Youth Sunday School Curriculum

A big part of teaching youth Sunday school curriculum is helping your students take the next step in their faith. It is about taking the lessons they are learning and giving them opportunities to live them out in their daily lives. While some of these opportunities come naturally and you mainly just need to help your students recognize these opportunities when they come around, it can also be helpful to create some of these opportunities for service. A great way to do this is through mission trips or mission projects. In this article we will discuss exactly how you can go about this and increase the impact that your teaching has on your students.

While it could be difficult to organize a national mission trip or international one, depending on your role and/or your budget, putting together a local mission trip can be quite easy and very benerficial. All you have to do is look around at the needs in your community. Think through your students' interests and what sort of activities they might like to participate in. Think through what lessons you are covering in your youth Sunday school curriculum. Then find an opportunity to serve. There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer at various places. A couple of places to look at when considering where your students can volunteer would be a homeless shelter or soup kitchen of some kind. This can give your students an opportunity to meet real need face to face and can give them a consistent place to serve. Another place to consider is a nursing home. The Bible is very clear about our call to minister to widows and quite often those in nursing homes have been neglected and would love for someone to just sit down and talk to them. This can be a simple yet powerful way for your students to get involved in the community around them.

If you for some reason cannot find a place that is already up and running for your students to serve, you also could go about creating your own opportunity. This option is great because it allows your students to use their creativity and to follow what God is laying on their hearts. I have seen this happen in several situations and some great opportunities have been created. You might find an apartment complex with a large number of people in need and go their to minister to kids or run errands for those who cannot. I also have seen groups start bible studies on their school campus and do on campus service projects a long with those studies. What you do depends on your students' needs and interests, along with the community you live in. So just take some time to pray and evaluate and then talk with your students about what they think you should do.