What’s in Your Back-to-School Ministry Plan?

Written by Joy Emery

As teens pull out their backpacks and think about stocking their lockers with items that reflect their personalities, it’s time for you to think about your back-to-school ministry plan. The start of school is definitely a marker for students, and it is often your marker to begin a new season of ministry to reach students for Christ. As your students prepare for the beginning of a new school year, consider how you might help your students reach their campuses for Christ.

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As you begin to evaluate your ministry plan and how the local junior high and high school campuses are impacted by your ministry, begin with reflections of your ministry during the last school year.

Did I personally introduce myself to the school administrators at the beginning of school in order to offer to be available as a support?
Did I intentionally know what each school offered our students in relationship to student-led Bible study groups or groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes?
Did I volunteer to help on campus with both Bible-centered events and special school events?
Did I encourage my adult leadership teams to be involved on at least one campus represented among our students?
Was I visible enough at our schools for students who were not involved in our church to recognize me and associate me with our student ministry if they saw me outside of a campus event?

Then use the following questions to determine where your current campus ministry plan is headed this year.

Have I grouped our students according to the schools they attend and know which students will be on which campuses?
Do I have adult student-leadership team members who will adopt one of our represented campuses in order for us to have at least one adult leader who will be involved at that campus and know the students on that campus?
Are there events on my calendar that specifically target students who are not already involved in our church?
Do I have a ministry challenge and plan for both my adult leadership team and my students to reach the campuses in our community for Christ?
Do I have a parent-ministry team ready to help reach the new students’ parents that we will reach this year?

As you reflect on the answers to the questions from your experience last year and from your current ministry plan, ask God to lead you to a plan that you specifically need to reach the students in your community. There is no one way to reach these students. But the one thing that will help you reach these students is to make reaching students a ministry priority. As you begin to develop a plan, ask your ministry team to help you evaluate the following questions:

After a ministry event, what do we do to follow up on students who visited?
After a student starts attending, what do we do to connect with the parents and family?
How do we attempt to reach the occasional (yet repeat) visitor?
What are we doing for students who are seekers – those who are coming without any kind of spiritual heritage in their families?
How do we get new believers in a discipleship class or in a discipleship relationship to deepen their faith?

These are great questions to begin an open discussion with your leadership teams, with students, or with parents of students. As you ask these questions, allow God to help you discover the answers you need to reach students this year. May your back-to-school ministry plan allow you to reach into a backpack filled with rich ideas to reach more students for Christ this year than ever.

Joy Emery is a former education minister and currently is a Christian Education Internet Producer for LifeWay.com. She lives with her husband, Chris, and three children in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee and serves in the adult Sunday School ministry at Hermitage Hills Baptist Church in Hermitage, Tennessee.

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