Even though we understand and appreciate the characteristics of an
effective junior high ministry program, we still have the problem of
deciding what to do. We know that we will have to plan a certain
number of meetings and activities, but how many, what kind, who with
and when? Two things are certain: (1) there will never be a shortage of
things to do, and (2) there's no way you can do everything. One of the
problems with going to youth ministry conferences is that you usuall
come home with a very long"to do" list. Every seminar leader gives you
a list of great ideas that he or she believes is absolutely essential for
effective youth ministry. As wonderful as these ideas are, the reality is-
if you try to do them all, you'll end up exhausted and your kids will end
up at somebody else's junior high group.
If you want to make good decisions about your junior high
ministry program, the following steps may prove to be helpful:
Develop a philosophy of junior high ministry that will guide
everything you do.
Some people refer to this as developing a vision statement or a mission
statement. The main idea here is to know why you are doing what you
do. You may want to base your philosophy on a key verse of Scripture,
such as Luke 2:52, Colossians 1:28, or Ephesians 4:11-13. You might
adopt a philosophy or mission statement like, "Following the pattern of
Jesus in Luke 2:52, the junior high ministry of [our church| is
committed to providing both the people and the programs to help
students grow strong in four key areas of life: the physical, the
intellectual, the social, and the spiritual." With a single, simple
philosophy such as this, you can evaluate everything you do in light ot
it. Decisions regarding programs and activities can be based on to what
extent it contributes to or detracts from the mission or philosophy
statement.
Set some priorities.
Even with a philosophy or mission statement, there will still be a need
You to prioritize. Some things are simply more important than others. You ll need to decide lor yourself (or with your junior high minisury team) where you chere your prioriues are. You may want to give evangelism and reach the highest priority. But what about community building'
Worship? Discipleship? Mission and service? Wlhile all of these are
qually important, most junior high ministries (indeed most churches)
find it impossible to commít the same amount of time and resources to
all of them. You will need to set some priorities, based on the needs of
your junior highers, the giltedness of the leaders, and where you feel
God is leading. After reading this , you may catch the vision for beginning a ministry to parents, or developing a mentoring program. If you want to give these a high priority, you will probably need to let a few other things go.
In addition you will need to set some personal priorities. You may have family or career responsibilities that will impact what you are able to do. In my own ministry, I have tried to remember a bit of wisdom I heard many years ago: "You must be first a person, then a partner, then a parent, and lastly a professional, whatever your
profession might be." That means I must take care of myself first
(especially in my spiritual life), then my marriage, then my children,
then the ministry that God has called me to do. With an understanding of priorities such as these, you will be able to make better decisions about how you use your time and energy.
Set some goals.
Once you have decided what the important things are, you can set some goals. Some may be long range; others can be short range. For example, if one of your priorities is to involve your students in mission and service, then a long-range goal might be to conduct at least one mission project per year. A short-term goal might be to have the specific details of the project for the coming year decided by a certain date--that is, what the project will be, when it will be done, etc.
This process of goal setting can be done
with every area of ministry that you have
made a priority.
Make some specific plans.
Next comes the planning stage, at which
time you decide how you will accomplish
the goals you have set. You can begin to fill in the calendar with specific
program elements. Once you have a general plan. you can involve your
junior highers in the planning of the specific details. I have found that
early adolescents really do enjoy being part of a leadership team and
helping out with the planning of their group activities. This will give
them a degree of ownership of the program and help them to develop
their leadership skills.
A word of caution, however. Junior highers are rarely capable of
deciding what needs to be done. They have a rather limited view of
their own needs and are better off serving in an apprenticeship role-
learning how to think creatively, what it takes to make things happen,
how to get things done, etc. Junior highers need to be given some
responsibility a little at a time. Whatever responsibilities we give kids,
we want them to be successful. This will build their confidence and
develop the skills they need to take on more responsibility next time.
Remember that junior highers should only help with the details of the
programs that you have already decided to do. If you allow junior
highers to decide what the programs or activities will be, they will more
than likely choose only fun things (10 trips to Disneyland), or things
they have done before (because that's all they are familiar with). That's
why ir's best for you as the adult leader to decide what will be done, and
then allow the junior highers to help make it happen.
The Variability of Early adolescence
Throughout this article I make quite a few generalizations about junior
highers, which Is a very dangerous thing to do whenever you are talking
about people.
It's especially hazardous when talking about junior highers, since no two junior highers are alike. In fact, the preceding
sentence is about the only generalization that can be made about junior highers with any real accuracy.
A key word to remember when dealing with this age group is
variability. Junior highers vary tremendously from one person to the
next. To know that a young person is 13 is to know virtually nothing
important about that person, except perhaps his grade in school.' Most
13-year-olds are in the eighth grade. Other than that, there isn't much
you can say about that young person with any accuracy. She could be a
fast developer, a slow developer, or somewhere in between.
Joan Lipsitz has noted that it is not unusual to find a six-year
difference in biological age between slowly developing boys and rapidly
developing girls in the same classroom.
This observation is based on
the fact that it is normal for there to be a four-year spread in the
average age of the onset of puberty. Add to that the fact that it is normal
for girls to be about two years ahead of boys. This means that there
could be a six-year developmental difference between a late-blooming
13-year-old boy and an early-developing 13-year-old girl.
Most of us who have worked with junior highers for any length
of time have seen this phenomenon firsthand. There in your eighth
grade Sunday school class is a girl who looks old enough to be dating
college guys (and she could be). And sitting right behind her is a
freckle-faced boy with a high-pitched voice who looks about nine years
old. Which one is the real eighth-grader? Which of these young people
do you choose your eighth-grade Sunday school curriculum for? These
are questions that will continue to plague those who work with this age
8roup and unfortunately there are no simple answers. "And here we are
considering only biological age," adds Lipsitz. "There is such extreme
logical age... may be the i most misleading social organizer that we
variability among individuals who are changing not only physically, but
sO socially, emotionally, and intellectually, that the label of chrono-
have adopted.""
This is one of the reasons it is important that you do not look at
your junior high group as a "group." Instead, you must see them as
Jason, Michelle, Christen, Geoffrey, Jennifer, and Nick. Your group is a
collection of persons who are all at different places in their develop-
ment and who have different needs at different times. We will be saying
a lot more in this book about the importance of relationships, but as
you can see, the need for a personal, one-on-one kind of ministry
becomes obvious when you consider the variability of this age group.
Additionally we may need to find better ways to group junior
highers than by age or grade in school.
There is much debate over the
appropriateness of grouping sixth-graders with seventh- and eighth-
graders in middle school programs. Do sixth-graders belong with older
kids or with younger? What about ninth-graders? Where do they
belong?
Some junior high ministries have experimented with grouping
kids according to maturity level. Others have tried grouping kids
according to interest, using a variety of electives and other activities
from which kids could choose. Some churches allow kids to simply
choose the group they feel most comfortable in. It is doubtful that there
exists a simple, clear-cut method that takes the variability of this age
group into consideration and works for everyone. One thing is clear:
The junior high worker who is concerned about individual kids will do
a better job meeting their needs than the one who is more concerned
about groups.
Nevertheless there are somne things that can be said about junior
high kids in general, and in this book I won't hesitate to say them. While
we cannot say that all kids are the same, we can say that the majority o
young people between the ages of 1l and 14 do have many developmental characteristics and needs in common.
But don't try to put the kids you work with in a box. Some kids will be way ahead of schedue
others far behind, and some kids will skip certain stages altogether.