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 Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:22 pm
Gah!!!!! Having a cell group for freakin' middle schoolers is annoying! No one shows up! I feel like it's a waste of my time to prapare all this stuff for it and have no one show up or just like two people. I'm so discouraged by it....can someone please give me some encouragement please!!
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Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:08 pm
nothing says fun like free pizza and at $5 a pie it won't break you
flyers are a good idea (not the 1/4 page...too small = gets lost)
email reminders to members (not just once before each meeting)
hope this helps
Edit:
keep it fun
keep it relevent
keep it current
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Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:47 pm
etchedspirit Gah!!!!! Having a cell group for freakin' middle schoolers is annoying! No one shows up! I feel like it's a waste of my time to prapare all this stuff for it and have no one show up or just like two people. I'm so discouraged by it....can someone please give me some encouragement please!! it all depends on who is coming. If you have guys, think of a sport they could play for a little bit. this will give them fun, and allow fellowship. If it's girls... I dunno exactly WHAT girls like to do... other than shop and tell me how much of a dork i am... But perhaps you could ask them what their favorite pass time activity is... possibly even video game times with E to T games. (so no bad examples) Make it seem exciting. ESPECIALLY if you've got middle schoolers as your group... they tend to wander off, and not entierly grasp the concepts. Perhaps if you made it look like a lot of fun, you wouldn't only get people to come, but they may be more open in growing in their relationship with God... hope this helps ^^
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Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:46 pm
thrashmetaljunkie etchedspirit Gah!!!!! Having a cell group for freakin' middle schoolers is annoying! No one shows up! I feel like it's a waste of my time to prapare all this stuff for it and have no one show up or just like two people. I'm so discouraged by it....can someone please give me some encouragement please!! it all depends on who is coming. If you have guys, think of a sport they could play for a little bit. this will give them fun, and allow fellowship. If it's girls... I dunno exactly WHAT girls like to do... other than shop and tell me how much of a dork i am... But perhaps you could ask them what their favorite pass time activity is... possibly even video game times with E to T games. (so no bad examples) Make it seem exciting. ESPECIALLY if you've got middle schoolers as your group... they tend to wander off, and not entierly grasp the concepts. Perhaps if you made it look like a lot of fun, you wouldn't only get people to come, but they may be more open in growing in their relationship with God... hope this helps ^^ well, the thing is, is that it's boys and girls, so I can't gear it toward only one sex. hmm.....the ideas are helpful though, thanks! ^-^
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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 9:49 am
I think its AWSOME that u're doing this at all!!! biggrin heart
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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:32 pm
etchedspirit Gah!!!!! Having a cell group for freakin' middle schoolers is annoying! No one shows up! I feel like it's a waste of my time to prapare all this stuff for it and have no one show up or just like two people. I'm so discouraged by it....can someone please give me some encouragement please!! I honestly know how you feel. My wife and used to teach the middle-school AWANA class at church on Wednesday nights (our church now does Bible Blitz instead of AWANAs). We're a small country church with about a 100 in attendance each week but we usually had at least a couple of kids in our AWANAa class each week (but their parents were also AWANAs volunteers so they didn't have much choice). Even though our kids were always there they were never "there." Their bodies were taking up space but they wouldn't participate. We tried various games and activities as rewards but we could never get them to actually participate in Bible studies. I really can't offer you any advice because we never figured out how to get our kids to engage but I can offer up the prayers of someone who's been there. "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." - Php 4:13 (NASB)
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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:23 pm
I taught a Bible study for a couple years and I can remember nights where we'd literally only have like me, my roommate and one other person and the other person was mainly there cuz they were bored and hungry. In any case, you serve faithfully, you study hard and do your best regardless of whether anyone is there or not or whether people are paying attention. You can't make people do what they don't want to do obviously, but even when something doesn't seem to get much response, I guarantee God is doing something. Who knows what little piece of the puzzle God is having you work on. It is totally possible that God is just training you to be faithful!
Don't jump to conclusions too quick, but if it just seems like it is becoming a situation where there is consistantly nobody there perhaps that's God's way of saying move on? There's no harm in that. God will always accomplish what he wants to accomplish.
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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:16 pm
My suggestions are:
1. First you need to have people start coming, incentives usually work. ways to do this are as already suggested pizza or some other type of food. something our kidsclub at church does is have a christmas craft day where we advertise the kids club there, we can be advertising to over a hundred kids who are already having the time of their lives. of course in your case this might be a bit hard but some sort of party type thing might work. Make in at the normal time you hold your group and just provide music, a bit of lollies and chips and get a few games going. You could try a short bible time with maybe a reading, a short speech and prayer to demonstrate the normal running of the group. ANother thing you can do is encourage the ones who DO turn up to bring some of their friends.
2. Then you have to keep them attending (usually the hardest part). Games can help, they don't have to be anything fancy and can incorporate what your trying to say for that particular day. And the 'God part' has to be interesting aswell. have too many suggestions to put here but if you're interested PM me and i'll show you some stuff we use at our church. but basically it has to keep their attention, be informative and if you have non christians be not too forceful.
3. PRAY! God will always provide his children with what he knows is right. Trust in him and he will be help you.
And finally... What exactly is a cell group, im guessing its like a bible study/youth group but im not exactly sure. oh and AWANA and Bible Blitz as well. i don't think we have all these here.
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:04 pm
guess what you guys! last saturday my cell group went great! they were actually responsive and stuff...any they liked the candy too ^-^ hmmm...yay! I'm so happy! 4laugh
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:18 pm
while i don't think it's a bad thing to have some incentive for ppl to come, you shouldn't be relying on that for them to come. i want you to answer these questions for me:
what is the purpose of the study?
how are you teaching them?
do you try to give them chances to interact (asking questions, starting discussions, making games to help learn the subject, etc)?
are you answering there questions? (many ppl at this age (13-18 really) are trying to find who they are, and in settings such as bible studies and such they need to figure out who they are in Christ/God's eyes)
are you showing them ways in which what they are studying affects them in someway?
are you, as the leader, focusing on both God and them? b/c if they cannot see that you care (even if you do) then they themselves will not care. they must know that they are accepted for who they are as a person, even if they do things wrong they need room for grace so that they may learn and improve on how they live.
these are just some basics that i'm hoping you will be able to think about and possibly answer. you don't have to answer them on here but i think these questions, by asking them to yourself, are good places to start finding ways to grow both spiritually and [if God wills it] physically.
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