OVER PROGRAMMING ISN'T GOOD

There was a time when I thought that preteens were attracted to our programs because of our cool games and exciting room. Our 4th-6th graders love coming to church, regularly bring their friends, and often tell their parents about the excting time they had at church. I once thought it was because of the cool shaving cream balloon game we played or the foosball table, air hockey table, and video games in the room. We would plan so much activity at events and retreats that we would exhaust them (and our team). At sleepovers we would keep them up to 3-4:00 in the morning playing crazy off the wall games. Our basic thinking was that they have lots of energy and like to have fun, so lets give them those things. We thought if we did lots of fun stuff the churched kids would keep coming and we would attract their unchurched frinds. We would then teach them about Jesus, worship together and pray for each other. We would teach them about a dynamic relationship with Jesus. And to a certain degree it worked! Something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I started to ask our preteens what they liked most about coming. The #1 thing that kept coming up – they liked the people and felt it was a safe place. Whether they were new or came each week, they felt it to be an accepting environment where they could connect with friends and make new ones.

So, we started to cut back on our “planned” programming and simply allowed preteens to get to know each other. We gave them more time to talk to each other at our weekend services. Instead of playing two really big fun and exciting games at our Tuesday night service, we cut it down to one. We let them hang-out with each other in place of the second game. We kept doing fun games, events, and retreats, but we didn’t overprogram. The result of our little tweak was awesome! It created a more healthy climate that resulted in them to growing closer to God and each other.