In my previous post “How We Organize Our Youth Ministry Meetings” I didn’t mention anything about giving talks to our youth group. That’s because I don’t think talks are appropriate for weekly meetings.
Here’s why:
1) They are ineffective.
- I’ve seen statistics by communications experts that say we remember anywhere from 5% to 20% of what we hear. If your goal is to teach our teenagers about our faith and help them grow in their understanding of their faith and Church, why would you put so much effort into something that is so ineffective?
2) They take too much time to prepare.
- Any good speaker will tell you that putting together a good 10-minute talk can easily take 10 hours or more. If it takes 10 or more hours to put together a good talk, that is too much time out of my work week and too much of a commitment to ask of my volunteers. And remember, even if you had that much free time, the teens will only remember 5-20% of what you say . . . if you’re good, which brings me to my next point.
3) There are too few good public speakers.
- Do I really need to give any explanation here? Haven’t we all slept . . . I mean sat through enough lectures?
4) The theology in some of the talks I’ve heard has been anywhere from questionable to nearly heretical.
- Here is a quote from a talk I once heard about Jesus being tempted in Luke 4:1-12: “And then the Devil said to Jesus, ‘If you really are Christ, then tell these stones to become loves of bread.’ And guess what? Jesus did. . . Wow!” . . . Wow indeed.
- I’ve heard enough bad theology that I prefer to have the students just read the text for themselves, and then discuss it in a group where bad ideas can be handled more easily.
Don’t get me wrong, I love good talks, and they do have an important place in ministry. The purpose of retreats, rallies, and conferences is to inspire and motivate new believers and to revive the faith of old believers. In that situation a powerful talk is great. Speakers aren’t trying to get their audience to remember every word they say; speakers just need to motivate their audience so they will go and dig deeper into their faith on their own—that is where the real learning happens. And these events are (or should be) planned far enough in advance that the presenter should have plenty of time to prepare a talk that will inspire and revive the audience.
