A Creative Interaction For Your Students

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A creative interaction idea to use with your students during or after your youth group lesson from AwanaYM.

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Video Transcript

If you've played with the new Trek, or you've seen some of the other stuff that we've been doing lately, we're really emphasizing creativity. We love for students to get creative, to get messy, to create some new stuff. I'd like to suggest an alternative interaction for your group.

When I was a youth pastor, a long time ago, I had students come in one night a month, we would paint. That sounds like, "Oh man, this is going to be either really kiddy, or a lot of work." It actually wasn't as much work as you think. The truth is we would introduce the topic for the night. If we were talking about love, sin, or whatever it was that we were discussing, we would introduce the topic. I would read a passage description and then I would simply tell them, "Listen, I want you to paint a picture about that, whatever that feels or means to you." 

Sometimes they would really be specific to the passage of scripture or a story. Sometimes they would be really abstract. Take the time to allow them, about 20 to 30 minutes, to just paint. When they painted and they finished, we would bring them up and have them debrief their painting. They would say, "This is what I saw and this is what I heard." It can be really quick. I know you've got introverted kids who sometimes don't like to talk to a group, but truthfully, most of them were like, "Here's what I was thinking, and here's what I was seeing."

The painting itself allows you to begin to see, the way that your students view the world, the things that come to mind when you're talking. It gives you an insight to what they're doing, but also gives them the opportunity to share with one another, the things that they're seeing.

You're saying, "This sounds like a lot of work Jeremy." It's actually not really as hard as you think it is. You basically take six 8'x10' tables, and line them up basically two columns, three rows. Then you take four more 8'x10' tables and flip them up so that the two in the middle will basically be supporting the legs.

In the process you would have made an isle in front of each student, because there's a flat table to put the art on, and then a tall table to put the pieces of paper on. Just take masking tape, or something like that, tape the corners of the painting up there and paint on them. Some of you are saying, "What if they paint on the table." First thing is make sure you wipe it off as soon as they're done, or you can get one of those plastic table clothes and tape that up and just use that instead.

Either way, this is a pretty simple way for you to engage you students. If you feel like, "I don't have the paints to do this." You can go to pretty much any major department store, or just thrift store and get some kind of little paint supplies. They're usually really cheap. Sometimes you can even ask students to bring them. My kids have them left over from school so they can bring some stuff in, but let them paint.

They don't often get this opportunity, and sometimes it feels like, "I don't know if everybody is going to love it." Trust me, just take a chance, and allow them to be creative and express for you what you're teaching that night. You'll find out that it is a fantastic setup for you then to continue in your message and talk about what God has laid on your heart, from His Word.

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