How to preach to young people

When preaching to young people, there are many dynamics to consider. Don’t just give an informative talk; share something meaningful, authentic and actionable. Keep it engaging, truthful and relatable. You need to hold their attention and take them on a journey to help them realise what you are teaching.

Hold Their Attention

Jørgensen notes that the trend of attention spans studied between 2013 and 2016 suggested a pattern of shrinking attention. Equally, a study done in Australia demonstrates teenagers are consuming over 12 hours of podcasting per week. Attention spans vary dramatically depending on the medium of communication.

Visual attention is brief, audio is increasing, and as preaching is an audiovisual experience, we can often sit somewhere in the middle. You might think that teenagers have a short attention span, so your talk should be 5 minutes, but note how a movie can hold their attention consistently for well over two hours.

Also, have you seen the gaming stats for teenagers? Tweens and teens alike spend around 1 hour a day mid-week gaming. Collins & Kavanaugh note the unique level of attention that gaming holds over teenagers (time to start a faith and Fifa streaming channel, anyone?).

Ted talks tend to prefer 20 minutes as an optimum time. Regardless of the time you’ve set aside for your talk, maintaining interest and variety is critical in holding attention. Most preaches can be boiled down to one core idea (see ‘get to the point’). A movie revolves around one theme highlighted excitingly and engagingly. Typically, gaming sessions take place in 1 genre. To hold attention, we need to ask how engaging and impactful are our messages?

A preach or talk is not a lecture; it’s a message with a life-impacting truth that will help our young people engage with faith and successfully negotiate the world around them. A simple, visual and meaningful message will have way more impact than bombarding them with information.

That does not mean it can’t be profound, but it should be simple and exciting. So, again, look at Jesus’ teaching method, continually using parables – story and real-life analogies to help His listeners grasp inescapable truths that lead them closer to full living.

As you prepare your message, look and listen for moments to anchor your message with a story, analogy, visual images, and even audio experiences.

As you prepare your talk, use Leonard Sweet’s communication rules for an EPIC Experience.

[icon color=”accent-color” size=”regular” icon_size=”” image=”fa-caret-square-o-right”] E – Experiential: Think about taking them on a journey through your message. How can they experience what you are talking about in a spiritual response time and in their daily lives?

[icon color=”accent-color” size=”regular” icon_size=”” image=”fa-caret-square-o-right”] P – Participatory: Can you get them involved in the message? Help enact the story or analogy, ask them questions, do a live poll, get verbal feedback on the tension questions of your message.

[icon color=”accent-color” size=”regular” icon_size=”” image=”fa-caret-square-o-right”] I – Imagery: You don’t need me to tell you that we live in an image-rich world. Have something as a visual picture. Big, bold, clear and simple images work best. If you use a PowerPoint, don’t have it cluttered. A full-picture image with a bold world overlaid works well. Sometimes just a picture alone. A visual analogy where somebody holds something related to the message while talking is another good anchor.

[icon color=”accent-color” size=”regular” icon_size=”” image=”fa-caret-square-o-right”] C – Connection: Keep it relevant and connected to their world. Use contemporary language and stories they can relate to. What is the latest popular film with your teenagers? What games do they play? What are they facing in their school life? What are the biggest talking points in your locale?

Content Is King

As with all forms of communication, content is key – preaching is no exception. Be thoughtful about what you want to share and how you want to share it. Begin with the end in mind. What is the goal of the message?

Do you want them to know a biblical truth?

Do you want them to deal with a particular issue?

Do you want them to realise something about their lives?

Your talk is a journey, so knowing the end goal or destination will help you when you start to prepare your message. You will already have the subject in mind if you are a topical preacher.

If you are going through themes, you might need to dig around and work out the core goal of the theme. If you are going through Bible verses, you will need to reflect on the words and allow the content to emerge from your reflections on the verses.

As you shape the content, please keep it simple and focus on moving the listener slowly towards the goal of your talk.

[icon color=”accent-color” size=”regular” icon_size=”” image=”fa-caret-square-o-right”] What’s the problem?

Whether you are using a verse, topic or theme, what is the core problem this message will resolve? Create tension in your message by sharing examples from your life and familiar feelings that we all experience. For instance, if the goal is experiencing peace, you can talk about the problem of worry. We all have stories where we have experienced worry; share them.

