The simple and right answer is the Bible!
But I wonder which bits. Most of us have a bias towards teaching our ‘favourite’ bits. I have also come across people who love to go for the most challenging parts and for no other reason than the fact that most would never dare to try. Having recently spent a week teaching Revelation (the book) to a great group of young people I could be accused of daring.
God and Satan
The whole experience was both challenging and rewarding and raised many issues. I think the most significant was their understanding of God. Many face issues where Satan’s activity rears its ugly head in their lives. To know that God is on the throne and Satan is permanently defeated makes a huge difference when you sometimes think that bad things and bad people always seem to win. When put in proper context I was surprised how easy they found it to get the big picture from the book — God was very gracious in revealing himself in that way to that group of young people.
Old Testament avoidance?
I have met people who run a mile from teaching the Old Testament. I don’t know how we justify editorial rights on God’s material by leaving out anything pre-Jesus, because 2 Timothy 3.16 speaks of ‘all Scripture’ being God breathed — I assume such people believe the Old Testament raises too many difficult issues to warrant their time. So, when we’re deciding what to teach our young people, how do we do it?
Despite all the books and courses under the ‘Bible Overview’ label, there are still people who regard the 66 books of the Bible as a kind of lucky dip. You pull out one you really fancy and hope you don’t get one which you don’t like. I would love to see anyone in or starting youth ministry go through the Bible and see it as one book with all the books of the Bible forming part of that cohesive message. We mustn’t not teach and ignore many of the books — it’s a bit like receiving one of those phone messages that break up when you go into a railway tunnel. When you see the big picture, you want to see everything that makes up the picture.
What have you ignored?
Why not look at a list of everything you have taught in the last four years. It may surprise you to realise which parts of the Bible you have ignored. Then it is helpful to draft a four-year plan, not necessarily with one book per term — it may be better to do something for four weeks and come back to it. But make sure the programme has balance, as you move from Gospel to history to poetry to epistle. You will not teach a four-year cohort of young people everything. But make sure they have tasted as wide a variety as possible. There are a few examples of this four-year curriculum in my book Growing Up.
For some people, teaching some books will be challenging, but worth every minute of extra preparation time. It will help you understand Scripture better, and that can only be good for your young people.
Dave Fenton is the Training Director of Root 66, which runs training courses for youth ministries across the UK.
