Youth Group Updates (part 1)

Back in October/November we saw the need for a youth group at St. Andrew UMC, and began to revise and re-vision for a resurrection of the youth program.

In order to establish a baseline of activity, and interest, I invited anyone who was feeling called to work with our youth group to join me on a Sunday morning to work out some of my expectations for the coming months, and whether we had enough leadership to proceed.

At that time I laid out my desires for stages of involvement, the curriculum I intended to use, and we decided on a time to gather, with the plan to gather every week, until Christmas.

The basic outline I have for bringing people into leadership is this:

-Observe: Just watch

-Mingle: Get to know those who are present, and let them get to know you

-Integrate: Begin to participate in the activities and question/answer dialogue

-Lead: Take on a role where you are helping orchestrate the activity

-Train: Teach others to do what you have been doing (youth and adults)

-Recruit: Invite, welcome and integrate new persons into the group (youth and adults)

I know that each person has the right to opt out or stop progressing on this scale at any time, but my goal is to help each person grow into the next step.

In conversation with the adults last night I realized that I have a whole lot of adult and youth leaders who are at the level of "Integrate", and able to take the next step into "Lead", if I would lay out the expectations for them to step into that role.

So I am working on what my expectations, the adult expectations and the youth expectations of youth group are to better train and lead into the next stages of growth.