On the Road to Nowhere?
It was called Road Rules. The plan was to take a group of students on a week-long trip with no destination. I knew where we were going, but I decided no one else should know. I ended up with upset adults and students not interested in going because they didn’t know the destination.
We do the same thing every week, by planning lessons only a few days or hours ahead. We ask to take our students on a spiritual trip without letting anyone in on the destination. It is time for us have a map and destination for our teaching and be willing to share it with those to whom we minister.
Consider your students’ school setting. They are being taught according to specific curriculum with direct learning destinations in mind. They and their parents know exactly where the teaching is heading. Why is it that we who are teaching the most important truth often have little plan, expectation or destination in mind?
Multi-Year What?
Say it slowly, “Multi—year—curri—culum—plan—ning.” Breathe and let it sink in before you run away. I know that anything in youth ministry that has as part of this lable gains an immediate negative response. You see the word curriculum and think about outdated Sunday School books with the bad clip art and fill-in-the blank exercises. Finish it all off with a tall helping of planning. You are thinking, “I don’t think so. I am a Spirit-led wild child of God who cannot be fenced it. I need to run free!”
I am with you or…er…was with you. I was afraid that planning would kill my creativity and quench the Spirit. After finishing my master’s in middle school education recently, I started seeing the opposite is true. I found all the problems I saw actually were solved by planning multi-year curriculum. I am sure the question for you now is, “What is multi-year curriculum planning?”
Multi-year curriculum planning is making a map for your teaching for the long haul of your ministry. In the simplest terms, it is sitting down with the scope of your teaching time and coming up with a sequence of lessons and teaching. The scope is the number of years you are teaching your students. If you handle middle school and high school, you are trying to plan for the full youth ministry experience. If you are handling only one or the other, you are planning just for the time you have, three or four years. The sequence is the order you are going to cover your topics and how they are going fit together.
Why would you need a multi-year curriculum? Youth ministry veteran Amy Jacober contends, “a multi-year plan ensures that what is hoped to be covered while a youth are in the youth ministry is being (in fact) covered.” The question is, “How?”
Is There an App for That?
As with any other youth ministry trip, you need to start with where you are. Find out who is going with you. Finally, plan the route you are going to travel with stops along the way in order arrive at your destination safely.
Where are you? Physically, where do you live and minister? As you begin to develop a set of lessons for the long haul, you need to understand where God has placed you. You need to know your area, church and group. Ask some hard questions about your area. Think about things such as setting (urban, suburban…), region, diversity, socio-economic characteristics, etc…Commitment for the long haul also requires you to know what things are most needed. Jeffery Tillson, a junior high youth pastor in Houston, Texas, with an outreach focus on his local community “starts every fall with topics that will connect with the un-churched students” in his area. As you look at your area ask, “What are the things that are important and relevant to my area, where my students live out their faith?” In an area hard hit financially when revising our own multi-year curriculum, we added to our stewardship component along with a short series on “joy and contentment in tough times.”
Next, understand your church. What are the values and theology that characterize your church? Your intent should be to prepare your students to transition into an active role in the church. Tillson and Jacober when asked about this responded similarly. Tillson advises, “Remember your ministry is a small part of the larger whole.” He suggests, “Sitting down with your senior pastor to capture his heart for your ministry.” Jacober says, “My heart is to connect students to the greater church…” Further, plan to teach in ways that honor the core values of your church. If you are part of a denomination that has liturgical calendars, consider using that tool. Jacober explains that it is important that “first and foremost the theology must fit who you are as a community…know your tradition…” Finally, find out what the rest of the areas of ministry are teaching, especially the children’s ministry. If a topic is already being covered thoroughly, focus on those that are not being covered.
Who Is Going with You?
If you are going to plan, you need to know who is on the journey with you. Who are your students, and who are the other adults who will help you? A great way to get to know the group and allow ownership is to include students and adults in the process. Form a team and allow the members to create a list of suggested topics and ideas. Not only will students feel ownership of the teaching, but adults can include things they are willing to teach. A strong part of my present ministry setting is a student ministry team. Allow your leadership students to advise and give you feedback after your have taught through a series.
