Tweenagers and discipleship

[Ali Campbell]

I am leading a seminar at the Children's and Family Conference in Eastbourne in January on the topic of tweenagers and evangelism . . . any observations from members of this group, if I use anything you say here - I will "site you" in my seminar!

[Janet Evans]

Hi Ali, not sure if you mean:
1. Christian tweenagers sharing the good news with their friends or
2. You sharing the good news with tweenagers?

If number 1, a great idea is for kids to lend their friends a Christian book - fiction is great as there's no pressure and not many words have to be spoken (but it's all there in the book!). £5-£7 might seem a big price to pay for a book, but you can get a lot of books for the price of hiring a hall and a band!
if 2 DON'T GIVE UP! I helped for many years with an unruly bunch, nothing seemed to be going in on the spiritual front, but one eve I didn't have a 'focus' (the spiritual 5 mins at the end) so sat down and asked them to give one to me - they got up en masse and yelled the gospel at me like you've never heard it before - it had all gone in! Who knows when those seeds will bear fruit!

[emily davis]

I think this group are often underestimated. My experience is that they have an enthusiasm for the word and for service that is almost unparalleled in other age groups.

An excellent resource for this age group is: www.yfaith.co.uk.

There are regular downloadable resources for parents/ youth ministers to use with their young people at: http://www.yfaith.co.uk/parents/downloads.html (link to it from the home page).

The site was developed by the Catholic Agency to Support Evangelisation, but some of the resources are reproduced with the permission of Youthwork the Magazine.