This is the second of ten from our series. This time we will focus on gathering your core group of students.
The idea of forming a core group is actually very scriptural. Christ chose 12 apostles and worked primarily with them to leave his legacy behind. He trained them and taught them allowing them to become the future leaders. We want to do something similar as we start working to start something new in the parish. I will focus on ways to find this core group and what to do with them when you find them.
In a sense this core group is going to be your very own small group. Where I am right now with our youth group is that I am working to develop a youth group that contains about 8 of these small groups, leaders that care for them, and youth that are taking ownership of it.
How to Find Them
One easy thing to do is just start some sort of group. You can call it a youth council, prayer group, or ministry team. Just be sure to not call it the youth group or the same name of what you will be using later on. This intimate group can be labeled very quickly and that can affect things later when you want to start branching out.
I will use youth council as the example because that is what we had. We started a youth council that strictly consisted of two people from each grade. Of those two people, one had to be a boy and the other a girl. Also they had to be from different schools. Youth council meetings were held every other week. We used the council to plan for upcoming events and bring out ideas, but mostly to have food and hang out. The diversity of the group broke walls down right away. It was ok to do this because in the sense of a youth council, the diversity was a good idea and people understood. There were of course times when youth could bring their friends.
There were two ways to pick these youth. One way is to advertise in the bulletin or make an announcement at Mass. Another is look for parents that you know or that have reached out to you that have kids. You know you have their support and the youth will be committed to the group. If more show up right away to be on the council and the formula doesn’t work, who cares! You already go several kids involved in planning and leading activities.
What To Do With Them
This is key. Your time with these youth must be intentional, caring and loving. Make an effort to call all of them a couple of days before the meeting, talk about what they would like the meetings to be about, what their goals are for the ministry, etc. Although the meetings are a good hang out for the kids, why plan a youth council bowling night. Just another opportunity to hang out with them.
Be Christ to them. As a young youth minister it was hard for me to balance being cool and finding times to challenge the kids. Be careful how much you talk about the other youth group kids, parents, staff, etc. Just focus on getting to know the youth. Any bad habits you have will haunt you as your group matures because you will find that they will do the littlest things that you do because they think it is ok.
These are your future leaders. Constantly be asking them how they think they could improve the program and get more people involved. Do not be afraid to ask them to step up and lead parts of programs. Ultimately, this will lead to starting a youth group that will already have 8 leaders and people who are invested in the program.
Now you just have to get the parents on your side! Read article three for that!
