Make Church Fun for Older Kids

(This is the fifth article in a series on reaching urban kids.)

Many churches do a great job with little kids – providing doting nursery workers and dedicated Sunday School teachers. But the older kids get, the harder it can be to engage and discipline them, particularly kids from tough backgrounds.

One of the things our church has done for the last few years is to add a Sunday night activity in addition to traditional Sunday morning Sunday school. We’d rather do something during the week, but sports and other competing activities just crowded out too many kids. This time parallels when older youth groups meet.

The upper elementary age group often becomes disenchanted with the activities of younger kids, so it’s important to give them something different and challenging. For example, here’s our format for this year’s MEGABLAST, which meets from 6pm to 8pm:

1. For the first half hour, they join older youth groups for a time of worship. Kids are invited to help lead worship as singers, musicians or leading movement to songs. There is often a structured activity, like writing out a sentence of praise to God, then everyone reading theirs out loud. In a setting with older role models and guided activities, worship is caught as well as taught.
2. The next half-hour is spent rehearsing a super-easy short drama that I write for them to present to their families at a monthly dinner. The dramas include narration that can be read, Scripture recitations and personal stories. We keep memorization to one or two lines per person so kids don’t get too stressed about performing. We want them to have fun, present truth and become confident speakers.
3. For the third half hour we break into boys’ and girls’ groups, with an adult leader. These groups read and discuss a Bible passage and pray together. There is a strong emphasis on good group process, with simple listening exercises at the beginning of each session. For example, we’ll get kids to share a highlight from their week, but first they repeat what they heard the last person say. It pays to insist on good process; to require only one person talking at a time. Good communication skills and behavior boundaries are crucial for diverse groups. When those are established, even kids from very different backgrounds will feel safe and open-up.
4. The final half hour is devoted to some crazy game that lets everyone run around our large building and make lots of noise. This is by far their favorite time, and when they relate most spontaneously.

We’re considering some other formats – maybe some in-home small groups next year, for example. But this structure has worked well for us, helping kids from different backgrounds to worship, learn, work and play together.