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Connecting Locally

<typohead type=2>Relationships come first</typohead>

‘A healthy youth ministry is committed to becoming a relational youth ministry… Regardless of their level of commitment to Christ, all teenagers need to connect with a caring adult who will take an interest in them and form a mentoring friendship.

Personalized care can’t be fulfilled by any program, regardless of quality, because programs don’t develop relationships; people do. While a program may capture a student’s attention, a relationship helps reinforce and strengthen commitments. Programs are important but only after relationships have been developed.’

- Doug Fields ‘Purpose Driven Youth Ministry’ 1998, pg 195

<typohead type=2>Ideas for connecting with your youth group members:</typohead>

Idea #1
Show you care – go to their school productions, school sports days etc. Not only will you show you are interested in their lives, you will also get the opportunity to meet their friends.

Idea #2
Use up-coming events as an excuse to ring your youth group members and see how they are. Keep a log and you won’t over-ring some members and miss out others.

Idea #3
Use snail mail! There’s nothing like getting a letter to make you feel special. Do mail outs at Easter and Christmas time, birthday cards or send out a regular newsletter.

<typohead type=3>Library Resources:</typohead>

Building Community in Youth Groups
GEN9 Denny Rydberg, Group, USA 1985
Rydberg provides theory and practice for developing strong community among young people.
Each chapter provides hints for youth leaders as well as group building exercises to try.

Creative Communication & Community Building
PRO29 Wayne Rice, John Roberto & Mike Yaconelli
Over 100 different activities and approaches which foster a sense of community among young people through the use of communication tools and strategies.

Up Close and Personal
PRO91 Edited by Wayne Rice
A classic collection of group building activities and articles that will help you develop a sense
of community in your group of young people.

Go for it!
GAM25 Walt Marcum
A great book of team building games with ideas for debrief sessions including faith links.

<typohead type=2>Real Life Ideas that have worked</typohead>

<typohead type=3>MOCKTAIL PARTY</typohead>

It all started a few months ago when one Sunday morning, while sitting in the sun eating tim-tams dunked in milo and discussing the meaning of life, one of the 14 year old girls in the youth group suggested that we have a cocktail party... After deciding a date when we could use the church and community centre a group of young people who were keen to organise everything met. We agreed on a theme (Fairytales) and decided that being a youth group event the cocktails should be changed to 'mocktails' (non-alcoholic cocktails). We also agreed that as part of our outreach programme, the money we raised should go to the project that St Lukes Community supports in Thailand. Each member of the group identified what they were good at doing and what they wanted to put effort into - food, decorations, music, marketing - and they became responsible for action in that area. In the weeks leading up to the Mocktail party, we worked on it during youth group - making up menus and cocktail recipes, deciding on decorations and painting amazing pictures, making posters to send out and making tickets. The night itself was amazing, the youth group had spent all that Saturday setting up, and the community centre had been transformed into a mass of brightly coloured ribbons, Fairytale paintings, and an enchanted forest and the church had become a massive dance floor. Having 100 11 - 14 year olds dressed up as Fairytale creatures dancing to music and drinking mocktails is a scene I'm not going to forget in a hurry!

Things that grew from the whole experience:

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Young people who were normally shy on youth group nights found an identity in the group by sharing something that they were good at that might not be seen during youth group time - cooking, decorating and painting, designing, organising posters...

The sense of satisfaction and pride that the youth group as a whole had was great - there was a real sense of ownership - of their youth group and their church they belonged to.

It was also good to get a sense of the bigger picture - connecting with other youth groups and young people doing the same thing was really special and encouraging.

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The positive outcomes of creating events like these are endless - for the individuals, for the youth groups and the community as a whole. And at the end of the day our aim is to have fun and that's what we did.

Em Colgan
Em is studying Maori and Theology at Auckland University, and part time youth worker at St Luke’s Remuera. She is one of those types of people that manages to fit more into life than most of us can imagine.