TO BE A JUNIOR HIGH YOUTH WORKER... takes a distinct kind of adult, just as junior highers are a distinct kind of people. Betwixt and between though they may be, early adolescents are as capable of genuine spiritual understanding and growth as high schoolers.

It's just that junior highers absorb Bible teaching and demonstrate their spirituality—well, differently. Help! I'm a Junior High Youth Worker! is your primer for understanding young teenagers, then teaching them with a mind-set and with methods that fit them:

• FIRST THINGS FIRST. Three axioms that define your territory as a junior high youth worker.
• SO JUST WHAT IS A JUNIOR HIGHER, ANYWAY? The essence of early adolescence: the need for appropriate rules...the dilemma of throwing sixth graders and eighth graders together in the same program...small is good.
• DEVELOPMENTALLY SPEAKING. Changes junior highers enjoy and endure: cognitively, emotionally, socially, spiritually...their changing relationships with parents...individuation...and hair under their arms.
• TIME TO TEACH! Your required dose of pedagogy: the case for fun learning...ten top teaching topics for middle school ministry...how simulations, role plays, and storytelling can be your best teaching methods for early adolescents.
• FAITH OUTSIDE THE YOUTH ROOM. Spiritual disciplines for middle schoolers: they don't have to be high schoolers to begin forming habits of prayer, service, and outreach.

Help! I'm a Junior High Youth Worker! is help at hand for surviving and thriving in ministry to early adolescents.

First Things First
Three axioms that define your territory

My parents are like mosquitos: little by little they suck me dry. —Nate, 13

Axiom: Junior highers want to be treated like adults but still have the opportunity to act like children.

They’re in-between. They’re not kids anymore, but they sure act like it sometimes. They’re certainly not adults yet, either—but they pretend to be. Accepting this dichotomy makes your work with junior highers much easier.

Axiom: Quality junior high ministry takes place in the context of meaningful relationships and meaningful ministry opportunities.

Your kids won’t become spiritual giants because you deliver excellent youth talks. Your kids will grow spiritually when they see Christ at work in your life and then model themselves after you. They’ll also grow spiritually when they do ministry. Focus your efforts on modeling Christ and steering kids into ministry.

Axiom: The single most important element of any meeting, event, or program is to know why you’re doing it.

Purposeless junior high ministry is only negligibly different from baby-sitting. Without a purpose, nothing you can do has excellence.

 

Top Ten Topics

Here they are for your dissection—my personal (and very subjective) list of the top-ten most important teaching topics for junior high ministry (in no particular order):

• God’s grace. Kids must re-understand this during their young teen years (see He’s a Big God on page 27).

• Changes. Help them get a clue about what’s happening to them.

As vital as it is to minister to early adolescents, it is just as important to do it right. This means thinking through and designing your purpose, philosophy, and plan. —Dan Veerman, Reaching Kids before High School (Victor)

• Sexuality. Not just sex. Most junior highers, I’ve found, possess more misinformation than truth about their own sexuality. That they were created as sexual being is a profound truth to junior highers.

• Living for God. Junior highers are capable of a deeper and more meaningful walk with Christ than most adults allow them to attain.

• Why believe? What’s the point of being a Christian? Every kid asks this questions at some time during the teen years. Address it head-on.

• Making good decisions. More than anything else, kids want to make their own decisions. So the best long-range work you can do with junior highers is helping instill in them the habit of evaluating choices before they make them, and then making wise decisions from among the options.

• Friendships. How do they work? How do I start them? How do I keep them? What about cliques? What about fights?

• Family. It’s a war-zone out there for two-thirds of your kids; and a semi-blissful naive home life for the other third.

• Basics of the Faith. Why church? What’s the deal with worship? Why should I pray? How do I pray? Is the Bible reliable?

• Who are God and Jesus? Separate myths and childish misconceptions from the truth.

 

Fear of rejection can become a source of anxiety and stress, often dictating behavior patterns and value choices. Middle schoolers will usually do whatever is most conducive to making friends and keeping them. Having friends is, quite simply, the lifeblood of adolescence. —Wayne Rice, Enjoy Your Middle Schooler (Zondervan)

Acknowledgments

Introduction

First Thing First
Three axioms that define your territory

So Just What Is a Junior Higher, Anyway?
The essence of early adolescence

Developmentally Speaking
Changes junior highers enjoy and endure

Time to Teach!
Now for your dose of pedagogy...

Faith Outside the Youth Room
Spiritual disciplines for middle schoolers

So You're in Charge?
Insights for youth ministry directors (whether volunteer or paid), who plan and lead programs