This post contains affiliate or associate links with several businesses (which means if you shop through the links, I earn a small commission). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Last year, our parish (along with two other parishes) used the Be Yourself Journals as part of their plan for the youth group.

I was thrilled to get feedback from the men who run this program. They loved what the Be Yourself Journals addressed and how it was presented. It was exactly what they were looking for after attending a meeting about what is best to reinforce with the age group that is often identified as early adolescent, tweens, middle schoolers or junior high students.

*If you want more ideas, or ideas on how to use the Be Yourself Journals in the Classroom, check out 3 Ways to Use the Be Yourself Journals in the Classroom

Here is a glimpse of what we did as well as some plans we had that we never did get to (ugh, COVID).

Catholic Youth Group Topics in this post include:

• Identify as a Child of God
• Bullying, Forgiveness and Jesus
• Saints as Friends and Motivators
• Prayer: Praying without Ceasing

Identify as a Child of God

Who are you?

Prior to this first session, we asked the youth to email us a picture of themselves in nature. We suggested they send a picture of themselves doing something outdoors (hiking, fishing) or visiting somewhere they enjoy (at the beach, up the mountains, at the Grand Canyon). The focus should be that they are somewhere that show’s the beauty of God’s creation.

One of the youth ministers prepared a quick slide show to play after we discussed “who are you?”

Here’s a glimpse at our “lesson plan” for the night!
Topic for this session: Who are You

Small Groups

To get the 6th, 7th and 8th graders thinking about the topic, we directed them towards the journal pages that asks them simple and fun questions about themselves.
Page 6-7-15-16 Boys Journal
Beauty Basics, God’s Creation, God’s Creation and You, Girls Journal

Whole Group Activity:
Invite teens to come up to a white board/butcher paper and tell them to write a word or two describing
who they are. They will write the words inside their own circle. Inside the circle will be a stick figure to
represent themselves. There will be a separate board/paper for the girls and guys.

Brief Talk on God’s Creation
One leader gives a talk on how these adjectives they wrote do describe aspects of their personality, but they don’t define them.

The letter in the Girl’s Journal from Saint Catherine Siena gives a great analogy that might be worth discussing! Check it out and share it with the kids!

Teach and stress the following:

• We are God’s creation. God created you in His Image. God created you body and soul.
• God created everything for you but you in turn were created to serve and love God and offer all creation back to Him.**
• We are unique and unrepeatable.  We are called to identify as God’s son or daughter (child).
• God created everything for you but you in turn were created to serve and love God and offer all creation back to Him.

After this brief talk/discussion, show the slide show with all the pictures that were sent!
show slide show on the TV for the teens in nature.

Ask: What natural wonder would you love
to see one day.

Present a list of the natural wonders.

Rest of Night:

Small Groups:
Would you Rather Activity

** The Would You Rather Game focuses on the beginning of this Catholic teaching: “God created everything for you but you in turn were created to serve and love God and offer all creation back to Him”

After they fill it out their answers in the book, the small group leader can go through each choice and
have them raise hand to see if they chose Answer 1 or 2.

Large Group
Charades Game

Girls v. Boys

We wrote each “would you rather activity” on a slip of paper. The teens picked a paper out of a hat and had to act out the activity and someone had to guess in a set amount of time.

We did boys v. girls and gave each group an alternating turn, it was so entertaining to watch! Lots of laughs!
Pick an action out of a hat and act it out (like ziplining, swimming, mountain climbing, hunting, fishing, etc. . .)

Here are some other spring boards from the book that make great group activities:

Bullying, Forgiveness and Jesus

Using the Boy’s Journal (pages 42-43) and the Gospel of John (John 8:3-9) is a great way to start talking about bullying and sticking up for people who are getting “ganged up on”.

We ended the night with a “writing in the sand activity”. The Youth Minister had one prepared . . . he had bins of sand that students partnered up with and shared.

