Help Junior High Students Share Their Faith

Several times a year, you talk to your students about the importance of sharing their faith with their friends.

Your students might leave those sessions excited to do it, but it probably doesn’t happen–at least not as much as it should or as much as you hoped that it would.

The good news is that we are starting to learn why.

At Junior High Camp last week, I had the opportunity to talk to so many students about what they believed and how they’d seen God move in their lives.

The first thing I noticed was that there was a sparkle in their eye and an excitement about them when I asked the question. They definitely had something to say.

Then I listened to them talk. After all of their “ums” and “uhs” and pauses, they said something that was hardly coherent.

In my experience, it’s not that students are always afraid to talk about their faith. It’s that they’re just not good at vocalizing it; even if their talking to their youth pastor!

If a student has trouble communicating with me, you can imagine how much trouble they’ll have at a loud, crazy cafeteria table.

So what’s the answer?

Students don’t need more encouragement to share their faith. They need more practice.

The adolescent mind is a weird and strange place. Junior High students are capable of retaining and even understanding great big thoughts about great big things like God, but communicating those things is a whole other story.

For context, think about anytime you’ve ever seen a seventh grade boy turn into a caveman when he tries to tell a girl he likes her.

This is what happens when a 13-year-old tries to have conversation about great big theological, ideas.

They stammer. They stutter. They feel embarrassed and not because of the idea they wanted to share, but rather their failure to share it well.

You can start TODAY to help students share their faith.

Ask students this question: How have you seen God move in your life?

This is a much easier question than asking them what they believe. Belief gets into theology and doctrine, but this question lets students tell a personal story about a time when they felt God’s peace, saw a miracle or felt connected to God more intensely than ever before.

Wait for at least two minutes before you let them answer.

You and I might be very good on our feet, and we might even be able to finish a thought even after we’ve started speaking it. Junior High students are not that way.

They need time (sometimes A LOT of time), to think and process a complete thought before speaking it. Some students will even want to write and revise their thought and then read it aloud. All of that is okay and should be encouraged.

Let them share their answers as much as possible in a safe place.

If a student isn’t comfortable sharing their answers with their youth pastor, they won’t be comfortable with a friend.

If they’re not comfortable within small groups, they probably won’t be comfortable within classrooms.

Encourage them to pray for one friend daily.

Before students talk to their friends about God, they should talk to God about their friends.

Let the power of prayer convict your students’ hearts, empower your students’ words and soften their friends’ hearts. Then they’re totally ready for faith to be shared.

Aaron Helman is on a mission to end youth worker burnout by providing the training and resources that you haven’t been taught… until now. Smarter Youth Ministry exists to help you learn how to manage their time and resources better so that you can do more ministry with less frustration. All of that having been said, you most likely know him as the creator of “Lamentation or Taylor Swift Lyric.”