4 Ways To Make Your Youth Ministry Better in 2023

Commit Time To Helping Parents

You may not feel this way, but the truth is that the parents of your students need and want help feeding them spiritually. Every Christian parent feels the pressure of trying to keep their kids from falling away from the Lord….even if they don’t ask they are grateful for the youth minister’s help. Youth workers can help equip parents for what their teens are dealing with each day and provide them tools for their everyday parenting. A recommended resource for this is the podcast Let’s Parent On Purpose and their weekly email with great tips!

Find More Help

I know that we always feel like we are looking for volunteers for things around the church… in my experience though, the best leaders in youth ministry are developed not recruited. Healthy, thriving student ministries have good adult leaders involved. This is just reality, one-man band youth groups often crash and burn! Students are in the process of transitioning from kids to adults. One of the best things you can do for them is supply good Christ following adult mentors for them! Young adults can be a great help! Don’t forget though that teachable older people can do this too. The goal of for these leaders isn’t just to keep kids in line, it’s too build trust with them and disciple them! A great resource for developing leaders is Life.Church’s free training videos…see one here.

Teach The Bible

Do all of the fun games and activities that you want to! However, above all else, teach your students what the Bible says!. Don’t water it down because they are teens…don’t miss the “meat” of God’s Word. Students can get it….they are looking for the truth! They can study algebra and biology, and they can study God’s Word as well.

Don’t Try And Avoid The Mess

Students more than ever need their youth workers to address the very confusing cultural issues they are facing You must address LGBT, gender and sexuality issues and other sensitive subjects Biblically! You may not want to talk about these things, but students are hearing about them and talking about them all the time! Whether it’s at school, on social media or somewhere else they deal with these conversations a lot more than adults. Make sure to teach what the Bible says and make it normal to think about these issues from a Biblical perspective! A great resources for this are the videos from Dr. Sean McDowell, available on his website here.

If you desire to grow in your leadership one of the ways you can do that is through our Youth Ministry degree program at Calvary Chapel University. In the Youth Ministry Degree we offer a fully online university to encourage you in your ministry calling by allowing you to pursue ministry while attending a Christian college to study youth ministry. For more information visit CalvaryChapelUniversity.edu