrelers.
Again, all of these are just suggestions. If you are new to youth ministry, this is a good start. If you do youth ministry bi-vocationally or as a volunteer, perhaps this can help you stay on top of your lesson-planning so as not to feel overwhelmed. Either way, the goal for student ministry shouldn’t be random, spin-the-bottle, haphazard teaching. It should be intentional. We are training teens to be adults and raising them in their faith in the Word. If a 12-year-old enters your church’s youth ministry and sticks around all the way to high school graduation, what do you want them to have learned? That’s part of vision-casting for your student ministry. What is the vision? Use that when you are lesson-planning and curriculum-building. Consider those things as you lay out the next couple of months of planning your calendar. And, of course, pray diligently for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Proverbs 16:9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
If you are passionate about investing into the next generation of children and students, consider enrolling in the Children’s and Youth Ministry course at the Living Faith Bible Institute.
Kale Horvath is the youth pastor at First Baptist Church of New Philadelphia, OH and with his wife serves alongside the Hungarian American Fellowship by ministering the gospel to children and adults in Hungary.