With the Christmas holidays over and the cold weather starting to settle in, many of us experience the winter blahs. Many youth ministries find that January till March Break is one of the hardest stretches. How do you navigate the winter blahs?

It’s important to have some kind of catalyst to help catapult your ministry through these weeks. While a youth ministry shouldn’t be solely dependent on events, having experiences outside the routine can be effective in sustaining and even building moment.

That’s why we host Avalanche (our jr high retreat) and Blizzard (our high school retreats) around this time of year. While the weather isn’t always ideal, for many of our churches, these retreats are catalyst events to build that momentum towards March break.

These are other ways you could host your own catalyst events.

  • Host your own overnight retreat (such as the Youth Alpha weekend) to focus on a specific spiritual discipline.
  • Host an outreach event (e.g. Star Wars septology) and spend a couple of weeks before helping your own students learn how to carry on faith conversations. Your students could plan out specific parts of the event.
  • Participate in a service project together to learn more about areas of ministry your youth aren’t accustomed to.

These catalyst events aren’t done just for the sake of having something to do with your students. They can be key avenues to build and strengthen their faith which will hopefully lead them closer to Jesus.

What catalyst event might you be involved in?

BTW, knowing about the winter blah moments as you plan out your ministry calendar enables you to forecast ahead of time ways you can use catalyst events to move forward in the bigger picture. (If you need help with that, contact Alvin.)