Recently I’ve talked about the small groups component of our youth ministry with a couple of different groups of youth workers. Each time I’ve had someone say something like “well, if we had more students we’d do that” or “our ministry is too small for something like that.” I totally understand! That’s exactly what I used to think.
The truth is, I work for a small church in a small community and I always felt that our students would benefit from small groups. It just seemed impossible given the size of our ministry.
For me, the decision was driven by necessity. I stepped in to my position and was faced with the daunting task of ministering to students in grades 5-12. Eventually I realized that they needed to be split up somehow if we were going to meet all of their spiritual needs.
That’s when I knew we needed to find a way to make small groups work.
Small groups have been a vital part of our youth ministry for about two years now and I can’t imagine going back.
Reasons it’s great, things that may surprise you and ways to overcome the challenges…
Youth Ministry, at it’s best, is relational. We all know that. The more adults you have on your team, the deeper the relationships with students will be. The great thing about small groups is that you’re facilitating the development of those relationships. Instead of having a big group of students with several leaders and praying that relationships will happen, you’re creating an environment where they will begin naturally and thrive.
You won’t suddenly get to the point where you realize you have too many students to keep up with. I’ve been there. My first youth group grew quickly and all of a sudden I was the leader of way more students than I could effectively minister to. Build your small group structure now while your ministry is small and you’re in great shape for growth!
You’ll be surprised at who will say yes to leading a small group. It could very well be exactly the same people who have turned you down in the past when asked to be youth leaders. Asking someone to be a youth group leader is a completely different question than “hey, I have 3 or 4 high school girls that could really use a mentor.” People who are intimidated by the traditional ‘youth leader’ role may find that leading a small group is perfect for them!
We have a strict ‘2 leaders present at all times’ rule (I hope everyone does!) and that was a challenge when we first started talking about small groups. Recruiting enough leaders seemed like an impossible task for our small church. The way we’ve solved that problem is having our groups meet in the church at the same time. That way, when we’re short on leaders, we can just meet in different areas of the same space or combine groups for the night.
If you’re even shorter on leaders, think about having ‘table discussions’ instead of typical small groups. Meet around tables in one room with a leader at each table. You could discuss whatever the message was about that night or leaders and students could decide what topics to discuss. This gives you the relational benefits of the small group format without the need for a ton of leaders.
The bottom line is this: if you know your students would benefit from small groups but you’re feeling like you don’t have enough students and/or volunteers to make it happen, PRAY and then give it a shot! If you think outside the box and get creative with your format, it’s doable… and totally worth it!
***This post originally appeared on the YS Blog
[Photo by: cobalt123]
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Sara Eden Williams is the Director of Youth and Children’s Ministry at the First United Methodist Church of Williamson in Williamson, NY.
Blog: http://saredn.wordpress.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/saraeden
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