Seek, however, to go beyond just teaching facts to teach real life application and synergy. Jacober explains it as what students “know cognitively, emotionally, spiritually and live.” This requires us to know our students in order to speak into their lives, not just talk at them. Although this process may seem removed and academic, it is not. It’s rooted in relational, connected ministry.
Make a map. Above, I introduced the idea of scope and sequence. Think of it as your map. Decide on how long, in what order and where you are going. It can take any form or length and can be divided in whatever way fits your students and ministry area. It is the key to organizing your topics and focusing your curriculum. “Don’t forget a multi-year curriculum is much more than any single curriculum; it is about scope and sequence, what is offered and in what order,” Jacober points out.
Start by grouping topics according to what you feel fit best together (beliefs, life topics, social issues) then organize inside those groups the order of topics. Find a large white board or bulletin board if it is visually easier, but map out from beginning to end.
Our ministry’s current multi-year plan has two sets of three years–a set of teaching for Sunday mornings that is expositional and belief-focused and the second set for Wednesday youth group that is topical and life-issue-focused. The plan we came up with based on our process was to target church kids on Sundays and to target the community on Wednesday nights, both with teaching and leader-led small group times.
You should plan from foundational to more advanced (think of building blocks) as one truth prepares for the next. Tillson plans and teaches similar to the style of his church that is expositional. “Preaching through the entire Bible, worship, pray and reaching the nations is all core to our vision,” so he forms his curriculum around that.
After you have organized, grouped and ordered your teaching topics, then decide on the scope of your curriculum, the time period it covers. Like a good outline, you are not including every single thing you are teaching. You are coming up with a main idea/theme for each time period, lesson unit topics and individual lesson topics. Be aware of holidays and schedules that can be used to your advantage for topics and teaching.
Once you have a scope and sequence, it allows you to color in the map you have created with as much or little flexibility as you like. Create your own lessons that fit within your topics, purchase lessons or curriculum that fit or a mix of both. There is great curriculum out there for you to use and tweak. Depending on your time, abilities and position, you now have a clear direction for teaching. Add on and include retreats, mission trips and other events that fit that year’s overarching focus.
Most important, communicate and share your map. Create an easy understandable document to make available to those who are connected to what you do. It can be a simple Word document or something more advanced, but it is important to inform, interest and include your students, parents and volunteers in the long-term plan. Jacober says, “My job is to advise and guide for something that will outlast me.” In the end, you want to create not just something for your tenure, but something that will become a part of the DNA of the ministry and your church.
Is this Really the Right Direction?
Like anything you do, there are advantages and concerns in choosing to plan for a multi-year curriculum. Those who are actively using a multi-year curriculum all say the pros far out weigh the cons.
The advantages fall into four main areas: Assessment, Accountability, Action and Acceptance.
1.) Assessment: You now have a tool that will allow you a measurement of what is being taught and caught. Tillson and Jacober say this allows you to know what is being covered and what may need to be covered again.
2.) Accountability: You have a tangible source of accountability to offer parents and other staff members. Sprouse says it keeps him “from running after the newest thing out there.”
3.) Action: Having an organized plan for an extended period of time pushes toward “long-term discipleship that is slow and steady” and lasting. If you know what you are supposed to be doing, you are more intentional in doing it. Instead of endless hours brainstorming and dealing with distractions, you are focused. Additionally, planning ahead frees you to do more active ministry with students.
4.) Acceptance: A better word could be professionalism. Simply by taking time to plan and organize, your ministry will be seen differently. Offering transparency of what you are doing and teaching gives way to better acceptance and support.
The concerns come down to three areas: Spirit, Study and Stay.
1.) Spirit: Simply make room for the Spirit. Do not plan so inflexibly that you can’t take a break. You are not in a school setting. Have break weeks to address current issues or a topic God has laid on your heart.
2.) Study: It will require time initially in order to plan well for the long term. Understand although you have a plan, continued study will be required to prepare and re-write lessons.
3.) Stay: In order for a long-term teaching plan to work, you need be willing to commit to stay for the long term and see it through. A three-year or seven-year plan is not going to work if you are only going to be around for one or two years.
On the Road?
Consider and pray through this process and the destination of your teaching. You know as well as I do we are driving on a winding, changing road. We simply seek to invite as many as possible to join us on the journey and want to offer a good map for the trip ahead.
