Read Part 1 of this series here!

Bumper Video
I teach in series and will typically create some short 30 second to one minute long bumper video to go here so the band can get back to their chairs and we can transition anything if needed. Purposeful time to let students know we’re changing gears.

Teaching Time
We only have thirty minutes left in our hour before we dismiss and let kids go. Now if I were doing high school ministry I might teach for the whole time and then have one more song at the end for a response time. But this is middle school ministry and I want these students to come back next week. So what I do is I break up my teaching into roughly ten minute segments. Something happens at the end of those ten minutes to help give students a break before we dive back in.

Typically that means the first ten minutes is:

  • Explain main point of the lesson Ask questions/take answers.
  • Read Bible.
  • Ask questions/take answers.
  • Break and play a game.

Confession: sometimes that game is an awesome illustration that helps tie in lesson beautifully. Sometimes, however, that lesson has zero to do with the truth being taught and is solely used to help break up the time and give the sixth grade boys a chance to let out their wiggles. End confession.

The second ten minutes then is:

  • Read Bible. Ask questions/take answers.
  • Unpack truths. Ask questions/take answers.
  • Break and tell a story that helps relate to the main point.
  • Again, this is a time when I allow for silly adlib and helping the students see that this is the time to unwind for a minute. This could easily be a video that helps relate the truth of the lesson to students also.

Sometimes I see we’re running late at this point because of good conversation and so we drop a video, game, or story so we can spend more time on the next round.

The last ten minutes usually flows like this:

  • Read Bible or revisit main point
  • Ask questions/take answers.
  • Begin application.

PART 3 TOMORROW!

Ronald Long is a youth pastor and Downoad Youth MInistry author – check out his resources right here!