The materials were simple and the interaction with sand was so fun!

Saints as friends and motivators

Give each tween a small white board or paper. Tell them to write a Saint quote or something that Saint might have said on the paper. Have each take turns showing their quote and the others guessing who said it. If they need help, here are some pages of each book that will help:

Boy’s Journal: pages 15, 60, 62, 68, and 89

Girl’s Journal: unfortunately pages are not numbered, but there a MANY pages with Saint quotes – girls will be able to find them easily.
Saint or Superhero Game

My friend Sara Estabrooks (author over at ToJesusSincerely.com) has a podcast with Chastity Speaker Tim and they played a game where Tim stated a quote and Sara had to guess if these words were said by a Catholic Saint or a fictional Superhero.

Listen to the Saint or Sinner Home But Not Alone Podcast Episode

It was not easy! I recommend listening and taking some of the questions as well as adding your own.

Since this may be difficult for kids who are just learning about the Saints, a good idea would be to put a youth minister in the “hot seat” and have the youth vote on whether he or she is right or wrong. There’s a gameshow that’s like that, right?

Prayer: Praying without Ceasing

I’m sure you have at least one night planned on the topic of prayer. Here are just some supplemental activities that will shake it up a bit

Boy’s Journal – page 31 – gives ideas on how to pray while you play sports. You could set up stations around a gym or school yard and allow the students to choose a station then ask them to come back and talk about the experience.

Girl’s Journal – What’s your prayer style and Design a prayer room. Scrapbook materials required – really a fun one if you can separate the girls and give them time to work on these pages.

Want more ideas? Take a look at the post 3 Ways to Use the Be Yourself Journals in the Classroom

Saint Joseph and Jesus workshop skit

I was also thinking of a Saint Joseph and Jesus skit idea . . . do you want that idea? Let me know in the comments! If there is enough interest, I’ll create a free download!

This is idea number 5 – let me know if you want it and I’ll work on it!

Remember you can purchase the Be Yourself Journals from:

The Prayer Wine Chocolate Shop Page

From Amazon

From Our Sunday Visitor

Barnes and Noble’s online store

The post 5 Middle School Youth Group Ideas You Will LOVE appeared first on Prayer Wine Chocolate.

This post contains affiliate or associate links with several businesses (which means if you shop through the links, I earn a small commission). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

This blog post highlights the conversation I had with Phil Kosloski, owner of Voyage Comics and Publishing. If you want to view or listen to the whole interview, here is the link:

This interview reminded me of an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Imagine Sheldon Cooper has a guest on fun with flags and the guest takes a drink of water, and, well . . .watch the video, you’ll see where I’m going with this . . .

Speaking of Big Bang Theory and comic book publishing . .

I described his online store as “everything Catholic Geek”.

Being a geek isn’t exactly uncool these days.

Philip started writing a few years ago on his blog about instances when popular culture linked to Christianity.

And in recent times, popular culture seems to have embraced “geekdom”.

So, if your son likes

the Star Wars films,

Lord of the Rings,

Superheroes,

sci-fi,

fantasy or comic books

I highly suggest you follow Kosloski’s blog and consider making a few purchases in his shop.

And think about how you can show charity in a really fun way by supporting the next Voyage Comic’s kickstarter campaign.

As a female author of a new boy’s journal, I asked Phil to share his insight as a man of faith and how being a young man and now father of five influenced his prayer life and overall dedication to Our Lord.

He said 5 things that really stood out.

Connect the real world with the world of fiction.

In The Force Awakens, Luke Skywalker takes refuge on a real island known as Skelling Michael. The Jedi are fictional spiritual warriors – but this place was the home of real spiritual warriors – Catholic monks.

Phil felt really compelled to explore that real world place and what really happened there. Who were the monks that live there? How did that place allow them to do real spiritual battle?

