What Your Jr High Ministry Is Doing Wrong
A few weeks ago my wife was doing some work in the garden. As she came in contact with poison ivy, she shrugged it off thinking that she would be ok.
She was wrong. Within a few days her arms and legs flared up with rashes and soars.
She scratched herself non-stop for 2 weeks. It was horrible! She got no sleep and could barely function as a human being. She is just now getting better. Whew…thank God!
We’re often aware of the unhealthy things in our jr high ministry, but ignore them. Like my wife ignored the poison ivy, we think our ministry is invincible to the consequences of those things.
But we can’t escape the harmful effects of what we’re doing wrong. If we’re not careful, our ministry will flare up, and we’ll be in “emergency clean up mode”, like my wife.
The first step is to know what we’re doing wrong.
That’s why I’ve written this…
What Your Jr High Ministry is Doing Wrong:
1. Not having a smooth transition into middle school ministry.
We’ve all seen it before. Students fall through the cracks when they leave children’s or preteen ministry and enter jr high ministry.
Students who were really involved in church don’t even show up to youth group because they don’t feel accepted or they don’t feel comfortable with the change.
Most of the time it’s due to a poor transition.
The solution is really easy – work on implementing an effective transition.
Over the years, I’ve noticed that students who already know the youth leaders and other students BEFORE the promotion date thrive the most.
I’ve seen the most success when the children’s/preteen leader coordinates with the youth leader to come up with a plan of action months in advance.
The plan might involve:
- Relational events for incoming students and current jr highers. That way they get to know the youth leaders and other jr highers BEFORE they move up. It sort of wets their appetite for what is to come.
- Having the youth pastor come and speak to incoming students a few weeks before the promotion.
- Having a group of jr highers do Q&A with incoming students a few weeks before the promotion.
What your church comes up with might be different. The key is for the youth pastor and children’s/preteen pastor to work together and come up with a game plan.
2. Grouping Jr Highers with High School Students.
Middle schoolers are a completely different age group than high schoolers.
A 7th grader is at a much different place relationally and spiritually than a 12th grader.
Bottom line is that you’ll never have a thriving jr high ministry if you don’t create a group identity specific to middle schoolers.
Small churches struggle with this one the most.
The biggest excuse leaders make is the size of the church and/or youth group.
And that’s all it is…an excuse.
I’m at a church plant, and we’ve only existed as a church for about 3-4 years. We have 125-150 adults, kids and youth. Our jr high ministry has 8-10 students showing up…that’s not a big group. But we’re developing a ministry that exists just for 7th and 8th graders. A team of awesome volunteers are jumping aboard ready to serve students.
Size is just an excuse.
Divide the jr high students from high schoolers no matter how small or big your youth ministry is. It’s a no brainer.
3. Focusing on doing more than one thing really well.
We want to have the best ministry ever and often spin our wheels attempting to provide everything at a high level of excellence.
We have big hearts and want to…
- Provide the best worship experience possible.
- Launch small groups so that students grow closer to Jesus and each other.
- Communicate the life-changing message of Jesus in a compelling way.
- Host mission trips that change the way students think about serving the community and the world around them.
The list goes on. We want a lot for our students. After all, that’s why we’re in ministry, right?
The truth is that you can’t do it all.
You have a limited amount of time, energy, resources, and volunteers.
When you try to juggle too much, you end up doing a lot of things AVERAGE.
If you focus on ONE THING you do it EXCEPTIONALLY WELL.
The best thing you can do is…
Do one thing really well.
This principle is a tough one to follow, but so worth it when put it into action.
What’s the ONE THING that is heavy on your heart? What is the ONE THING you and your team are really good at?
Do that ONE THING. Get really good at it. Invest 80% of your time, energy and resources into that one thing.
For our jr high ministry, that ONE THING is community.
We define community as “doing life together with God in the picture”. We want to provide a safe place where students can build healthy relationships with each other, and we want to see God be the center of those relationships.
We want to provide a place where students…
- Know and are known
- Pray and pray for others
- Accept and are accepted
- Love and are loved
We won’t have the best worship, mission trips or discipleship groups. And we’re okay with that.
But we will be laser focused on building community.
Your ONE THING might be different.
Identify what it is and stay focused.
Nick Diliberto is the co-creator of JuniorHighMinistry.org, and creator of MinistryToYouth.com & PreteenMinistry.net. He’s also the coordinator of 4th-6th grade & 7th/8th grade at the Northshore Vineyard Church just outside of New Orleans, LA.