Visit a teen Bible class and you are likely to see students listening to a lecture disguised as a discussion. The questions asked are rarely challenging young people to dig very deep spiritually. There are two rather simple tools used by secular teachers from elementary school through college that can help encourage students to think more deeply about God.
The first is something that can easily be done in a classroom environment. In secular education, they are often called “warm ups”. In the context of a Bible class, a warm up is part activity, part discussion that gets students thinking about what will ultimately be one of the main points of your lesson.
For example, if your Bible lesson is about trusting God, you could bring in blindfolds, water glasses and pitchers of water (think outside for this one!). Divide the teens into groups of three and blindfold two people in each group. One blindfolded teen holds the water pitcher, the other the glass. The teen without a blindfold must use only his or her voice to guide the two other students to pour water into the glass. After the activity, ask how difficult it was to trust each other and why.
Or, suppose your lesson is on forgiveness. Show a couple of minutes of news footage from the life of Ruby Bridges. Ask students how they would have felt in her shoes. How difficult would it have been to forgive the taunting and threatening mob of adults?
We have lots of warm up activity ideas in our free teen lessons in our Living the Christian Life teen curriculum. Feel free to use the activities, whether or not you use the rest of the lessons. You will find the themes of the various activities will work well with many teens lessons you may be teaching.
Another way to get teens thinking about God is also a great way to connect with students outside of class. Create a safe classroom space for your students. You can use Google Classroom for free and create an “assignment” or you could text and ask for students to reply by text. The assignment, no matter the format, is to give students a deep, spiritual question to reflect upon and share their thoughts.
This activity is common in teen secular classes, so they should understand it and be able to complete the writing part of it fairly easily. Stress you aren’t interested in spelling or grammar, but rather their thoughts. Depending on how much time you want to spend on the activity yourself, you can interact several ways in return.
Some secular teachers encourage or require students to comment on at least one or two responses from others. Because of the nature of ministry, this needs to be monitored closely by a teacher. Have ground rules if people aren’t treating each other kindly. Be sure to provide guidance for those who are biblically off base.
Another way to manage the activity is to provide your own summary thoughts in class or respond individually to what each student writes. Remember you are working to mold hearts and minds, not give grades. Make sure your comments are productive and encourage students to dig deeper into scripture.
Whether you use one of these methods or something else, it is critical to encourage teens to think more deeply about scripture and how it applies to their lives. Otherwise, Bible class can become an intellectual exercise with no impact on their hearts and minds.