4 Thoughts on Your Weekly Youth Service

We all want to have a great weekly youth service. If you are a youth pastor, my guess is at times you have asked yourself ..."What needs to be included?""What are we missing?""What are the vital things to have each week?"Here are 4 Thoughts on what to include in your weekly youth service. 1) KEEP IT FUNIf you are not having fun, chances are they aren't either. Don't make the mistake that FUN and SHALLOW are the same thing. Some of the moments that had the greatest impact on my life spiritually were when I was having a blast! Create an atmosphere and culture that loves and enjoys what you do. For most people, if they aren't having fun they aren't enjoying it. 2) MAKE IT SIGNIFICANTI remember talking with a friend a few years back and he challenged me with this thought: It won't always be EPIC, but it needs to be SIGNIFICANT.We all have had weeks that we wanted to forget. Things didn't go perfect or even as planned. None of us live on the imaginary mountaintop where every week is the BEST WEEK EVER (even if our tweets may communicate something different). The goal isn't perfection - it is creating SIGNIFICANT moments where kids are meeting Jesus! 3) POINT THEM TO JESUSYou could preach about a lot of things - make sure you point them to the most important thing. Don't point them to rules or religion. Those things don't have the power to transform. Point them to relationship with Jesus. Don't forget that Christian students (and adults) need to be reminded of this! We never move past our need of Jesus at work in our lives! 4) EVERYONE BELONGSStudents need to know that they are welcome. Before they get things fixed, straightened out, or lined up do they feel like they belong? Have we created a culture that embraces young people right where they are at? The Gospel makes room for people to belong. Think about the way Jesus made "sinners" feel...they WANTED to be around Him! Why? He made them feel like they belonged.