Small youth groups – planning with flexibility
Our church’s youth group has about 5-6 active youth. When I first started working with them, I tried to schedule everything around everyone’s dates. I wanted to make sure to include everyone. I thought, “How hard could it be with such a small group!†Big mistake!
For starters, I ended up having to change and change dates. It was frustrating and not a good use of time, resources, and responsibility. I realized that I was unconsciously teaching the youth commission, the youth, and their parents that it was okay to do this.
I’ve since learn that I can’t please everyone. The Youth commission and I now set a date and go with it. If a youth and/or their parents plan something the same time that the youth commission and I have already planned a youth event and advertised it, then I simply say, “We will miss you.â€
I wish all the youth could participate in all the events, but I know that this isn’t always possible. And this isn’t a bad thing. I think it teaches them that they have to make priorities and choices. It also teaches them to take responsibility for the choices and priorities they make.
Now, this doesn’t mean that I never change anything. The youth commission and I do try to keep in mind yearly family events, school, and church activities. And at times, depending on the date and time and size of the group, we have changed things, but this is no longer the norm. If anything, this experience has taught me the balance between being too flexible and too rigid.
Date posted: Friday, March 28th, 2008 4:11 pm | Under category: children, Christian Education
RSS 2.0 | Comment | Trackback
Thanks, Vanessa, good thoughts. Planning the program and events a year ahead can help address some of the issues you identified. Once you publish the dates of events and programs a year in advance people can make choices and commitments early.
And my golden rule was to “never change the date.” I’ve found it more helpful all around to cancel an event on the (yearly) calendar based on contingencies or circumstances that to make it a moving target. People get more frustrated when you change the date on an event (feels like you’re changing the rules, and we all know what that feels like), plus, you can always plan the event again for next year.
Thank you for that bit of advice. I will work on that for this upcoming school year.
As far as planning ahead, I sometimes get caught up in how to actually do this. How much do I actually do (as the minister) and how much of it do the commissions do and the overall Education committee do?
The way I see right now is that my role is to provide the direction and to work with the commissions to how and when these are actually implemented. This includes working with the Education Committee to know what overall direction the church is going for the upcoming year.
I know these things in my head, but actually implementing them is another story. Any suggestions?