I recently took on a role as representative for First Priority which seeks to reach students on campus with Bible Clubs. The Bible clubs are student led and youth workers and a sponsor teacher come along side to cheer them on in their endeavor to encourage their fellows students.
I was at a club meeting the other day at a school where I and my fellow youth worker friend Scott serve students. I had not been there in a couple of weeks due to travel and visiting other schools.
Since I had been gone, students had organized a sign up list to share. The young lady who shared the morning knocked it out of the park with a passionate plea, almost to the point of tears, for students to love God with all their hearts.
Since I do not lead any of the meetings at any of the schools I visit, I get to sit and take notes. This particular morning, I heard these incredible words coming form the mouth of middle school students, and not just from the speaker, but from students who added to the conversation.
God is always there.
Let God come to you.
You don’t have to go through life alone.
God wants us to repent, learn from our mistakes, turn away from what trips us up.
Don’t give carelessly. Give with purpose.
God must become more, we must become less.
We can’t be our number one, God is our number one.
A life of faith is lived step by step.
Love for God will last longer than our money or material things.
Let me add to that.
Can I speak next week?
This is so powerful. Wisdom from such young mouth. No extra commentary is needed. I especially like the last two. I loved how the speaker asked if anyone would like to add to discussion. Students would either raise their hands or chime with a scripture or something they learned in youth group that applied to discussion (Good job youth workers). Most would say. “Let me add to that” or “One more thing”.
I loved how open they were with each other and every student felt welcome to share.
While I sat next to the teacher a student, whom I do not remember speaking before, asked if she could speak the following week. The teacher said she would add her to the next available slot in the Google doc.
These are exceptional kids in an exceptional school, but I think all students are exceptional, we just need to remind them that they are and give them an opportunity to show it.
If you’re looking for middle school resources for your youth ministry, let recommend a few I have writing.