Preaching for youth: what to preach about

An important topic to consider when preaching to youth is what to preach about. As always, there are different ways of approaching the choice of a text (and yes, I’m assuming you will use the Bible when you preach!). Some people pick a verse or more to preach on, and then study it to derive its message. Others prefer to come up with a theme or topic first, and then study the Bible to find appropriate verses. I’m not denouncing either method, they both have their distinct advantages and possible down-effects.

What is important to keep in mind when choosing your subject and your verses is this: the younger your audience is, the more trouble they will have with abstract thinking. Teens are simply not capable of much abstract reasoning, so you’ll have to keep your message concrete. That also impacts the verses you want to preach on.

Pick a surprising topic

I’m a big believer in preaching the whole Bible. Too often we only choose those parts that we like, that we can handle, that are safe and comfortable. But God didn’t give us just a few parts, He gave us the whole Bible, including parts that we don’t understand, that we need to wrestle with, that confuse us or make us plain furious.

As a matter of fact, I’ve seen too many youth pastors or preachers make the mistake of preaching only from the New Testament when preaching for teens. Don’t do that. They need all of the Bible and no one can truly understand God or His message without reading all of His Words. Try and pick the unfamiliar parts or topics. Dare to be different!

My first sermon for the ‘adult congregation’ was on heaven and hell (I know, quite popular now after the whole Rob Bell thing, but it wasn’t a few years ago). It was completely new for many people and I got very positive feedback, because people loved hearing and learning something new.

If you’re stuck in a rut and are looking for fresh, new topics to preach on to youth, then check out our Youth Sermon Topics page where new sermon ideas are added regularly!

The Psalms contain many difficult verses, but that doesn’t mean we should skip these

Translate the message

However, when preaching for young people, be aware that they don’t know what you know and they can’t reason like you can. So pick parts that you can explain to them. That doesn’t mean that it all needs to be simple, cookie-cut easy. You can preach on difficult parts, as long as you can translate these into a message they can grasp. But making your message too practical also has risks, so be sure to find the right balance here.

Let’s say you want to preach on David en Bathsheba. That may get sticky for teens, all this sexual stuff. But you can translate it into concepts they can understand. What are they willing to do to get something they want? Like an iPad, or those new shoes, or…How far would they go if they really wanted something? And how does God feel about it when that is more important than what He wants? That’s something they can understand.

Preach the context as well

Also, it’s important to remember that the current generation of teens and students knows little about the Bible. It’s sad, but it’s a fact. Don’t assume that they know who Paul was, or David, or that they know the meaning of concept like redemption, forgiveness, and grace. Whatever you preach on, preach the context as well and use language in your sermon they can understand. Explain where it is in the Bible, who wrote it, what period it was, etc.

You can do this subtly, but effectively. Here’s how you could introduce Paul for instance, in case you’re using one of his letters:

The verses we’ll be reading today were written by Paul. He was a Jew who at fist wanted nothing to do with Jesus, he even killed Jesus-followers. Until God opened his eyes. He became a great missionary who lived in the first century after Jesus died and who traveled all through what is now Turkey and Greece to tell everybody about Jesus. He wrote these letters to the churches he founded and today we’re going to read from one of them he wrote to the church in Ephesus.

In a simple way, you’ve established setting, date and told a little about Paul himself. It’s enough to create a little background for kids who’ve never heard of him, but not so much that it’ll bore those who know about him already.

These are just some things to consider when choosing a topic and a Bible part to preach about. How do you come up with topics or verses for your sermons? Do you have any other advice?

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1. Do you have a Barnabas?