You still have your volunteers and your kids, just no building to meet in, no place to invite kids to. How would your strategy for doing youth ministry change?

The school as your parish

In 1938, a pastor challenged a Jim Rayburn to see the local high school as his parish, his church building.

Rayburn built relationships with kids on that high school campus and developed a strategy for sharing his faith with students on their turf. Rayburn later founded Young Life, one of the largest and most successful parachurch organizations. Their mantra is still the same today: go where kids are.

Taking it to the… schools

Youth ministries need to see school functions as extensions of their ministry.

Students spend an average of 30-35 hours at school each week, not to mention the hours they spend involved in extra curricular activities, including practices, games, and recitals. Kids spend significantly longer amounts of time at school events than at church events. Kids are busier than ever and the last thing they need are youth pastors guilting them into going to another church event.

Schools offer a lot of ways to serve kids, whether it be substitute teaching, coaching, or tutoring. I spend my afternoons helping coach track or cross country, allowing me to be a role model to dozens of kids, and even talk about God with them. Sometimes they bring it up, sometimes I do, but either way, we’ve had lots of great talks about God, hell, salvation, and life in general.

Adopt schools together

Get the youth leaders in town to adopt a local school together. EverySchool.com is a great resource to network with other youth leaders who have a heart for your school. As a network, you can develop a strategy to reach every kid (and staff member!) on the campus.

Here are some ideas for serving schools together with other youth ministries:

1. Start or help sustain a Christian Club, or partner and support a parachurch ministry such as Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Young Life, or Youth for Christ in every school in your area.
2. Do a fundraiser to help a sports team cover its costs.
3. Buy and serve lunch for teachers during a teacher inservice day.
4. Throw a teacher appreciation banquet.
5. Instead of going to Mexico to do a mission trip, consider doing a mission trip to a local school (thanks to Mike DeVito from NNYM for this idea!)

We can better reach our communities if we see schools as mission fields instead of competitors for our kids’ time.

Your turn: Do you get on the local school campuses? What kind of relationship do you have with the local schools? Or is doing campus outreach not the most effective way to reach kids? What are some other ways to do ministry with kids outside the walls of the church?