Do you have ministry with youth during Holy Week?  Holy Week always highlights to me the struggle between encouraging youth to experience the worship and fellowship of the church with their families and, recognizing that many don’t participate in the special services with their families, offering ministry and worship opportunities for youth.  Here are a few thoughts for Holy Week ministry with youth and families, and please share your own.

1.  Upper Room Dinner:  Invite youth (and families if desired) to a dinner in the upper room, followed by worshipping with the whole community for Holy/Maundy Thursday.  This works great if you have an upper room in your church or a house within driving distance of the church.  Set tables on the floor with cushions around for seating.  Light candles for light.  Serve traditional Middle Eastern foods.  Share the Gospel story of the last supper.  Then take the group over to the Holy Thursday service to worship with the congregation.

2.  Prayer Vigil:  Many churches have prayer vigils, but often youth don’t participate.  One way to encourage them – sign up as a small group or several small groups.  Lead guided prayer activities for the hour so that youth can experience being a part of the power of a church in prayer together.  (Or encourage parents and youth to sign up to pray together as part of the experience.)

3.  Visit the Empty Tomb:  Using curtains, black cloth, and large rocks/stones, create an experience of walking into an empty tomb.  Invite someone to dress in white on Easter morning and for those who visit the tomb, to offer the words as they exit, “He is not here.  He is risen.”  This can be part of the Easter Sunrise service or an opportunity offered by youth to the congregation on Easter morning.

4.  Brian Kirk and Jacob Thorne have a host of Lenten and Holy Week thoughts and resources available at www.rethinkingyouthministry.com.  Visit the blog and search ‘Holy Week’ or ‘Lent’ to find their posts.

5.  Stephanie Caro also has Lenten and Holy Week thoughts for small church youth ministry posted at her blog:  www.smallchurchyouthministry.com.

Several years ago I was in a conversation with a youth worker in a secular organization and shared a spiritual growth idea for a youth activity that excited him.  I don’t remember what activity I shared, but I remember his reaction.  He had never considered the overlap of his work with youth work in the church and we both realized from that and further conversations that we could learn a lot from each other.

Fast forward to today.  While I have gained much from Youth Specialties, Simply Youth Ministry and other conferences, I’ve also gained invaluably from secular organizations and related training.  If we are truly to take the Gospel into the world around us, youth work friends in secular organizations have much to offer our understanding of working with youth.  With that in mind, what are the youth work organizations in your community where you might find a network of partners?  Below are a couple of great connections in Indiana:

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MCCOY is an organization committed to helping youth workers in Marion County, and they offer some great training that is open to any youth worker.  Check out their training offerings here.

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IYI offers a host of resources to all who work with youth in the state of Indiana.  Click on the icon for the IYI website, or click below for a couple of specific opportunities:

Volunteer Training and Retention Online Workshop

Help parents by sharing this IYI developed link for college planning information: www.triptocollege.org

Or help Jr. High youth discover their gifts and explore God’s vocational calling in their life by using the Drive of Your Life site of IYI:  www.driveofyourlife.org.

“I can’t love them all.”  At some point in my earliest years of youth ministry, I came to this revelation.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to love all the youth in my church and community; as one person I simply couldn’t.

To be effective in youth ministry, I’ve come to believe you have to have this revelation, to realize that you need other adults involved if you hope to grow in ministry.  Without this, you at best set yourself up as the ministry savior who sees everything fall apart when you leave, and at worst burn yourself out and, in the process, see the ministry collapse around you.

With this knowledge, one of our primary tasks as a youth ministry leader has to be helping youth to experience a cloud of faith witnesses around them.  Let me share an example where this might change how we think and approach ministry.

So often I hear from youth leaders, or from youth, that attending a certain event isn’t possible because of the cost.  Certainly cost can be a challenge, but we so often approach it as a hurdle and not an opportunity.  What if we changed our perspective and approached the cost of a ministry for our youth as an opportunity to engage and build a cloud of witnesses around each young person in a very tangible sense.  For example, if we help surround a young person with 10 people in the congregation, a $100 retreat only costs $10 from each of those faith witnesses.  If we extend that to family and friends of the young person, a $400 camp is a $20 donation from 20 members of that cloud of witnesses.

In light of the current economy, we must acknowledge that even $20 can be a serious investment.  But if passing on the love of Jesus Christ to our youth and children through camp and retreat opportunities is a priority, we owe it to our young people and our church to invest our time in helping youth experience the abiding faith and commitment of their own cloud of witnesses.