Your Guide To Starting A Youth Ministry From Scratch

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Starting a youth ministry from scratch can feel like an insurmountable task. You might be feeling overwhelmed, or even afraid to take your first step because you don’t want to “do it wrong.” Whether you’re brand new to this whole leading church youth group thing, or you’re one of those youth leaders who’s been around the block more than a few times, my hope is to help you begin well when launching or relaunching a new youth ministry.

Asking The Essential Questions

Before we jump into 5 fundamental steps to starting a youth ministry from scratch, let’s ask a few essential questions. Before beginning anything new that you feel pretty sure God has called you to do, it’s helpful to pause and ask a few heart-level and logistical questions.

1. Is God asking you to launch this youth ministry?

I get it. Odds are, you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t feel like the Holy Spirit is prodding you in this direction. But this is an important question to consider because it’s all too normal for a kind, generous human being such as yourself to see a need and step up to fill that need without pausing to first consider whether or not God has called you to be the one who fills the need in this season. 

Yes, being a light means seeing and filling needs in our community, but it is also true that sometimes the absolute healthiest thing you can do is say no to good things that aren’t meant for you in this season. So, before you start a youth Bible study or begin brainstorming fun activities, it’s worthwhile to pause and allow God the space to confirm in your heart that launching a new youth ministry is right for you in this season of life.

2. Will your church leadership support and sustain a new youth ministry?

Of course, we all agree (emphatically) that the answer to this question should be yes! But, still, this question is worth asking because your church leadership’s support will be fundamentally important to the youth ministry’s launch and long-term stability. Naturally, you are a go-getter. You get things done. You’re an independent person who can dig deep and carry the load of a newborn ministry for quite some time. But inevitably, whether in two months or two years, you’re going to need your church leadership’s approval, blessing, or, let’s be honest, forgiveness (oops!). So getting their explicit support and excitement is a great way to start things out!

5 Fundamental Steps To Get You Started

1. Converse With The Parents Of Teenagers At Your Church

The first thing you’re going to want to do is far wiser than it is exciting, and yet it’s far more exciting than it seems on the surface. The Word of God is clear that His design is for parents to be the spiritual leaders of their children. Ultimately, your decision to launch (or relaunch) youth ministries at your church is a decision to better support parents in the discipling of their children. So your first step is to meet with the parents of the teenagers at your church to listen, brainstorm, and vision cast for what a youth ministry at your church could look like.

You may choose to do this in a group setting with all parents in one room. Alternatively, you may choose to do this one-on-one, meeting each set of parents individually for coffee or lunch after church. Regardless of how you choose to do it, sitting down with the parents of your church may end up being far more exciting than you’d initially anticipated as you see how they get on board with a fun, constructive environment where their teenager can experience spiritual growth.

2. Settle On A Consistent Meeting Pattern

I appreciate that you might instinctively think your next step is to start brainstorming what you’re going to do at your youth gatherings. But actually, what you’ll discover over the course of your journey leading a brand-new youth group is that what you do matters far less than who you do it with.

It’s a beautiful thing when one student shows up on Friday night for the awesome Friday night activity you’ve planned, and you get to go on an exciting, uncertain ride with the Holy Spirit navigating 90 minutes of one-on-one time. It just might be the case, though, that you’d serve your church better by doing less exciting activities on Wednesday nights if that’s when more students are able to make it!  

Hopefully, your conversations with parents inform your decision on when to meet for youth group, but know that there’s nothing wrong with starting off slowly. Sometimes the right move is to start off by meeting once every two weeks or even once per month, instead of once per week. If you have four students show up for the once-per-month youth gathering, you may find you build momentum faster than if one or two students show up to your once-per-week gathering.

3. Plan To Value Substance Over Structure

Some of us have a hard time going off-script. We like to follow the instructions. There’s nothing wrong with following the instructions, but when you’re launching a youth ministry from scratch, you need to set the expectation for yourself that your youth gatherings won’t necessarily look like the typical youth group gathering. 

