Refine the Message

When my team transitioned from being the Central LifeKIDS Team to the Central Content Development team I started more than ever really looking at what we were teaching our students. But honestly, my personal interest had begun a year before. When my oldest entered the sixth grade. Then it really mattered! Not just as something to analyze or criticize but something to really delve into and become a change agent with whatever influence I could wield.

Before I start though, please know that I love our student ministry team. Their heart, their passion, their love for an age group I personally could live a lifetime and not hang out with. I didn't even like middle schoolers when I was one. :) I'm just using the following story as an example of how we've been making great strides in refining the message.

One of the first sort of common threads of criticism that emerged was "they always talk about the same thing." And at the time, this one thing was the list of what not to do. Don't have sex. Don't do drugs. Don't swear. Basically just don't sin. I don't really know how true that was, but the overall message of "just make better choices" was what was coming through, and honestly, I don't see how that message is much different from what they are already hearing from their school counselors.

So when I made my son start going to our Wednesday night student experience, I would ask him, "So what did you learn?" "Nothing." I knew that wasn't true. I now was even in a position to know what the message actually was. So I would then ask, "What was the video about?" He spit back the details and then said, "But that's what it's always about. I know it's different series and stuff, but that's still pretty much what it's always about."

Now if he had said, "All they ever talk about is God's great love for me and the fabulous riches of grace through Christ" then I probably wouldn't have cared. But the message that students were getting wasn't THE message. You know what I mean?

Now it's easier to pick this out when you're looking at something that's not, well, not you. As much as I was personally invested in it because I had a son in student ministry, the reality is, I'd been developing curriculum for kids for over six years. So what about those messages? I've already shared how many different separate strands of curriculum we had going. So what overall message were our preschoolers walking away with. What about our elementary kids who've been mentally juggling two messages a week since our weekend and mid-week stuff are on different tracks? And my word, what about our parents? What overall message was our ministry sending them?

Let's just say that pointing out the splinter in the student ministry was only the first step to really refining our message. There's still a log to haul off. And what is it they say in those 12 step programs? Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

What problems have you uncovered in your ministry's message? In your curriculum? In your parent communications? In each individual lesson? Let's unload our junk and get it hauled off.