One of the best youth activities we have come up with was what we called, “The Saturday Youth Series.” Yes, it was me that came up with the name and I’m not known for my flashy titles. We were looking for something that was a bit different from a Vacation Bible School. The traditional VBS takes place in the day or evening and normally lasts for several consecutive days. Some have opted to put on an all day event often called, “Super Saturday.” There have been many variations on time and format, but one common theme, however good the outcome, was that there was a lot of time and energy put into the decorations and displays.
For the Saturday Series we decided to not decorate at all. We wanted the focus and all the energy to be on relationships and learning. The time frame was 2-4 hours one Saturday afternoon a month for four consecutive months. The main emphasis was for 1) our youth to get to know and learn from adults and 2) encourage more adults to be involved with the youth. Adults were encouraged to sign up for a single task which they would replicate 3 or 4 times as the children rotated through in 30 minute blocks.
We had one Bible study in the rotation, but then focused on skill building and adults sharing their interests. Examples included various crafts, a fisherman who taught how to throw a cast net, how to repot a plant, a construction worker who had pre-drilled holes to teach how to build a wooden box (3 year olds hammering was fun), a science teacher who brought in a digital microscope with slides, knot tying, how to juggle, and various games. The promotion was, “What knowledge or skill do you have that you could share with our youth?”
The very first day was awkward because saying the series was replacing VBS and not having decorations felt like something was missing. The kids didn’t notice, but it was the adults who thought maybe we should have done a bit more. What lacked in presentation was by far made up for in action and relationship building. The kids loved it. They were exposed to so many different new ideas and people that the constant question was, “When is the next one?”
By asking adults to sign up for only one event throughout the entire series no one felt overwhelmed and they were thrilled to share a passion they loved. We attempted to not do any arm twisting when it came to filling the monthly roster. If we only had four adults sign up we did four activities. If seven signed up, we had seven. There were some adults who wanted to serve multiple months and we plugged folks in wherever they had an interest. There was complete agreement that the series accomplished our goals.
The point was driven home not long ago, several months after this year’s series concluded. A four year old boy was walking down the hallway and just stopped and pointed to an older man and said, “Hey, I know you. You helped us build a box.” They had a brief conversation and then the boy kept walking. Skills shared, memories made and a relationship started-that’s success.
-Eric Dougherty
FreeTheOx.com