Get ahead of the game by planning to value substance over structure. You may want to spend the first three months of your new youth ministry gatherings walking through a video sermon series from a curriculum like G Shades. That’s great. And because you’re a highly organized person, you’ll likely want to utilize the creative interactive activities or ask some of the particularly rich discussion questions the curriculum includes. That’s amazing. 

But teenagers are squirrely little creatures, and things don’t always go according to plan when you’re with them. So prepare your heart for the inevitable zig when you want to zag by planning to value substance over structure. 

You expected five students to show up and two showed up? Substance over structure.

Your post-video discussion time was derailed by a student sharing about how they were bullied? Substance over structure.

You planned a really cool outing to mini golf, but only three of the ten possible students showed up? Substance over structure.

4. Be Personal And Personable In Your Invitations To Students

For those of us who like to follow the instructions, this step might be a little bit difficult, but it’s important, nonetheless. If you’re starting a youth ministry from scratch, you’re probably doing so with a small group of teenagers. With that in mind, be personal in inviting each student to join your new youth ministry. Whether it’s a handwritten letter or an eye-to-eye conversation at church, you get to set the tone with this initial conversation. The invitation to join your youth ministry is an invitation to be seen and known. 

The invitation to each student should be not only personal, but personable. You don’t have to be “cool” to successfully launch a new youth ministry, but you do have to be likable. As we said earlier, what you do at youth group will matter less than who’s at youth group, so when the most consistent person at this small gathering is you, you’ll do well to be a likable person. Fortunately, being likable to teenagers is easier than the average person would think. 

Teenagers are humans. They want to be seen. They want to be valued. They want to have fun. They want someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. If you’re above the age of 25, they’re going to think you’re 100, so let go of the fear that they’ll think you’re old and out of touch. They do. And, to some extent, you are. It’s fine. Just be personable and interested and engaged, and trust that God will bring the students who need to be there in His own timing.  

5. Meet Them Where They Are

At the end of the day, launching a youth ministry from scratch is about seeing a need among a group of people and meeting them where they are. Since that’s exactly what Jesus did for us, launching a youth ministry is an incredibly gospel-centered thing to do in a given season of your life. Keep that aspect of the gospel at the forefront of your vision as you launch into this new venture, and step five will seem natural.

When you strip away the structure, the studies, the permission slips, and the shaving cream (what is it with us youth leaders and shaving cream games?), what you’re setting out to do is establish relationships with students that are of social and spiritual significance. You want to matter in their world, and you want Jesus to matter in their world. A great place to start is the place they least expect to see you.

Ask for the JV baseball schedule from mom and dad and show up to a game one night. Take your significant other out on a date night to the 11th-grade school play. Never been to a tae kwon do competition? I know what you’re doing next Saturday afternoon! Chances are, you don’t have unlimited time. You have work and home responsibilities and passion projects and hobbies of your own. So it might take you a year or two before you’ve been to one of every student’s things. That’s okay. The point is, you’re showing up. You’re meeting them where they are. You are doing for them what Jesus has done for us in the gospel.

Being A Light

If God’s Spirit is guiding you to launch (or relaunch) a youth ministry from scratch, you’re in for an incredible journey. Your church leadership made the right call by supporting this scary, but worthwhile venture. Get the parents of teenagers at your church on board. Settle on a consistent meeting pattern. Value substance over structure. Be personal and personable as you invite students to join your new youth ministry. And meet them where they are. 

The Lord knows what it is to do the very thing that you’re doing right now, and He will give you everything you need to do it. When Jesus instructed His followers to be a light, He meant for us to go and do exactly the kind of thing you’re setting out to do! So thank you for saying yes. Thank you for loving students. And thank you for seeing through the lens of the gospel. The next generation is better off for it, and God is glorified by it.

Read More:

7 Events For Children’s Or Youth Ministry 

5 Steps To A Youth Ministry Kick-Off Event! 

Youth Prayer: Praying For Youth And Teaching Its Importance