Helping young people access the Bible is one of the most empowering things you can do in your work, but how to go about it? Here are five top tips to think about!
1. Don’t hide the Bible
If you’re starting up a Bible study with young people, don’t try and hide the fact. Often youth workers are guilty of inviting people along ‘to hang out with some other young people’ and then, surprise, there are Bibles and they say, ‘Turn to 2 Kings 2:23…’ That’s not fair on the young person. It’s also counter-productive. Reading the Bible should be a normal activity for Christian young people, both individually and in a group. And one of the ways you make that normal is to be open, honest and unashamed about what you’re doing. You’re inviting them to come to a group where you read the Bible together to find out more about who God is. That’s a normal thing. And if it’s a normal thing, then inviting those who aren’t Christians to come join you to do it isn’t that weird.
2. Start with a Gospel
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it’s a story. Stories are great, because everyone can read them and understand what is happening. It’s easy to ask basic comprehension questions of stories and then work out why this happened. Second, the hero of the story is obvious. You can read some narratives (I’m looking at you, Judges) and not be sure, who, if anyone, is the person we’re meant to sympathise with. With a Gospel, the hero is there in the middle of it all. All scripture is about Jesus and his gospel (Luke 24:27) but in a Gospel it’s especially obvious. Finally, without knowing the events of Jesus life it’s hard to understand the rest of scripture. The prophecies of a saviour, and the pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament are easy to pick out once you know the narrative of the Gospels.
3. Prepare!
The Revd John Stott used to say something like, ‘Get the passage in your head so it changes your heart.’ Study the passage prayerfully and have God transform you through it and you’ll find preparing a Bible study and leading your young people through it becomes a very natural thing. Your study and prayer life is the work you need to do to make the session work.
4. Encourage questions
Get your young people used to thinking about what they’re reading by asking them questions like ‘What struck you as odd in that passage?’ or ‘What surprised you about Jesus’ behaviour there?’ This gets young people thinking, and also helps them to see how they can ask questions of the Bible to help them understand what’s going on.
5. Answer those questions with the Bible
It’s easy to become the fount of all knowledge during a Bible study, you’ve done the hard work and you’re the expert! But that won’t help. The Holy Spirit works in them just as powerfully as in you. Rather than firing off a long answer to their question, bring the young people back to the text and ask them if they see how the Bible answers that question. Questions like, ‘Can you see anywhere in the passage where it explains that?’ or even wider questions like, ‘Can you think of anywhere else in the Bible that something similar happens? Why does it happen there?’ By bringing them back to the text again and again, you’re giving space for God to speak to them through it, and giving them the confidence that they can read and understand the Bible themselves.
Mark Walley is Youth Worker at All Souls Clubhouse in Fitzrovia. He likes comic books, coffee and curry. Follow him on Twitter @sparticus.