BEST PRACTICES IN YOUTH MINISTRY
Shared by: Charlie Lyons-Pardue (’07); Director of Senior High Ministry, Allentown Presbyterian Church (Allentown, NJ)
Our students are growing up in a world where they do not often passively receive media in their lives. Thanks to the low cost of technology and Web 2.0 sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Blogger, students are creating, publishing and consuming their own media. In our youth ministry we've sought to bring interactive co-creation into how we approach teaching.
We give our students opportunities and guidance for creative projects that we then use in teaching when we gather. For a series on Mark 8:27-30, we had students go out on a video scavenger hunt to ask strangers the question "Who is Jesus to you?" We then used footage of their interviews in our teaching on the series (view at http://is.gd/2M82M). We've done "community art projects" where an artist plans and organizes giant pieces of art that can be created by the community and then become a permanent part of the space we gather in (view at http://is.gd/2M8bw). Sometimes rather than reading scripture, we've shot video of kids speaking scripture and used that instead (view at http://is.gd/2M7Tu).
We're striving to create spaces where students can help create and participate in the message they hear/see/feel during youth group, rather than always passively receiving it.