Lean In To The Awkwardness! Why Vulnerability In Your Youth Group Matters
Why vulnerability?
Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.
Brené Brown
Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:1–2
This passage in Galatians sets a high bar for community – and it was difficult enough for young people to do this when they were face-to-face… Sometimes it seems impossible to get young people to even speak to each other, let alone to call out each other’s faults and carry each other’s burdens! Now that we face the added obstacle of our screens, how do we move forward, building connection and a community of young people who challenge and support each other and call each other up into all God has for us?
These are our top tips. You might want to pick and choose depending on your group – you know your young people the best! But we would recommend starting at the beginning with ‘why’…
Share the ‘why’
Think about exploring why vulnerability matters with your young people. When they feel included in the vision and the ‘why’, they’ll be more likely to buy in. What kind of youth group do they want to be in the middle of social isolation? When this is all over, what do they want to look back on? Set them an exercise where they write down the response to the following:
Imagine that in a year’s time you are communicating to an alien from another planet who did not know anything about what happened in 2020. What would you say about how your youth group responded? What do they want your story to be? What do they want the story of this youth group to be?
Give your young people five minutes to come up with their ideas, and then share together what you want the story of this youth group to be in a year’s time. Make sure you contribute too!
Share the ‘how’: big picture
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 2:44–47
Use Acts 2:44–47 to start a discussion of what ‘the fellowship of believers’ could look like in this season for your youth group. Go through each point that we see written in the time of the early church and ask ‘how does that translate to what we’re living through now?’
Share the ‘how’: first steps
The first steps of this big vision of the fellowship of believers is about being real with each other (like in Galatians 6:1–2). It’s a choice to trust each other. That’s hard enough face-to-face, but this has to be a decision of everyone to step into that choice to trust and to be willing to share. That’s the foundation of forming relationship, of being a community and of stepping into this fellowship of believers. Some of the simplest choices that can be made in shaping the youth group now can aid that sense of connection.
Tip One: have fun!
Video calls can easily feel very formal. It’s hard to bring the laughs and the jokes that might happen naturally when you’re face-to-face. You’ll probably need to work harder to facilitate some fun. Making people laugh builds connection, it relaxes people, and it helps them feel a sense of companionship and warmth. So spend some time planning some games that will work well over Zoom and that will make your group laugh. We’ve compiled a list of games to get you started:
Link: 18 Games to Play on a Video Call
Tip Two: Winning and losing
Set a rhythm of sharing whenever your young people meet on an online platform. It’s important that as the youth leader you go first and set the bar. If you just share a few nice words and say that everything is ‘fine’ before moving on, your young people will do the same. However if you’re real, vulnerable, and willing to say that you’re not okay or you’re struggling – and share how Jesus is speaking to you – then they will follow suit. You have the opportunity to set the culture.
One simple tool for this is called ‘Winning and Losing’. Ask the question of each other, ‘Where are you winning and where are you losing?’ Don’t forget to go first!
Winning might look like: ‘I did this and it went really well’, ‘I cooked a new meal today’, or ‘I felt really good when I did a workout, and that’s made me feel more positive.’ It could also be that you’ve read a Bible verse that really spoke to you.
Losing might look like: ‘I’m feeling really fearful’, or ‘I read something in the news which made me worried.’ The most important thing is to be real with your young people and asking them to do the same.
By setting this as a regular rhythm, before long it won’t feel awkward. And, if you’ve already drawn your young people into the bigger picture of why vulnerability is important for connection, you’ll be onto a winner.
Tip Three: Prayer
If your group isn’t used to praying out loud, then you’ll need to take the lead and take things slow. You could ask your group to open their Bibles to the same Psalm and then use it to pray for the whole group as they read along. If you’ve got a small group, think about praying for people by name.
And it sounds obvious, but encouraging people to close their eyes can really help. If everyone closes their eyes apart from you as you read, then it’s a safe space – no-one will be watching anyone else. It’ll also help your young people to focus.
If you’ve got a larger group, or perhaps a more confident group, think about investing in Zoom Pro, which enables you to break down into small groups – e.g. pairs – where your young people can pray about their ‘winning and losing’.
Tip Four: Invest in your team
If you have a team, don’t forget that you’ll be missing out on that all-important half-hour catch up time just before your youth group starts. Think about scheduling another Zoom call before you start your youth group to check in with your team. You might want to do the winning and losing exercise with them too.
Your team might now be working from home or on furlough – which could mean they have more time to invest in your young people. Think of ways they might be able to connect directly, but make sure to work within the limits of your safeguarding policies. Youthscape and thirtyone:eight have put together a guide with some helpful advice in this area.
Link: Creating safer places online
For some of your team, it might be a really worrying time and they might be struggling themselves – so be sure to check in with them to see if they have capacity to take on more.
Tip five: Develop rhythms
Creating structure is a hot topic. Seemingly thousands of blog posts have been written overnight about everything from how to structure your day if you’re working from home to how to structure your new home school regime! Most of us do best when there is some sense of structure and shape to our days and weeks.
Think about what might be a helpful rhythm for your young people. It might be memorising a Bible verse every Monday, or a set time of prayer every week that you ask everyone to join in with. This will help you to journey closer together throughout the week.
Be realistic and keep it manageable – a daily video with a two-hour Bible study might be a bit much! And if you can, try and plan more than a few weeks in advance. It’ll help create a sense of safety for your young people and your volunteers will thank you for it!
Choose it
These are our five top tips for beginning to fight for connection – and it will be a fight! It won’t be easy, it won’t come naturally, it won’t have the same feelings that it might have after a couple of weeks meeting face-to-face. You and your young people are going to have to actively choose it. But it’s an act of choice to say that we’re going to fight isolation and loneliness, and connect together to form a fellowship of believers that God can use powerfully for the years ahead.
We’d love to hear your experiences exploring vulnerability with your youth group! Send us an email or come along to one of our online youth leader gatherings.
Check out our dedicated Covid-19 page to find out more.