MIDDLE SCHOOL MINISTRY TOOL: WHAT IS GOD DOING?

Here is a simple tool to help the middle schoolers in your ministry notice and talk about what God is doing in their lives.

But first, a quick story of how it came to be…

Every once in a while I would ask the 8th grade guys in my small group what God was doing in their lives. Although I would try different approaches to setting up and asking the question, every single time I got nothing but blank stares and total silence. If I pressed a little bit, they would think hard, but nothing would come to mind. This was perplexing because I knew that God was doing some really great stuff in all their lives. They just didn’t recognize it or have the language to articulate it.

I decided to create the following tool to help them a bit. It went so well that I wanted to share it with you. Although I did it with 10 or so 8th grade guys in my small group, it could definitely be used in the context of any middle school ministry in a large group setting.

I talked about how a series of unfortunate events in my life took place within a few months of each other. A virus broke out at junior high summer camp. There was a lot of puking and we went home early (many in the room were at that camp). My son, Ethan, smashed his face in a skateboard accident. There was a huge water leak in our house that flooded much of the downstairs. Someone ran into my car. I went partially blind in one eye and had emergency surgery. It was a tough couple of months.

Two lessons I learned: surrender and peace. I’m usually a mess when crazy events outside of my control happen. But this time I sensed that God was in the mess. I was able to surrender it all to God, rather than trying to control everything. I was also able to find God’s peace and presence in the chaos.

I told the boys that God is always working in our lives. It’s just a matter of paying attention to what He might be doing and leaning into it.

And then I gave them this tool to help them recognize what God might be doing in their lives:

(Simply copy and paste, drag and drop or save the file on your device.)

I gave them about 5 minutes to do this on their own.

Then, I asked them to share which ones they circled and why. Just about all the boys jumped in and contributed to the conversation. It was great!

My hope is that the same would happen in your middle school ministry,

Nick Diliberto
Founder of Ministry to Youth

Looking for middle school ministry curriculum?

We just released a new year long junior high curriculum, with a 79 % discount and 3 bonus series! In the curriculum, we address the most important issues that students this age face. Issues like: influence, identity, change, choices, belonging, autonomy, etc. We also mixed in series that emphasized specific books or themes of the Bible that resonate with middle schoolers.