10 Creative Ways to Share the Gospel with the Youth

Teaching the Gospel to the youth in your church is a good way to make sure that they’ll stay true to God for the rest of their lives. As said in Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” 

However, you need to know how to tell the Gospel to children if you want them to retain and apply their lessons. A Sunday school teacher simply reading out the Word of God won’t catch the minds and hearts of the youth.

Children tend to have shorter attention spans compared to adults, which is why you need to grab their attention and hold it until the end of your class. Read on to learn how!

What to Think About When Teaching the Gospel to Youth in Your Church

Teaching the Bible to youth groups and children in Sunday school can be challenging due to their attention spans and how easily bored they are. Fortunately, there are ways to prepare yourself so they’ll pay attention and, more importantly, retain the lessons you teach them.

Here are several must-do’s when teaching the Gospel to your youth group or Sunday school:

Understand the Context

Before you prepare your lessons, you need to first understand the context of the passage you want to teach – otherwise, how can you help your students understand why this passage is important? This also helps focus the discussion on a particular theme rather than create confusion with conflicting interpretations.

Be Creative

Teaching the Bible in a creative and relatable way helps students retain what they heard in class and apply it in their everyday lives. You can do this by bringing storytelling, games, and other fun activities into the class. However, keep in mind that the Bible has to be at the center of all your teachings. 

Focus on One Idea at a Time

While a passage may have multiple lessons to impart, it’s easier for students to remember one big idea at a time. Focus on one theme per class or passage – if you want to make more points, you can save them for the next discussion.

Communicate Clearly

Even if you’re teaching something that you assume is common knowledge, remember that you’re teaching children who may not know everything about the Gospel yet. What’s obvious to you might not be obvious to them – err on the side of caution to deliver clear lessons.

Embrace the Outsiders

In any class, there’s usually at least one student that gets left out by other kids. But the Bible teaches us to welcome one another. Romans 15:7: “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Bring that student into the fold and encourage them to share their experiences, and ask other students to include them during class activities as well.

Trust in God’s Ability to Speak

At the end of the day, you’re teaching the Word of God. The words in the Bible are clear and perfect, so explain them as they are to your students without injecting your personal, subjective interpretation.

10 Creative Ways to Share the Gospel with Youth 

As with ladies’ church groups and adult Sunday school, the key to grabbing children’s attention is by using fun activities to drive your point home.

Here are several creative ways to share the Gospel with the youth that are both fun and educational.

Teach the Gospel with Color

Many people refer to this method of explaining Christianity as “The Wordless Book”, created in 1866. But while the method calls for a book, you can use anything, such as beads on bracelets, keychains, or even painted nails!

Collect one of each item in a different color, then use them to reinforce your lessons. Below are what each of the colors represents:

1. Black represents our sin.
2. Red represents the blood of Jesus.
3. White represents Jesus cleansing us of our sins.
4. Green represents our growth in Christ.

You can use items or pictures with different colors to help make your Gospel presentation clearer and more memorable for kids. 

Use Driving Analogies

Kids see and recognize traffic signs every day, so it’s easy to use these familiar symbols to teach them the Gospel Here’s how:

• Stop signs represent humans doing things that God wants to stop us from doing.
• The “one way” sign represents the only way to go to Heaven, by trusting Jesus.
• The yield sign tells us to yield to Jesus by asking Him to forgive our sins.

Bring Superheroes into the Class

Hook your students’ attention with a story about their favorite superhero. Talk about what superheroes do, then explain that the ultimate superhero is Jesus Christ. Tell your class how He saved the world by sacrificing Himself for the greater good.

Tell the Story of Noah’s Ark

We all know the story of Noah’s Ark, and it may even be one of the favorites of your class. Make the connections between Noah’s story and the Gospel. For instance, mention how Noah listening to God and getting on the ark saved him and his family, just like how you’ll be saved by accepting Jesus’ gift.

Do the Dirty Water Experiment

Cool science experiments are great at capturing children’s attention, and the Dirty Water experiment is no exception. Simply clean out a glass of “dirty water” with bleach water. As the water clears up, point out that it’s an analogy for how Jesus cleanses our sins.

Analogize with Tea Bags

The flying tea bag experiment is a fun way to teach about Jesus’ forgiveness. The tea bag represents you, while the tea inside it represents sin. Removing all the tea and burning the bag causes it to fly. 

This represents how Jesus’ forgiveness cleanses us of sin and that, if we accept His teachings, we can one day go up to heaven to be with Him. 

Play Gospel-Themed Pictionary

Teaching the Gospel with a game of Pictionary helps kids internalize the concepts of sin, what Jesus did for us, and what we need to do to cleanse sin through visual representation. 

Draw a picture based on the Gospel, have your class guess what it is, and explain how it relates to the concepts you’re teaching. For instance, you can draw a cross to represent what Jesus did for us, or a dirty person standing under a shower to represent the cleansing of our sins.

This way, children will forge strong mental connections between the Lord’s teachings and the image. For instance, they’ll think about what Jesus did for us every time they see or think about the cross.

Arrange a Scavenger Hunt

Kids love scavenger hunts! Create a list of items that are each related to an element of the Gospel, and spread them around the church for your students to find. Use simple everyday items like an eraser to represent how God erases our sin or a bag of dirt to represent the sins that stain us. For more fun, have them compete to win prizes!

Tell a Story with Paper

Doing a “tear and share” Gospel is a great way to capture students’ attention early on. This method requires a blank piece of paper and a pre-prepared story about salvation. 

Once you have the materials needed:

1. Prepare and rehearse where to fold the paper as you tell the story.
2. Present your piece of paper to the class and start telling the story.
3. As you tell your story, tear the paper up and rearrange the scraps into “pictures”. For example, of a church, letters that spell out the words “Heaven”, or other elements of your story.
4. Conclude with a message that only by accepting Jesus can we get to Heaven. Reinforce this by shaping the scraps of paper into a cross.

Do The “Magic Knot”

The “magic knot” activity symbolizes how our sin separates us from God, but Christ’s sacrifice brings us closer to God again. Here’s how you can use the “magic knot” in your lessons:

1. Take a piece of string and tie a knot in the middle. This knot represents sin.
2. Place two beads on opposite sides of the string. One bead represents humans and the other represents God.
3. Slide a cross necklace pendant, representing Jesus, so it lands between the two beads. This represents accepting Jesus’ teachings.
4. Tug both ends of the string away from each other until the knot disappears, so the two beads can meet.

How to Preach The Gospel in 5 Minutes 

Children’s attention spans tend to be relatively low, so you may need to figure out how to preach the Gospel in 5 minutes or less. Don’t try to tell the entire story in five minutes – use this time to “hook” your students into wanting to learn more with an “elevator pitch”.

When crafting your script, it pays to be structured and concise. Here’s a good general structure to base your Gospel on:

• How God wants us to join Him in Heaven
• How our sins separate us from God and block us from Heaven
• How Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins
• How God’s forgiveness gives them eternal life
• How growing closer to God every day takes you closer and closer to Heaven

Conclusion

Teaching the Gospel to youth in your church requires that you be strategic and engaging. To hold their attention, look for fun ways to teach the Gospel–like experiments and stories.