HYPE Youth Group: Defined

Well, let's dig in today to the biggest and most obvious element of HYPE Youth Ministries: HYPE Youth Group.

HYPE stands for Helping Youth Pursue Eternity, and it gets confusing - mostly because I use the term 'HYPE' to refer to two things: first, I call everything I do through Merrill Bible Church, in regards to youth, 'HYPE.' More specifically, I call it 'HYPE Youth Ministries.' BUT, we also refer to our Wednesday night senior high youth group as, 'HYPE,' or 'HYPE Youth Group.' Confusing? Yeah, it is. And really, I just need to man up and come up with a different name for one or the other. But it's pretty ingrained at this point, and so I think we'll all just have to suffer through the confusion and chaos associated with those names.

So here, we're talking about HYPE Youth Group.

HYPE and CrossOver (we'll talk about that later) both have very similar visions and goals: they're places of teaching, worship, and most importantly, community. This last element - community - is probably the easiest for us to gloss over, but it's the most important aspect of Wednesday nights for the senior higher's. Everyone would readily admit that religion that only lasts for two hours isn't life changing at all. Our goal, through HYPE Youth Ministries (see, there I go) isn't a two-hour commitment. It's life transformation. And for life transformation, we need more than teaching, more than music, and more than small groups - we need community.

Since the calling of Abraham, God has worked in and through communities. He's ordained communities to be the movers and the shakers of the world. And he's ordained community, a Christ-centered community, to be his hands and feet here on earth. We experience God through communal service, worship, prayer, Scripture reading - all these things happen together. 


Think of it like this: there are 168 hours in a week. For an average student attending HYPE, we get them for 2  of those hours. That's just under 1.2% of the week. Only one percent! Despite the teaching, the worship, and the wisdom of our leaders - that's not a ton of time. But the community extends beyond this.

If we can create accountability, relationships and true identity as children of God, then suddenly the impact of HYPE extends into the schools, homes, and free time.

In essence - and I was told this when I started and it's stuck with me since - HYPE isn't trying to be a youth group. HYPE is trying to be a new youth culture.

HYPE Youth Group has a lot of elements to it - we essentially try to pack a lot into a little space. There's a game, announcements, worship (musical), a teaching, small groups and fellowship time, all peppered with prayer, and all within about two hours! On first glance, that might bring up a question: "Honestly, Dave, if you only have two hours, why spend a quarter of it on some silly game?" The answer? Community. For adolescent high schoolers, hurling foam balls at one another's head creates community. There's something that stretches beyond Wednesday night when a kid gets his glasses knocked off his nose, only to get picked up and apologized to by another kid. That's youth ministry!

HYPE Youth Group is also the entry level place for our youth ministry. It's structured and set up as a place where new students can feel welcome and involved, while also blasting our regulars with the truth's of Christ. The lessons are going to focus on the life-changing nature of the gospel, and there is usually both a clear gospel presentation and call to follow Jesus. The lessons certainly aren't sugar coated, but they're prepared to be interesting and challenging for a non-Christian. We're not doing apologetics or evangelism training here - there are other ministry areas for that. And, as this blog continues to move, you'll see how those things are tied together.

HYPE Youth Group, as well as CrossOver, operates during the school year - from September through May. We reshuffled and reprogram during the summer (more on that later). We have awesome, committed volunteers who lead small groups and other programs, and there's food and plenty of other activities too.

This blog is a place to explain and introduce elements of HYPE Youth Ministries (still confused about the names?), but it's also a place to highlight changes, upcoming shifts, and new concepts in HYPE YM. And guess what? There are definitely some cool changes cooking up for HYPE Youth Group (yeah, you're getting the hang of it!). So those will be rolled out and explained over the next few months, heading into our 2011-2012 school cycle.

The next post will take a look at CrossOver. Stay tuned!