Crank Up the Heat this Summer
Written by Dan Istvanik
The birds are singing outside your window. The sun is shining brightly. Your office desk drawer of leftover Easter candy is just about gone.
It can only mean one thing. It is almost summer!
A time to wrap up the youth group year and take some time to relax…right?
Yeah, right!
Summer is the time to turn up the heat in your middle school ministry!
Summer is a time that students face 3 things differently in than during the school year.
People
Middle school students often out with different people than they do during the school year.
This can be a good thing or this can be a bad thing. When combined with some extra amounts of free time, it can be a bad thing.
Why not provide extra ways for students to connect with others in your youth group?
During the school year students have less time in their schedule to build relationships. Now, they’ve got a lot of free time on their hands.
Your ministry provides a place to belong, an environment where students build each other up, and a place where students have a positive influence on each other.
Why not make summer a time of the year where students have extra opportunities to build relationships?
Patterns
Taking a break from the rhythm and busyness of the school year, students sleeping in, having more freedoms, and less scheduled time.
Ahh…the joys of summer! Wow, just writing those words makes me wish I was back in jr high 🙂 Well…not really.
The downside of all that is this…
Students can get lazy in their relationship with God.
Think about what happens at school.
Teachers spend the first month of school re-teaching and reviewing last year’s material, because students haven’t even thought about reading, history, math, etc all summer.
The same thing can happen with your students when it comes to their relationship with God.
You put in 9 strong months of helping students grow their relationship with God, but then we get lazy during the summer months.
Why not crank up the “patterns” you set in place throughout the summer?
That way summer programming serves as a catalyst of spiritual growth and relationships. Then in the fall, your students are ready to go to the next level, rather than dragging their heels.
Places
Summer is the time to get away and see new places.
A time for us to travel and escape a bit.
Many of your students will leave for a vacation (and you might as well).
That’s a great thing!
However, unless your student’s families have enough money to leave for 3 months, they are going to be hanging around town most of the summer.
This provides you an opportunity to provide different “places” for students to go. You have the opportunity to create new and exciting experiences.
It could be your building, office or maybe even your house.
And of course it could also be camp, a missions trip, leadership retreat, etc.
As you’re planning summer programming, be sure to create new places for them to connect with others, leaders and God.
It’s Not Too Late
While most of you already have your big summer programming in place now, it’s not too late to add some things to the calendar.
Think, pray and then crank up the heat this summer!
Dan Istvanik is 38 years old and has been married to his wife Melissa for over 12 years. They have two children, Jenna (8 years old) and Kaleb (5 years old).Dan is currently the “Jr. High Youth Pastor” at Berean Baptist Church in Mansfield, Ohio where he has been serving for over 8 years. He has been doing youth ministry for close to 19 years. Dan is a regular writer and contributor to both “Group Magazine” and “Youthworker Journal”. Besides being a curriculum writer for JuniorHighMinistry.org, he has also written some curriculum for other sights as well.