Youth First Aids

Stems & Creatures In The Tree

4:37 PM Posted by Kat

Some of the youth leaders from our church went to the Youth Specialties Conference last December. It was a great time to be refreshed, affirmed, encouraged and to get some ideas that others are doing in their ministries.

One of the sessions I went to was on Small Groups. The speaker, Iona Snare of Life Teams brought up a great point about Small Groups. That it's not just about the youth listening to God (although this is VERY important) or listening to you, it is also about them learning to listen to each other. Seeing where each other is at, in home life, school life and in spiritual life and knowing how to encourage and pray for each other. This will help build spiritual community. She gave us an example of an outline she uses for small groups and in them she used two things that I would like to share.

1) Stems - stems are questions that are printed on strips of paper that are randomly picked out of an envelope. There are a mix of silly questions to more serious questions. You can download a set of stems by clicking HERE (this is a sample from the Life Teams website). Just cut each individual question into strips.

Stems are great for beginning of later conversations. Participants will realize that perhaps they have similarities and this can create a bond between them. As well, it also pulls people out of isolation.

2) Creatures In the Tree - Creatures In the Tree is a great way to get a little more serious with your group. Each person takes a look at the picture and picks which creature they feel are (this can reflect either how they feel about themselves that day or that week) and shares why they picked that creature. As a leader you can also discern whether this person needs some help, prayer or you need to spend more one on one time with them.

A great thing to do after each person has a turn describing which creature they are in the tree is asking everyone in the group to say one thing they heard someone else say. This encourages the youth to listen to each other, as well as it gives them a sense of being heard. You can download the picture of Creatures In the Tree by clicking HERE (from the Life Teams website). Below is a jpeg of the image.

I hope that these two simple ideas can help with teaching our small groups to listen and open up to each other. Remember, it's not only learning together by listening to the leader, it is also about listening to each other.