What makes kids commit and stay committed?
10,000 Christian kids were asked "What makes you commit and stay committed to a church?"
Their number 1 response: "A welcoming atmosphere where you can be yourself."
Read more (a great list of "Welcoming Ideas") from yet another excellent Youth Ministry e-zine: Group Magazine.
I think welcoming is especially important to us now, since in all our groups we have new members.
What do you think? What can we do?
4 Comments:
I agree 100% about being welcoming. In fact, I am looking for ideas myself for the new members of my class and/or teens who only come to my class. I think they could be welcomed into something "bigger" and not just into my class. It would be great for them to meet other new people (but I wouldn't know who they are).
One idea I had was to host a movie night. Just watched "Mean Girls" recently and I think that's a great teen flick to watch, especially for girls.
See http://imdb.com/title/tt0377092/ for a description.
This movie covers lots of good themes: identity, belonging, friendships, forgiveness, authenticity, loyalty, peer pressure.
I love the idea of a Movie Night (Especially watching "Mean Girls"!)
May, we could host a Movie Night at church one night, perhaps during a non-fellowship night. Another idea just came to me: how about a Sleep-in-at-the-Church night, watch a movie, do this on a Saturday night, then "Good Morning! Welcome to Church on Sunday! Ha...just a thought. Maybe we'll just start with a movie night. (I would love to do a sleep over at the church though...)
I just had an idea that is somewhat related to "welcoming." Part of welcoming is introducing ourselves. I'd like to see an event where we (as the Bethel Youth Ministry) can introduce ourselves as such. We've sort of done it with the parents, but the youths don't know that teachers and counsellors are in collaboration with each other. Practically speaking, it doesn't make any direct difference to the youths to know this; on the other hand, I believe there is a positive value for the teens (at least in gaining a positive perception) in being aware of a team of people watching out for them. I think this will help facilitate awareness of the various youth ministries available to them (i.e. fellowship and Bible School, for those who attend only one or the other).
I was thinking about this in response to an earlier post about confidentiality. I agree with Jason's suggestion about obtaining permission from a youth about sharing info with other church leaders. To refine that, I think it would be courteous to be clear which leaders would hear about it.
I'll come at it at another angle. If there is something of concern with a Joseph teen who's in my class, I hope that I could be kept in the loop and vice versa (with the appropriate level of detail, whatever that means). At schools, teachers and counsellors work together this way because they are exposed to different sides of the teens/children they work with. Forming as complete picture of a person as possible helps with offering the best possible care. But I'm just using the sharing of info as an example to make my point.
In other words, I think presenting ourselves as a united team to the very same people we serve makes it "easier" to give ourselves the license to support each other's ministry and break down the silos of "fellowship" and "Sunday School."
Introducing ourselves as a team to the teens does not need to be so formal though. It could simply be an evening of controlled "grilling" from the teens (who must be very curious about us). Such an event allows newcomers and veterans alike to participate in a shared "privilege."
Kinda rambly on this point, but I hope this makes some sense. Please respond to push for greater clarification!
Huh...I never thought of "introducing ourselves."
Great idea! How better to welcome youths than to open ourselves up, to let them know that we're willing to let ourselves be known and that we are offering our friendship unconditionally.
An evening "roast" would be fun. This would be yet another "evening" in our (both the youths and leaders') schedules. AND YET, I think this'll fly. I'm not sure the youths would not what a "grilling" is, however.
An additional idea is simply to take these new kids out for a bubble tea or "juice" (can't offer them coffee, can we?).
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