I’ve just come back from Slam, our youth group for 11-14’s and I’m so pleased at how well the programme is working! After the summer we changed a few things around to try and provide a better environment for the young people who attend. Specifically, we extended the small group time to give more weight to the subjects we’re studying. We also made the topic fully grounded in the bible (a chapter of Ephesians each week) so that the young people can do ‘homework’ and follow up in their own time.

The added advantage to this has been that the leaders have had to take more responsibility for leading the small groups and actually ensure they’ve studied the passage themselves! This is what I’m so excited about, that the leaders are getting as much out of the group as the young people are! They’re coming up with creative ideas for teaching, putting appropriate boundaries in place for the small groups and gaining a greater understanding of the bible too!

There are still things that can be improved upon (each half-term is a good opportunity to tinker), but at the moment the leaders and the young people are learning loads!