Church youth Group HELP !!!

[Bill]

My wife and I were just put in charge of our church youth group. Their ages range from 11 to 14 mostly girls. Does
anyone know how to relate to this age bracket? Does anybody have ideas? What about skits or activities?

[Sheryl]

When I was in youth group and then a junior leader my senior year of high school, we did a lot of community service activities and activities to promote self esteem. We played a lot of games that the adults were very active too and some were just a blast. We laughed a lot and that made the kids connect with the adults when they did things together even if they were embarrassing. One thing that I will never forget is feeding chocolate pudding to each other while blindfolded (instilling trust). Someone had to stand behind us and tell us how to guide the spoon to the person sitting across from us. We would do a lesson with our pastor but keep it focused how it relates to a teenagers life. It was a time that we could talk to our pastor in a relaxed atmosphere if we needed to and also know that there are other adults in the community that we can trust when we have a problem if our parents aren't available.
We had a "SLAVE SALE" (at that time we didn't have to worry about being politically correct) in the spring that members of our community hired many to do yard work while making a donation to the youth group. Of course we had the extra benefits of having cookies and soda with them and a time to chat.
We also had soup and sandwich suppers with a free will offering for the community throughout lent on Wednesday evenings just before the church service. We raised enough money in about a year to take a special trip to Spearfish, South Dakota to see the Passion Play. We stopped at Mount Rushmore, Parade of the Presidents Museum, Dinosaur Park, a Flintstone theme park, and many other places along the way that were of interest, but the Passion Play was our goal.
I could go on forever......

[Bill]

Sheryl- Thankyou so much for your responce it was very helpful.
One question though, when you did that pudding thing were both people blind folded and a third person giving directions?

[Sheryl]

The person feeding and the person receiving were blindfolded. Another person was giving directions of where to move the spoon. There might have been another to help the person eating, but I can't remember that was about 15 years ago.

HAVE FUN!