Southeast Texas Lent Youth Idea 5: Silence

Lent Southeast Texas

Ideas for Golden Triangle Church Youth Groups

SETX Church Guide is back with Part 5 of our Southeast Texas Youth Lent Ideas.

If you haven’t been following our SETX Lent series so far, here’s a super quick recap:

Part 1 was Fasting – from food or other things essential to Southeast Texas youth: texting, video games, cell phones, television, gossip.

Part 2 was Prayer and Reading Scripture. The idea was both in the church and at home to encourage Southeast Texas youth to spend some quiet time with the Word and in prayer. While so much of their lives is about getting it done as fast as possible, prayer and reading scriptures is about digesting and comprehension.

Part 3 was bringing your Southeast Texas youth to (or building) a labyrinth. For Christians a labyrinth can open the mind to meditation and deeper prayer and study.

Part 4 was setting up a Taize service for your Southeast Texas youth group. Taize is designed to, like labyrinth, slow the mind and open it up to Christian prayer and meditation. In taize, the focus is on achieving the state through repetitive songs (many available on YouTube). One thing we like about taize at SETX Church Guide is that it comes from a brotherhood of Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox working together. Furthering a networked Southeast Texas Christian community is what we’re all about at SETX Church Guide!

Part 5 is Silence. As a Southeast Texas youth minister, how many times have you prayed for silence? Okay, here’s your chance.

Do a full lesson without speaking. After all, what is more precious to our Southeast Texas youth than the sound of their own voices?

From those who always have to have the answers to the class clown to those who just can’t focus – they all love to talk!

If there is one thing teens (and youth workers) don’t get enough of it’s silence.

During Lent, try having a lesson for your Southeast Texas youth group in complete silence.

You can do it. You may love it so much that you find a reason to work in in every few months!

Here’s what you do. Put together a powerpoint presentation with simple instructions, texts, and questions.

Play the Power Point presentation during your youth time and encourage the students to follow along in silence.

Having them spread out to find their own space can also help with their participation – and discourage comments like, “is he serious?”, “Do you think I can talk now?”, “How long do we have to be quiet?”.

Most people, including our Southeast Texas youth who have a reason to get still and quiet – hunting, fishing, reading, studying for a favorite subject, actually find that they enjoy it.

Being quiet makes us better listeners – and for some of us silence is critical to learning to hear the Lord.

We hope you’ve found our series on Southeast Texas Y0uth Lent ideas to be helpful.

We’d love for you to have found at least one idea that was perfect for your Southeast Texas youth group during Lent.

If something was particularly effective you, share it with other youth ministers in your network.

Thanks so much – and God Bless you and your students.