Your goal, starting out, might simply be to help your teens overcome intimidation when opening the Bible or to gain confidence when reading a specific Gospel. Outline your goal for yourself and for those on your catechist/core team. Develop their hearts first, their heads second.Īs their leader, you know what they need most. Then, have a teen who has practiced it-in advance-to read it in their own voice aloud for their peers. Next, address the group by paraphrasing it and then focusing in on a few lines at a time, whatever “jumped out” at them, individually. Paul’s discourse on love), you’re better off having the group read it on their own, silently, first. The Fall in Genesis 3, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Bread of Life discourse, St.

In fact, if it’s a really long passage (i.e. Don’t just hand a teen a Bible and ask them to read it cold-they should never feel like Daniel being tossed to the lions. If it’s a long passage, be sure the person proclaiming it has practiced it. Leaders need to listen not only to what the teens are asking aloud, but also asking through their discomfort or disinterest (shown through body language). Questions posed to the group should be discerned ahead of time, or prayerfully during the course of the discussion. Passive questions like “what do you think” will bring passive answers (cue the crickets again). Open-ended questions are the easiest way to cause side conversations and digression with teenagers, so beware of them. The role of the leader is not to offer every answer, but to help young souls ask the right questions-and to facilitate fruitful conversation.

Life-giving discussions are easily sidetracked by a lack of guidance. Describe the crowd, the tone, the situation and the “mount” before you deliver the Sermon ( Matthew 5). Before you give the lines, set the scene. If you want to quote Deuteronomy, go for it, but first set the backdrop for Moses’ “second law”.Īnd for the love of God, when we dig into a Gospel account, let’s be sure we’re taking the time to till the soil of the teenage hearts, before we cast the seed (proclaim the word). If you use a verse from the Prophet Jeremiah, you better know a little about the brother if you want his message to be heard by the modern teen. The more you can set the scene, the more willing a teen will be to enter into it. This is also why resources are so important- Leader’s Guides are created to make a Leader’s life easier. This is where many leaders go wrong: they haven’t done their own homework. Put simply, content without context is pretext. Give context to the Bible verses you are sharing. I like to keep teachings to thirty minutes, leaving ample time for fellowship (prior), small groups and prayer (during) and hospitality (afterward). Build up to a longer meeting time for your teen Bible study by leaving teens wanting for more. Just like working out, stretch first and take it slow. If teens aren’t used to reading and praying Scripture at all, what makes anyone think they’ll jump right into a ninety-minute or two-hour teen Bible study format? God is timeless, yes … but teens are not. “Well, I have the hall for two hours, so two hours sounds good,” we think to ourselves. Many times, teen Bible study leaders arbitrarily select a meeting time and running time. Teenage souls are assembled and Bibles are sitting on a cart in the corner … now what?!? What can you do when the video is not playing to keep this ark moving forward through teenage storm waters? 1. So the resources are ordered, the parish hall is booked and parents have begun dropping teenagers off at the parish for your teen Bible study.

Teen bible study apps