Tonight in our high school gathering our students were super chatty. I wasn't cheating (EDIT: or teaching, perhaps would be the correct word) so I had more of a chance to take it in. Working with high schoolers (and previously jr. highers) I've gotten to used to a level of chatter, but this just seemed a bit much. We're thinking of tweaking some stuff to cut it back. Here are some of the ideas:

• Eliminate sitting at tables - we currently sit at round tables. I've already known that our new room doesn't have plans for tables at this time. We may still use some, but just only use as many as we have adults available to sit at them.
• Do a very intentional transition at the start of the message - Something like "If you feel the absolute need to talk during this next bit, feel free to hang out outside instead."
• Re-train our volunteers to have a more specific role at the tables - I've slacked on helping our midweek volunteers know exactly what their role is and do it.
  

Labels: youth ministry

This entry was posted by Mike Lovato, on Wednesday, April 02, 2008. You can leave your response.