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Youth Age-Level Characteristics
JUNIOR HIGH
Why should you minister to Junior High students? Because they are:
- Thinking through adult issues although they are still children
- Experiencing tremendous physical changes that can be very confusing
- Experiencing personality and character formation
- Dealing with increasing academic and moral pressure
- Forming values and asking questions about life
- Very impressionable and still accept adults as models for lifestyle and values
*From Junior High curriculum, Introduction
SENIOR HIGH
Issues that concern your Senior High students:
Friends are very important. They work through such questions as these:*
- What makes a good friend?
How can I be popular?
When should I be like my friends?
When different?
What does "being in love" mean?
How can I be loyal to God and to my friends?
Parents and people in authority are topics your students think and talk about. They disagree with their parents about things ranging from fashion to Christianity. They wonder whether their parents' values are their own. All teenagers have to grapple with the role of authority in their lives even if they don't experience classic rebellion against church, home and school.
Achievement and failure concern teenagers. They are afraid to make mistakes in dating, school and sports and even in what they wear. Pressure to perform—exerted by peers and parents—continues to increase.
Calling and vocation are topics they think about. They have to make decisions about college and jobs. Teenagers are sorting out their roles in family, school, church and society.
Accepting responsibility is what they will learn as the have more freedom, more money and more opportunities to fail or succeed than ever before.
Material possessions play an increasing role in their lives. They plan what they want to spend their money on, yet are becoming aware that Christians are not guaranteed financial success.
Identity. Who am I? What is the purpose of my life? Why was I made the way I am? Why do I hate myself so much of the time? The Bible and the world give radically different answers to these questions, and your students are trying each response on for size.
Maturity in Christ is the goal. Defining Christian maturity and then thinking, acting and feeling like a mature person take up more than a lifetime of work.
*From Senior High curriculum, Introduction
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Articles from the Go Teach online newsletter may be copied (unless specified otherwise) for use in a non-commercial printed or electronic form under the auspices of a local church. Reprinted articles may not be altered in any way. Please include the byline, other source information if provided and the following credit line: Published by Great Commission Publications, Inc., 3640 Windsor Park Drive, Suwanee, GA 30024. Used by permission.
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Great Commission Publications • 3640 Windsor Park Drive • Suwanee, GA 30024-3897 • (800) 695-3387 • (770) 271-5776
The publishing ministry of the Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Committee for Christian Education & Publications of the Presbyterian Church in America. Copyright © 2004.
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