Finnian and the Seven Mountains, Kosloski’s first comic book is “an epic journey that begins on the mysterious island of Skellig Michael, where [ a legendary sword rumored to have the extraordinary power to defeat evil] was last seen. 

Tip/Trick #1: Talk about the movies, films, and popular books that grab your son’s attention and interest. Start by talking about what was really cool, but continue with a truth that was presented, a place that really exists, and maybe a topic that was discussed.

Discuss the desire to fight and who is really behind the bad stuff in the world.

I asked Phil who his favorite superhero is, and he said Spider Man. While defending his answer, he mentioned an ordinary kid doing extraordinary things.

Later in our conversation, we discussed Spiritual Warfare a little more. Phil recommended that we teach our sons to direct his desire to fight in the right direction. There is an invisible world around us but we often forget because we can’t see it.

Who is really behind the bad stuff in the world? It’s easy to get mad at people – but really we could pray more for others instead of getting int actual fights with people.

These conversations can be brought up when discussing popular comic heros. According to one of the posts on Voyage Comics blog:

” DC Comics remains one of the most popular brands of entertainment, with its iconic superheroes, such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

Surprisingly, over the years much Christian symbolism has found its way inside DC Comics stories, including many of their latest movies.

Whether intentional or not, truth, beauty and goodness is on display . . .

See more: Top 10 articles on Christian symbolism found in DC Comics

Tip/Trick #2: This is where Phil’s blog can come in really handy. This blog constantly brings the fight against evil in our cinemas back to the true fight we are called to – spiritual warfare. Remind and teach your son how to fight this war and that, in fact, it is a very real battle.

Reassure the fact that Catholic Men can – and do – have really cool careers and vocations

First of all, Phil Kosloski works from home writing for Aleita and owns a Comic book publishing house.

If that isn’t impressive enough, consider Jim Caviezal.

Two artists that have made the Finnian series come to be and continue to grow are Jim Fern and Jay David Ramos, both devout Catholics and also employed by both Marvel and DC comics.

Father Peyton was ambitious in his mission and contacted popular Hollywood actors and actresses, such as Bing Crosby and Loretta Young, to help him convince families everywhere, “The family that prays together stays together.”

Using television, radio and film, Father Peyton was a modern-day missionary who went on to encourage devotion to the Blessed Mother and inspire families to pray together. His inspiring life story is now made accessible for the first time in a comic book format.

This comic book and the first of the Finnian series, both bring up the important topic of discernment.

Tip/Trick #3: Discuss the future – what does your son see himself doing as an adult? Has he considered becoming a priest? Does he have a certain career in mind? Once he reveals what he is interested in, try to find him examples of devout, prayerful men who are currently working in that field.

Mention and Encourage Discernment

Phil advised: “Every discerning Catholic young man should go to the seminary.”

He stated the seminary environment is great for discernment. He himself spent 3 years in the seminary before he became aware that his calling was not to become a priest; however, he felt being there was definitely a fruitful positive experience.

Tip/Trick #4: Two of Kosloski’s comic books take a good look at discernment: the first book in the Finnian series as well as The Tale of Patrick Peyton. The question, what does God want me to do is one we often ask – encourage your son to pray about decisions before making them – the decisions he is making right now, this week, and this month. This habit will come in handy when larger questions (like is God calling me to the priesthood) come about.

Embrace driving your son to Youth Group

When I asked Phil about his own journey with the faith, he mentioned going to youth group.

He said he did grow up in a Catholic family and wasn’t to active in the faith but then in high school he got involved in youth group and that sent him on a different path. Being around other Catholics was very influential.

Tip/Trick #5: Find a local Catholic youth group. Volunteer to take your son to one of their events.

Bonus Tip: Get your son this journal

I love reading your comments! What other ways can parents nurture the faith of their sons!??? Leave a comment and let us know what has worked in your family!

The post Navigating the Catholic Faith with Your Son: 5 Tips and Tricks appeared first on Prayer Wine Chocolate.