Over the years I’ve tried out loads of youth group resources, curriculums and teaching plans with young people. There’s some great stuff out there (and lots of freebies online), but honestly, I’ve often reverted back to writing my own because there is never anything that fully works “out the box” with our group. That’s actually a good thing because every single group of young people have different tastes and needs, so it’s important to adapt material to fit your group better.

However, over the past couple of years there’s been some great development in ongoing curriculum plans here in the UK. Below are three resources developed by well-known organisations that I’ve been looking through and wanted to compare together. I’ve outlined the main points for each one, so you can see how they stack up.

A quick disclaimer: although I’ve looked at some of the sample sessions and played around with the content, I’ve not actually tried these out on a regular basis so would value input from anyone who uses them in their church context.

1) Scripture Union Lightlive

The Blurb: LightLive provides exciting Bible-based resources for children’s, youth and all-age ministry, and puts a wealth of activities and ideas for your work with children and young people at your fingertips. LightLive is designed to help you tailor the material available to the specific needs of your group(s).
Through LightLive we want to help leaders like you to be inspired and equipped with excellent Bible-based material so that children and young people can meet with God. Over 650 new activities are added to LightLive every three months on top of over 10,000 activities already stored in the archive. It is still developing and will keep evolving.
Cost: FREE (Donations suggested)
Age Groups: Under 5’s, 5-8 year olds, 8-11 year olds, 11-14 year olds, 14+ year olds
Pros:

• A rolling 3-year programme that covers the basics of the Christian faith
• Caters for a wide age range, so could be used across all groups within a church
• Fully adaptable session plans with options to add, delete or change parts of a session
• Collaborative tools so team members can log in, create sessions and assign tasks
• A huge range of searchable archives to find relevant topics and themes

Cons:

• Slightly ‘clunky’ user interface
• Lack of topical or cultural content

Comments: LightLive is by far the most interactive and collaborative of these curriculums. Your whole team can sign-up, login and adapt session plans while assigning tasks to each other. But while the content is good with a huge archive, there is no specific topical or teen-themed sessions. You can read more about LightLive here, and watch a series of video tutorials here.

2) Urban Saints Energize

The Blurb:
Our resources website provides a continual stream of adaptable, creative, biblically-based meeting plans for 5-7s, 7–10s, 11–14s and 15-18s. Your leaders will never run out of ideas! There’s also a continual stream of drama sketches, articles and online training tools to inspire, encourage and equip.
Cost: £20 month basic or £25 month including insurance, CRB checks etc. More info.
Age Groups: 5-6 year olds, 7-10 year olds, 11-14 year olds, 15-19 year olds
Pros:

• Caters for a good age range, so could be used across most groups within a church
• Adaptable session plans with options to add, delete or change parts of a session
• Lots of topical and cultural content including sessions based on news and movies
• A good range of searchable archives to find relevant topics and themes
• Additional leaders and young leaders training materials
• Useful articles and information for working with young people

Cons:

• Comprehensive but confusing website
• No collaboration tools to include team in planning sessions

Comments:Energize is not quite as good as LightLive in terms of interactivity and session design, but it really excels in current affairs and topical content – quite an important point when running sessions for young people. Urban Saints also offer support and development for youth leaders which could come in handy in building a strong volunteer team.

3) Youth For Christ RS2 and Mettle

The Blurb: Thousands of 11-14 year olds attend RS2 groups every week. RS2 provides all the material you will need to run hour-long weekly sessions which are fast-moving, Bible-based, creative and inspiring.
Mettle is not a ‘quick fix’ course on Christianity. It’s an ongoing programme, designed to build the essential Christ-like qualities of courage, spirit, and character that will help 14-18s make informed choices.
(The full Rock Solid course for unchurched 11-14’s is also included in this package).
Cost: £25 month
Age Groups:11-14 year olds, 15+
Pros:

• Strong presentation of material which makes it very easy to download and use
• Searchable archives to find relevant topics and themes
• 5 free copies of YPs Bible reading notes, every two months
• Training opportunities
• Discounts on weekend residentials

Cons:

• Narrow age range so can only be used with 11-18’s
• No collaboration tools to include team in planning sessions
• No adaptable session plans to add, delete or change parts of a session

Comments: RS2 and Mettle are excellent resources that were primarily designed for the print media which is why they are so well laid out. While it’s great having them available online, they haven’t yet got the interactive sophistication that the other two curriculums have. They are also the most expensive.

So that’s my little rundown. For the needs of our groups, I would probably choose to go with Urban Saints Energize because of the teen focused themes available. But I am also seriously considering making a donation to Scripture Union and signing up our volunteers to LightLive simply so they can start collaborating and planning sessions together.

Now, what about YOU?

If you’ve made it this far down the post, then why not join in with this poll and vote for the resource you use in your church groups. There’s also a space to add any other curriculum that I’ve not mentioned.

Image Credit: p!o on Flickr