Give Your Middle Schoolers More Credit

Last fall, I scrapped my student ministry teaching plan for the year and decided to follow what I felt was God’s prompting to try a different strategy.  

This is not a normal action on my part. Usually, I plan out my teaching schedule for the whole year before fall starts—and not only that, but I follow a similar planned-out rotation every three –to four years to make sure we cover the essentials. However, I had a unique group of students this year.  

Almost half of them were new sixth graders. Most were from a church background with strong families and a solid foundation of faith, but they were in various stages of taking ownership of their faith. They had transitioned out of a season of hearing Bible stories as kids and needed to study God’s Word for themselves. 

More than simply teaching them to study God’s Word, though, I wanted them to learn to love it. To hunger for it. To see its beauty and its importance, to find it sweeter than honey and sharper than a double-edged sword, to walk in its light. To meet God in its pages.  

Perhaps that was a lofty goal for a group of mostly sixth and seventh graders that struggle to sit still. But I’ve watched my own tweens devour 500-page novels in the span of a week (and analyze and rave about them with friends), so I knew they were not too young. 

Now, it has always been a priority for me to teach students to study the Word themselves. I don’t want them to rely on me to explain God’s Word to them; I want them to be able to glean from it themselves. This value is baked into how we teach in our student ministry. We talk about it, but it’s not always caught. I’ve tried in the past to encourage students to read the passage we’re teaching in the week ahead of time, but with minimal success. 

A new plan 

This time, I ordered 22 Philippians Bible journals and a pack of star-shaped 5-color highlighters. I printed labels for the fronts of the journals with a schedule of what to read each week and a simple study tool:  

• What’s the main point the author is making? Write it down. 
• Circle any repeated words or phrases. 
• Highlight:
• Pink: Who is God? 
• Orange: What has God done? 
• Green: Who am I? 
• Blue: How am I called to respond? 
• Note any questions you have about the text. 
• Pray as the Word prompts you. 

We sent them into small groups right after our opening game so they could share with each other what they’d noticed in the passage. I shortened my messages to a very brief 10-minute synopsis (to make sure they didn’t miss the main points) and then ended with a second set of small groups, focusing on application and prayer. 

A promising result 

I wasn’t sure how it would go. Would students actually do the work? Would they like it or complain about more homework? But during the next six weeks, I was encouraged by what I witnessed. Students read the Bible! They brought their journals back, highlighted it in different colors, noticed repeated words (sometimes ones I’d missed), asked important questions and shared about what had challenged them that week in application.

Sure, there were always a couple students (sometimes more) who hadn’t read the passage. No worries; we read it all together. There were things they didn’t understand; we talked about them. Not all of them were as enthusiastic about the new method. But there were also moments where they would tell me things like, “I decided to make yellow about who we should be. Here’s what I found.” This same sixth grade girl, the second week of our study, told me, “I really love when Paul says, ‘every time I remember you, I thank God for you.’ I’m trying to practice that, so that whenever I think of someone I pray and thank God for them.” These sixth graders were challenging me in how God was leading them to apply His Word! 

In our prayer times (where requests usually stayed in the realm of school tests and sick grandparents), another sixth grader stated that she wanted to read her Bible more regularly but found it hard to start the habit; could I pray for her? Of course! That is something I would love to pray for. Others asked for prayer that they would have the courage to share Jesus with a friend or to make prayer more a part of their lives. 

Unexpected surprises 

In God’s gracious plan, when we showed up for our fall retreat at Camp Shamineau, our speaker spent the whole weekend teaching through—you guessed it—Philippians. He encouraged groups to read through the book as a whole over the weekend. 

To encourage them to memorize Scripture (which has also, historically, not had much success), we offered them an item from our snack shop if they memorized a favorite verse (any verse) from the passage we were reading that week. It was a joy to hear students recite their verses by heart. One sixth grade boy came with a verse ready every week, a priceless practice even if it was mainly to get a candy bar. 

An ambitious seventh grade girl in our group told me that she wanted to memorize the whole book of Philippians. I said that was an awesome goal—though to be honest, I expected that excitement to fizzle pretty quickly. A week or two later, she told us she’d memorized all of chapter one and was starting on chapter two. At that point, one of my volunteer leaders told her that if she succeeded in memorizing the whole book, he’d buy pizza for the entire youth group. She kept up her work during Christmas break and then sent me a video of her reciting Philippians by memory. We definitely celebrated with pizza! 

Final takeaways 

I don’t advocate this strategy as the only or best method to get students into God’s Word; every group is different. (We’ll be using multiple approaches this coming year.) But this experience reminded me of several important truths: First, the Good Shepherd knows His sheep, and I need to be sensitive to His leading in how I lead them. Second, teenagers (even young sixth graders) are capable of studying Scripture for themselves. The Holy Spirit can speak directly to them through the Word. Students will often step up to a challenge when we recognize their capabilities and call them to it—alongside giving them a vision for why it matters. I am not as important in this whole process as I sometimes think myself.  

And finally, helping students to see the beauty and value of God’s Word is one of the greatest gifts I can give them. It’s more precious than gold; it’s eternal, boundless, trustworthy, true and right. It’s breathed out by God and His Spirit speaks through it. I’m so glad our middle schoolers got a taste of it this year, and I pray that their excitement to meet God in its pages continues all their lives.