One of the top reasons children and teens leave a church is because they didn’t feel like they had any friends there. As much as we would like to think it’s a problem just with young people, it can also be one of the reasons volunteers move on as well. Usually, this movement away in both groups begins with a complaint about the cliques in your ministry.
So what are some things you can do to bust open cliques and create new friendships so everyone feels like they belong? Here are some of our favorite ideas.
- Have regular conversations about perception v. reality. Let’s be honest. We’ve all had those days when we feel “less than”. Even though we have plenty of really good, supportive friends, it suddenly feels like we are on the outside looking in. Sometimes cliques are real, but more often they reflect the insecurities of those who believe they are on the outside. Having said that, everyone needs to be regularly reminded and encouraged to ask someone new into their conversations and make sure no one is sitting off by themselves. It also can’t hurt to talk about extroverts and introverts and the differences in what friendship may look like to each group.
- Mix it up. People naturally gravitate to groups where they believe they will be accepted. Which often means they head towards the table with the people who look most like them, go to their school, have similar interests, etc. Regularly mixing up groups – even multiple times in one session – can expose everyone to new people and help them find commonalities with more people in your ministry.
- Ask questions that reveal hearts. A study was done that found when people answered a certain number of personal questions with the person they were dating, they automatically fell in love. True or not, it’s a good principle. People will feel closer when they expose their hearts to each other than when they have shallow conversations or just have fun together.
- Do things that build trust within the group. That’s an entire post within itself, but building trust will also build a feeling of belonging. When self esteem takes a hit and they feel like outsiders, they can at least remind themselves these people can be trusted to have their backs if they need support.
- Encourage finding new things they have in common with others. People live entire lives outside of church and ministry that often remain hidden to others. Finding out someone else likes the same obscure musical group or doing the same hobby or also plays the drums can give people who thought they had nothing in common more bonds. It can also make quiet kids and others who often sit on the sidelines seem a lot more interesting when people actually get to know more things about them.
- Serve others together. There is nothing like working together to serve someone else to bond a group together – even if it’s a complete fiasco. I chaperoned a particular teen service trip that was a disaster on so many levels. To this day, all I have to do is mention that trip and everyone who was there chimes in with memories, funny stories and lessons learned.
Don’t let cliques – real or imagined – undermine your ministry. Take steps now so no one feels like they are on the outside looking in.