Leading a Middle School Youth Group
Keeping Kids Interested in Church
Kids Need a Place of Their Own:
Great lessons and fun games are essential to success but a boring youth room spells doom for your best efforts. Here are some basic tips to providing a comfortable atmosphere for spiritual growth:
Make a separate youth room or building if you can. Kids need a place they can call their own that has age-related furnishings and activities. They need to know that you, the adult, protect their space and defend their right of possession. Article on "Youth Room Ownership"
Use lots of color. Paint the walls many different colors. "Color can affect a person in a positive, neutral or negative manner." Edward Tufte . Stark white...well, you might as well just jab their souls with a fork. Make one wall the guest book. Supply markers so they can sign their names and create artwork.
Comfortable furnishings: Old sofas, bean bag chairs, stereo, TV, and games. Make it look 
more like their bedroom than a class room. A stage for music and skit performances is fun. Refrigerator, microwave oven, and kitchen cabinets are a must for snacks. A table and some chairs always come in handy. Keep a supply of jackets and sweatshirts, blankets, and pillows. Get some posters and lots of enlarged pictures of the kids. I also like stringing Christmas lights just for fun.
Games and activities: Make the room inviting by providing many activities choices. Ping-pong and foosball are perennial favorites. I also make sure there is a big TV with a video game that has four controllers (Note: Strictly monitor and games you allow to be played). An assortment of costumes and wigs is great for role playing or skits. Stock the cabinets with colored construction paper, markers, and of course duct tape. Each time they come in let them play for a set amount of time. This not only takes the heat off you to come up with games for every meeting, it lets them congregate in the groups they are most comfortable in with an activity that relaxes them.
The Youth Garage begins to take shape:
A big screen TV, X-box, drum set, foosball table and a couple of couches...it's coming along. Still a lot of white though (we'll fix that). When asked what color the carpet should be we said, "The color of coke, pizza, and powdered donuts". Good choice guys. More pictures to come as we progress towards a great youth room.
Now we've added bongo drums, lots of large throw pillows, two stuffed chairs, refrigerator full of drinks, kitchen table and chairs, and another big TV with a PS2 and an old Saga Genesis. Just got an air hockey table. Sweet.
Kids are comfortable in a relaxed atmosphere where it's OK to put your feet on the furniture. Snacks are always available: chips and dip; popcorn; cake; ice cream; and soda for the evening meetings. Cereal and milk; donuts; orange juice for Sunday mornings. I served those iced frapacinos a couple of times but parents came up after the service and asked what I had done to their kids so I trimmed the caffeine (but kept the sugar).
Look at these great couches, bean bags, and giant throw pillows. The kids love knowing that this is their place.
We've added kitchen cabinets and a stage. This is really taking shape.
Finally a ping pong table (always a favorite), an X-Box with DDR (see source below), and a Wii video game. We just bought this and an
up-to-date DVD player from our budget. Now the kids have plenty of activities and we have all the equipment set up to be able to use video clips or movies as intro's to lessons.
Wii games are extremely popular with the kids.
Here's
a great website for Wii games, software, music, and accessories
Click Here!
I've never seen anything as popular as the
Dance Dance Revolution video game.
The kids love it. We hitched it up to a donated big screen
TV via an X-box. They play it all the time.
Click on the banner above to jump to a website that's
a great resource for DDR equipment.
