🐿️ When to Split High School and Middle School Youth Group

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🐿️ Middle School and High School Students
What are the factors that need to be considered when deciding whether or not you’re ready to split them?
And what are some creative hacks to getting around it, if you’re not ready or able yet?
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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Sharing Youth Rooms with Outside Groups
01:08 3 Factors to Consider Before Splitting Middle and High School
03:54 The Pros to Making the Split
05:23 The Cons of Making the Split
06:59 Four Creative Hacks to Reimagining the Split

TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;01;28
Nick Clason
Youth pastors.

00;00;01;28 - 00;00;28;59
Nick Clason
Have you ever had a high school student say to you, “I don't want to come to youth group with that middle schooler!” Give us a like if you know, a high school student who has done that and maybe subscribe if you've actually never heard that. And then the rest of us who have liked the video because we've had high school students do that will either know that you're lying or we're going to be super jealous because you and me all know that in the back of our heads, right?

00;00;29;00 - 00;00;56;35
Nick Clason
Like we may or may not have the bandwidth or the time to split up the middle school and the high school students. And so, in today's video. We're going to explore the best, most premium and optimal time and way to split up your middle school and your high school students. We’ll talk about the three factors to consider. We will ask two clarifying questions in each of the sections.

00;00;56;40 - 00;01;20;09
Nick Clason
The top two pros, the top two cons, and finally, some creative hacks to get around making the big switch. If you know you're not ready for or don't have the time for it, factor number one is your size. Like you have to consider how big is your group? What is your average group's critical mass. That’s question number one?

00;01;20;12 - 00;01;49;42
Nick Clason
Then number two in the sized question is what momentum will be lost by splitting up your students? The other factor you have to consider is your bandwidth. For example, like do you have the bandwidth to split middle school and high school? When I was working at church early on in my ministry, I determined that we had a big enough critical mass and that we could withstand this switch.

00;01;49;47 - 00;02;06;55
Nick Clason
But then we had to switch and I had to add to my calendar and my schedule another night to meet. And I ended up deciding to make that decision. In that season of life. It was the right move and it was the right call. So we did middle school on Wednesday night and we did high school on Sunday night.

00;02;06;56 - 00;02;30;02
Nick Clason
Prior to that, we did both of them together on Wednesday night. So Sunday night was a new addition. And looking back, I don't know actually, cause I only ended up running it for a year prior to then me moving on to a different church. I don't know if it was the right decision. You have to measure and know what your bandwidth is and if you have the bandwidth to split.

00;02;30;02 - 00;02;53;35
Nick Clason
And I would recommend right here the top of this video is a video where we talked about time management and go through that. And that little exercise might actually help give you some clarification on do you truly have the bandwidth. Also, the second question under bandwidth is do you potentially have a volunteer to help you own that other piece, the other split piece as you navigate?

00;02;53;35 - 00;03;19;25
Nick Clason
And then the third factor, of course, is space. Does your space in your church, does it accommodate it? And the second question is what constraints is this going to put on your space? So, for example, I worked at a church that didn't have a lot of space, even though it was a big church, big a big multi-site church in in Chicago area.

00;03;19;29 - 00;03;45;36
Nick Clason
But other ministries had other nights of the week that they had things going on, like our groups ministry met and our junior home ministry met and are like grief share. I can't remember all the different ones, but there's always a different ministry on a different night of the week. And so our decision to either have junior high and high school together or split up was going to either demand two nights a week for our space or just one.

00;03;45;36 - 00;04;10;57
Nick Clason
And then that that dictated how and when the other ministries in your space met. So a couple of pros for splitting up middle school and high school. Again, if if your size, if your bandwidth and if your space will all kind of accommodate it and if all those factors that you asked this question swirl around are working together, pro number one, of course, is like developmentally

00;04;11;51 - 00;04;28;39
Nick Clason
splitting middle school and high school seems to be appropriate. I mean, you just think about it. I think of that sixth grade boy in your group and then think of that 12th grade girl, like developmentally speaking. They're just in two different spots and this is no shade thrown on that sixth grade boy or that 12th grade girl.

00;04;28;44 - 00;05;13;44
Nick Clason
But, you know, they each need different things, their need. They need to be challenged in a different way. And so splitting them up will help you as a youth pastor, be able to navigate that well, to be able to really, truly give and provide for each of those people individually what they need and what they're looking for. Pro Number two is that probably the high school students preference, it may not be the middle school students preference on the top, but underneath that it may actually be the best thing for a middle school student to give them their own space, to just simply be a middle schooler and not have high schoolers looking over frustratedly

00;05;13;45 - 00;05;37;36
Nick Clason
or condemningly or even just being annoyed. And the high school students may want their own space to kind of lean into and be uniquely high school students. But the cons, of course, are it is more taxing on you as the individual or on you in your time or on you and your space. And so you may be in a context that has multiple staff and so that may be the solution.

