Rev. Shanna Kronk
Associate Pastor
First United Methodist Church
Burkburnett, TX
We had our first LIFT meeting with youth (distanced and masked), and it was a HUGE hit! We met from 4:30pm-6:00pm, which was perfect. I started with snacks and a game (Pictionary related to the parable of the sower), then we had opening prayer and the scripture with a little time of “wonder questions.” I printed the discussion questions (modified a little for an older group and added a few others) and printed them out, one per table. Each table chose a scribe to record the group’s thoughts and inspirations. We had one adult per table of two or three youth.
I floated from table to table, participating with encouragement and letting the youth know it is okay to have different thoughts on a passage of scripture (that’s why we say the Bible is alive). Then we had a time of group discussion where the tables shared their ideas and discussions with everyone. We worked hard to tie the discussion back to how this passage applies to their everyday lives and what it looks like in their homes and schools. Wow! The discussions these young people had was mind blowing!
We then moved to a brief time of brainstorming discussing service to our world, community, and church, then on to joys and concerns. I had one youth volunteer to lead our prayer and another to deliver our benediction.
Our plan is to have at least two adult mentors (ours will typically be couples but we do have some matched pairs also) join us every Sunday evening on a rotating schedule. This will give our youth more opportunities for interaction with many more of our adults without obligating any particular adults to another weekly responsibility. We are a small church, and our available volunteers are even fewer due to pandemic concerns. Our fifth Sundays, we will go serve at Faith Mission together instead of having a formal lesson, and we will likely have one time per month where we check in on/plan/discuss our mission projects in addition to our lesson.
LIFT can easily be used for older youth as well as children with a little modification or addition. It all started because the name of the program so perfectly described what we felt like we wanted teach and encourage our youth to do. Live in faith together.
Other October 2020 IG Mix Articles
Gathering All with LIFT
Two Questions: Christina Embree
What Do You Think?