the BLACKBOARD: In Service Option

One Reply to “the BLACKBOARD: In Service Option”

1. Hey Tom! This post caught my attention because we did something SUPER similar 7 or 8 years ago. For us personally, it was just OK at first, and then it became kind of a disaster. We ended up scrapping it. Of course, that's just us, but I'll give you the context and why we made that decision in case it's helpful. (And sorry in advance that this is SO LONG).

   WHAT WE HAD FOR HIGH SCHOOLERS:

   -Wednesday night program

   -Sunday night program (with small groups)

   -Sunday morning current events discussion (during the 3rd service)

   -Sunday morning opportunities to serve in children & middle school ministry

   What we found though, was that we were spreading ourselves and our students RIDICULOUSLY thin. None of those environments were doing extraordinarily well. They were all doing OK at best. I won't get into all the details but I'll focus specifically on the service element and the current event element.

   THE CURRENT EVENTS TALK:

   – Low attendance

   – Students who attended were forced to come to 2 or 3 services every week (one for the adult service, one to serve, one for the current events talk)

   – There was a very select group of students who came and even fewer who actually engaged (maybe 5 – and they were always the vocal & opinionated ones) 🙂

   THE SERVICE COMPONENT:

   – While we said we wanted students to serve with children or middle schoolers, in reality we were making it almost impossible for them to do that

   – In order to serve, they would have to commit to at least 2 services on Sundays (one to serve and one to go to church)

   – Most students didn't consider the current events talk "church" (which made sense), so they would actually attend all 3 services (one for the adult service, one to serve, and one for the current events talk)

   – If a student could only attend 2 services, they would almost always choose the adult service and the current events talk, because that's where their friends were – while we didn't realize it at the time, that current events talk actually KEPT our students from serving

   So we decided to completely revamp what we did. Here are the values that shaped that decision:

   1) Have only ONE weekly environment for HS students and do it really well

   2) Get students SERVING (absolutely essential to their spiritual formation)

   3) Cut back on the programs and commitments and "church stuff" on a family's calendar

   4) Anything in addition to the weekly HS environment should not be a weekly commitment (bi-weekly or monthly or even less)

   While we had a LOT of push-back on this, it was a great decision. We ended up with more students than we had before and we were putting out better programming. But most importantly, students were SERVING and families schedules weren't so crammed with youth group stuff that was honestly kind of crappy to begin with.

   For us, here's what it came down to:

   1) If a high schooler only comes to ONE service on a Sunday morning, we want them hearing the adult message (they're ready for it and should be with their families). We don't want anything to compete with that.

   2) If a high schooler comes to TWO services on a Sunday morning, we want their second service to be spend SERVING OTHERS and not another environment where they get poured into. We don't want anything to compete with that.

   3) We DON'T want them there for THREE services. They (and their families) have better things to do than hang out at church for 6 hours every single week. 🙂

   So the transition was a good move. Then we actually reinstated the current events talk about two years later on a MONTHLY basis. It was a requirement for our leadership program and end of year trip. It started out OK. Kids liked it. But after a couple of meetings, all but 3-5 were disengaged. The conversation was dominated by those 3-5 students (again, the vocal/opinionated ones) and the others got annoyed and felt excluded from the conversation. These kinds of conversations are very difficult to do, we realized, because (at least for us), the point was to get students THINKING and WRESTLING with these topics on their own – looking at Scripture for themselves rather than being told what to think… outside of a small group (6-8 students) and a LOT of time (at least an hour per topic), I just don't know if that kind of conversation is possible. We did the monthly thing for 2 or 3 years, but by the end, 95% of the kids HATED it and begged us not to make them come anymore, haha. Oops.

   Anyway, that's just our experience. I'm not against the idea itself, but I think it's something you've got to be really strategic about. In my experience (both as a staff person and a Small Group Leader), I find those kinds of conversations are best suited for small groups. Fewer students, where you have trust built – truth is, students have tough questions about the topics of homosexuality, abortion, war, politics, whatever else is going on… and very few will express those difficult questions in a large group setting.

   So that's where I'm coming from. 🙂 Hopefully that was a little helpful and not too defeating or depressing, haha. I love and value the idea of students hashing out those current event issues, but I personally value serving MORE, and think those tough conversations are best suited for small groups. But that's just me and my context. 🙂

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