00;05;37;36 - 00;06;03;36
Nick Clason
One of you runs one night and run one of you runs another night. But if you are your own person and if you do not have the staff to accommodate something like this, then it is going to be more taxing and another con I honestly would say is that it's not necessarily it doesn't necessarily give students a realistic view and or picture of the rest of life in the rest of the world.

00;06;03;36 - 00;06;27;24
Nick Clason
Like right now, I am a 34 year old youth pastor at a church and there is not one other 34 year old on my staff. As far as I know, I could be wrong and I might not be thinking about a certain person, but the fact of the matter is like I interact with Boomers and Xers and us another Millennials that is now my exact age and also some people that are Gen Z and so on.

00;06;27;24 - 00;06;57;17
Nick Clason
Our staff, we have an age range all the way from 20 up to like 60, 65 ish, right? Like we have a big span of age. And so sometimes like segmenting down our ministries, while they may be developmentally good or they may also be like preferences of certain ages at the high school students and middle school students, it may not be what is best for them, and it may not give them the most realistic picture of what their future life is going to be.

00;06;57;22 - 00;07;27;11
Nick Clason
Which leads me to my third idea three creative hacks to kind of get around this. If you don't have the bandwidth and if you're not quite yet ready to split middle school and high school, the first one is stagger your programing. So maybe you have your students meet all within the same time block Which I would probably recommend for like parent’s sake, If they have a middle school student and a high school student, they don't have to drop off and pick up at different time.

00;07;27;11 - 00;07;54;21
Nick Clason
So if it's like 6 to 8, they drop off both students. But then inside the building, middle schoolers are in this element of your service and high schoolers are in this element of the service, and then they switch and then high school switch to this element while middle schoolers then switch to that element. That is a way for you to lean into a good volunteer, to be able to run the additional space so that you can be teaching or running the game or wherever you need to be in those moments.

00;07;54;26 - 00;08;17;15
Nick Clason
But it will also give middle school and high school students their own unique difference set up and their own unique, different space. Another creative hack answer that I have is consider the idea of going hybrid and you're like, Wait a minute, that doesn't do anything for the space. And in some ways you're 100% right, but leaves right here in mind 100% completely free e-book.

00;08;17;15 - 00;08;41;53
Nick Clason
I will lead you through how to develop out a hybrid strategy and the bedrock. The baseline for my hybrid strategy is begin pre filming your talks ahead of time, pre film talks, and then post them to YouTube. And then from there, as you maybe clip up a few of those using a service link down below like Opus.Pro to give you AI generated shorts, reels and TikToks

00;08;42;07 - 00;09;03;08
Nick Clason
You can sprinkle those in throughout your week. And then the last piece of it is you can then add in and then use an element of fun into your social media and you can use your students to do that. And so perhaps an element of your creative staggered programing is creating a space for your students. Come together and get on video and make content with you.

00;09;03;08 - 00;09;29;31
Nick Clason
And you might be thinking like, Wait a minute, do they want to do that? And the answer to those yes, Generation Z and Generation Alpha, they live in a a publisher type of generation with a publisher type of mindset. And most of us have been raised in an industrial age where we create content and or we create an environment that we then sit down and we produce it and or deliver it to people.

00;09;29;31 - 00;09;52;08
Nick Clason
And then we assume that they want to just sit and consume it. And the tables are turned in that day and age. And so the advantage is, while digital is the language of teenagers, you can include them in your strategy. Another hack I have for you is that you can make your small groups like more age and more gender graded.

00;09;52;08 - 00;10;14;09
Nick Clason
And so if you don't have the bandwidth yet to split apart your big middle school and high school group, when you break them down into small groups, whether that be on a different night of the week or even the same night that they're all together. When you do that, you then give them that space. And so maybe you teach to a large room and you do have to sort of hit the middle somewhere between that sixth grade and that 12th grader.

00;10;14;14 - 00;10;52;16
Nick Clason
But when they break down into their small groups, they're more age appropriate and they're more age and grade and gender graded. And then finally, an idea could be simply to just lean in to the age discrepancy. You know, there's an age discrepancy. You know, it may not be ideal and or it may not be everyone's preference, but if you lean into it and if you let the middle schoolers have the high schoolers have a little bit more fun, and then if you lean into the high schoolers and allow them to see that they have an opportunity to step up and be leaders to these middle school students, it can be a win win for you

00;10;52;16 - 00;11;15;30
Nick Clason
and for your youth ministry, which is why I have linked right here on the screen youth group Growth. How do we reach Generation Alpha and Generation Z in this new world that we find our selves in? So go ahead. Take a look at that video. And don't forget that we trying to make digital discipleship easy, possible and accessible.

00;11;15;42 - 00;11;19;04
Nick Clason
So as always, stay hybrid.