Help! I'm a Junior High Youth Worker!: 50 Ways to Survive and Thrive in Ministry to Early Adolescents

To Be a Junior High Youth Worker . . . takes a distinct kind of adult, just as junior highers are a distinct kind of people. Betwixt and between though they may be, early adolescents are as capable of a genuine spiritual understanding and growth as high schoolers. It’s just that junior highers absorb Bible teaching and demonstrate their spirituality—well, differently. Help! I’m a Junior High Youth Worker! is your primer for understanding young teenagers, then teaching them with a mind-set and with methods that fit them. First Things First. Three axioms that define your territory as a junior high youth worker. So Just What Is a Junior Higher, Anyway? The essence of early adolescence: the need for appropriate rules . . . the dilemma of throwing sixth graders and eighth graders together in the same program . . . small is good. Developmentally Speaking. Changes junior highers enjoy and endure cognitively, emotionally, socially, spiritually . . . their changing relationships with parents . . . individuation and hair under their arms. Time to Teach! Your required dose of pedagogy: the case for fun learning . . . ten top teaching topics for middle school ministry . . . how simulations, role plays, and storytelling can be your best teaching methods for early adolescents. Faith Outside the Youth Room. Spiritual discipleship for middle schoolers: they don’t have to be high schoolers to begin forming habits of prayers, service, and outreach. Help! I’m a Junior High Youth Worker! is help at hand surviving and thriving in ministry to early adolescents.