Monthly column for youth leaders: programme fillers

How to add a fresh dimension to your meetings - simple ideas with impact

Add a fresh dimension to your meetings with these optional extras. Simple ideas to pep up your meetings.

They won't necessarily have anything to do with the main subject, and they certainly won't take up an entire evening on their own, but they might just have an impact on your young people.

Think of them as the youth work equivalent of the orange in the Christmas stocking. Pick and choose from the smorgasbord of ideas below. If you come up with any other ideas in a similar vein, please write to me at EN and I can let other people in on the act (or just nick them for my own group - I'm not proud).

Guardian angels

Write the names of everyone in the group (leaders too) on separate slips of paper. Let everyone draw one slip at random and make sure that everyone knows not to let on to anybody else whose name they have drawn. To this end it could be worth putting the slips in sealed envelopes and telling people not to open their envelope until they get home. For the next month (or however long you want this scheme to run for) each person becomes the guardian angel of whoever's name they drew. The job of the guardian angel is to generally be supportive and loving - praying for their person, keeping an eye out for if that person is feeling OK, making sure they aren't left out of group activities, and anything else that feels appropriate. You may or may not want to give people the chance to guess at who was their angel at the end of the month. In any case, encourage people not to let on who they were angelling during the course of the month. Point out to the group that if they don't limit themselves to showing this kind of behaviour to just one person, they will have more chance of avoiding detection. Repeat the process the next month. Eventually you may well find that your group has been transformed into one that instinctively includes everyone and shows supportive love as a matter of course.

Hero of the week

At the start of your meeting each week take nominations for the hero of the week - either someone known to the group or someone who has been in the news who has acted in such a way as to deserve this honour. The group then votes between the nominees and the hero of the week is elected. If possible, get hold of a photograph of the winner and display it in your meeting room. Keep this as a light-hearted activity, but be careful that it doesn't become an opportunity for people to get at anyone (e.g. 'I nominate Kathy as hero of the week for being the only one brave enough to go out with Tim'). You could broaden this out into discussion about what constitutes heroic behaviour, with reference to Jesus' self-sacrifice, and challenge the group to take a similar attitude.

On the spot

Work out with the group a set of questions to ask other members of the church. As well as the obvious name, age, occupation type stuff, throw in stuff like most embarrassing moment, favourite sandwich filling, best memory, or anything slightly bizarre that you can think of. Also include some more spiritual questions like favourite Bible verse and top prayer tip. Produce a questionnaire including all the questions and each week get members to pick someone from the church who they have never spoken to and interview them. Each week at your meeting you could then have the members report back with the completed questionnaire. If you have access to one, a video camera would make this activity even better, and you could show the interview each week. Let members take it in turns to do the interviewing, maybe letting them work in pairs to make it less intimidating. If you change the questions appropriately each week you may be able to use some of the answers to lead in to your teaching, and in any case it never does any harm to get your young people talking to the other members of the church.

Steve Couch

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<< May 2000 >>