I’ve recently realized that I was assuming all my teens knew how to communicate and connect with God on their own. As I have discovered, a large number of them are actually struggling in this area. So it has become a renewed focus of mine. I have always believed that the bedrock to an individual’s relationship with Jesus has to involve some kind of focused alone time with God. But how do we equip our teens to do this?Here is what I am trying – maybe you’ll like it too:
- Focusing on having alone time with God myself
- Creating small groups solely for this purpose
- Setting a weekly challenge before your group for number of times alone with God
- Creating opportunities to share about their (and your) times with God
- Practicing different aspects of alone time with God in group settings (read a short verse and discuss interpretation and application; take 10 minutes at youth group with music on and listen to God; etc)
- Reading specific short passages throughout the week and then coming back to talk about them at group
- Setting up mentoring of those who’ve “got it” and those who need some coaching
- Praying for people who are “stuck” – deliverance, healing, whatever is needed
- Teaching on the importance, training on the many ways to connect with God
- Got any more ideas??
Thanks, Christian, these are some really great ideas
). Thanks for sharing . . . I’m going to use them!
Here’s some more ideas:
- I’ve been referring my youth to listening to some good online podcasts, just to get started (esp. the ones who want to learn and practice preaching more).
- There’s a new bible called “LIVE” in the NLT translation that some of my youth and I are absolutely loving – it’s got a daily reading set-up as well as thought-provoking questions and commentaries, but it also has all kinds of faith writings/art next to relevant verses by high school kids, like poems, testimonies, paintings, and such. It’s really inspiring for this age group. Every book also has an intro of how it links to Jesus. Highly recommend it!
- Have some daily bible reading website as their computer homepage like http://www.wordofgodonline.com or http://www.dailyaudiobible.com. – I love websites like these that have readings done outloud. I think of how bible passages were passed down verbally back in the day, and I think there is great value in hearing the bible outloud, rather than read silently.
I really like the idea of making appointments with God and having some sort of daily Bible reading schedule. Scheduling and planning alone time with God is sometimes hard, especially for me, but I find I’m more consistent if I do.
For those e-mail addicts like me, http://bibleplan.org/ is a really great way to set up a daily reading schedule that will keep you challenged and consistent. They have a couple of different reading plans that will send Bible Gateway links to your inbox, and you can sign up for multiple ones if you are really feeling driven. Even if you are behind in reading, the e-mails will keep coming, so it starts to build up a momentum and becomes part of your routine, especially if you like keeping an empty inbox. I would recommend if you do something like this that you make sure you’re not doing this as a duty but because you want God to show you things and enrich your relationship with Him.
Actually putting time with God in our schedule, inbox, or calendar, somewhere we put important appointments that we aren’t going to blow off is a really great way to get consistent and intentional in your relationship with God. Once you get prompting and passion from God to really commit to knowing and spending time with him, He’ll blow your mind.
I love to read about how other people connect with God. It’s so amazing how diverse God is, isn’t it? These are great ideas, keep them coming!