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youth ministry open sky:
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Youth retreats and trips are awesome, but there are many ways to make a good trip even better. This section includes ideas on how to use skits to promote, carry out and tell about your youth retreats and trips. As you read, you'll discover the many ways to motivate, highlight and raise interest in the activities you are planning for your youth group. Ideas to Get You Started:Try This! It's your annual snow retreat up in the mountains. Why not organize an evening talent show around the fireplace. There'll be time for a host of goofy skits, most of which your kids will think up from their vast repertoire of knowledge. If anyone is having a tough time thinking of something to do, let them browse through Skits With a Message or another skit book for ideas. Better yet, gather a group of kids to work on serious skit to end the show and lead into the evening program or worship time. Try This! After a great day on the ski slopes, why not bring it home to your congregation! In the van on the way home, organize a skit team to come up with a skit portraying the days events along with some cool things learned along the way. Incorporate scripture and offer to do the children's sermon on Sunday for your grateful, "I owe you one!" awestruck pastor. Try This! You know all those great skits you saw last week at the junior high retreat at camp? Get a group of your youth to try their own rendition of a favorite skit seen at camp. Then have them perform it for the Sunday School kids' opening program next week at church. Don't forget to assign someone to explain the spiritual significance of what was being acted out. (Sometimes we wonder, don't we!) Try This! It's time for Confirmation Camp again! It's going to happen all over again: your kids pile into the car growling with discontent at being forcibly shipped off to "church camp" only to return all fired up from an awesome week at camp filled with cool counselors, lots of new friends, memories from late-night campfires, conversations and critters. Why not get your kids working on a skit about the trip. It could go something like this: Scene 1: Mom and dad in the car, the two kids in the back seat, complaining and fighting all the way there, finding the whole idea of "camp" repulsive as they talk about all the horrible things that they are going to have to do, "Bye kids! Have a nice week!" Scene 2: Mom and dad pick up the kids, who pile into the back seat, talking nonstop about all the awesome things they did, all the cool friends they made, all the cool pranks they played, and on and on! There might even be room in there for a lesson or two that was learned along the way. Try This! You know the junior high retreat next month is going to be totally awesome, but your skeptical junior highers aren't sold on the idea of spending their hard-earned weekly allowance on a weekend off in the woods somewhere. Why not get some of your senior high youth, who went last year, to come in and do a skit about all the crazy things that happened last year. The format could be along the lines of the Confirmation skit idea above, or you could let the kids create their own version. Try This! You're taking your youth group to Mexico for a mission trip. You're doing a number of fund-raisers to get you there. Why not use a skit to make people aware of what you'll be doing and why it's such an important trip. With one skit you can get the word out to the whole congregation. Prepare a skit that shows how a trip like this can change the lives of the people you'll meet as well as your own kids. After the trip, you'll want to put together a presentation about the trip with skits, songs, pictures and sharing. Try This! Take your show on the road! If there is a local retirement center in your area, they would love to have your youth come and put on a special program of any kind. Anything from singing, drama, special music to just going around visiting them would be a huge hit! Why not put together a couple easy skits, throw in a few songs and a short message, and call it a day! Better yet, call it a success! Try This! Arrange a special night with a church in another city. Have each church youth group prepare a skit, message and song. Get together and share some pizza and the program. Meet new people and share with each other what your youth groups are doing in their local areas. Note: If you live in a small country town, contact a city church and vis versa. You may want to contact an inner city church, a different denominational church, or a church with a different cultural heritage. |