[icon color=”accent-color” size=”regular” icon_size=”” image=”fa-caret-square-o-right”] How does Jesus change the problem?

The middle section of your message can focus on how Jesus can change the situation. This is where you bring in the biblical truth and help demonstrate how learning particular teachings can help speak into the situation. In our example, you might share verses around the Psalms about meditating on God’s presence or how praying about our worries can bring a sense of peace. Use your experiences to discuss how you know what you’re talking about to have worked.

[icon color=”accent-color” size=”regular” icon_size=”” image=”fa-caret-square-o-right”] What is different?

Finish with the result of what changes in light of your talk. How might life look if it was applied? What can you do to put it into practice? In our example, you might describe the change in our state of mind. You may take time to pray and help them refocus their worry into prayer, allowing them to lay it down mentally. Try to think carefully about how you want to lead your listeners in response to the message. 

This is just one way of creating the content of your message. There are many others that can fit into different preaching structures, but I find the method above to be effective—problem, solution, result. You can download our free sermon templates here by signing up with your email address.

Know Their Journey

Teens go through a mental and spiritual journey across adolescence. Each stage of their teen years will have a spiritual development phase. What phase of the journey are they on in life, and where are they with their faith journey?

Are they entirely unchurched or from 3rd generation Christian families? Are they exploring the depths of their faith or just there because they want to play table football? Are they cold to their Christian faith, or are they engaged and vibrant about it?

Knowing their starting point will help you pitch your message and anticipate the spiritual temperature of the room.

Get To The Point

Try not to waste time during your message. Sometimes we want to feel comfortable as we begin our talk and spend several minutes waffling as a way of settling our nerves. Instead, try launching into an engaging personal story that helps introduce not only the point of your talk but reveals something about you personally to help relate to your listeners and give them a sense of rapport because they have faced the same problem.

Keeping to one key idea, you can drill down into your talk and help build a sense of connectedness while still moving the talk forward. Be brutal and cut anything that does not serve the purpose of connecting your listener to the core message.

Focus on one point rather than lots of different ideas. It’s easy to get off topic and lose your message down a rabbit hole of partially related topics.

Andy Stanley notes that most three-point sermons could be boiled down to three separate messages. However, most people only remember one point from a talk at best, so why not focus on one central idea and leave a lasting impression?

Know Why It Matters

You’ve prepared an incredible and mind-blowing talk. Great, so what?

Why should this excellent talk matter to our young people?

What will change in their lives after hearing what you have to say?

Help your listener understand why the talk should matter to them. Bear in mind anything that might derail the conversation. Don’t assume everyone has the building blocks of your experience, hindsight and knowledge. For example, if your talk relies on understanding the Old Testament covenants or why Jesus is the second Adam, will your young people grasp the meaning?

If you have to go into some background theology, help them understand why it matters. If it’s going to lose them, then perhaps find a different route to the message.

When all is said and done, will they be able to apply the message from your talk?

Keep It Engaging

A memorable message will always engage the five senses; sight, touch, taste, sound and smell. There will be a big difference between a spoken message that was okay and a dynamic message that hits every human level of interaction.

Think about the most memorable science lesson you had at school. Mine was the Van de Graaff generator. I remember the teacher explaining how it worked, inviting us up one by one to experience the machine and then having us hold hands in a circle as we passed a static shock around the room. I remember it because he didn’t just tell us about the lesson, but he engaged us in the experience.

If you were talking about trust as an example, you could have a massive image of a trust fall up for the duration of your talk. Get them to do a blindfolded obstacle course. Halfway through the message, stop and ask them to tell you what barriers there are to trust. Play Beanboozled and ask them to trust you to give them the sweets that don’t taste rotten. Do all of these at points throughout your talk to engage their senses and keep the pace interesting.

Be Enthusiastic

Make sure what you share is spoken from a place of passion and excitement. This does not mean you have to shout and scream, but let emotion spill into your words.

Think about any talk you have heard from someone speaking in the same tone throughout with no rises or falls in their speech. Instead, it allows excitement, gentleness, speed, and expression to flavour your words.

If this message should matter to you young people, it needs to be displayed on your face as you share it with them.

If you’re struggling to get started, sign up with your email and download our free sermon structure template here.

Sources & References:

Beanboozled

Edison Research, ‘The infinite dial 2021 Australia’, April 28, 

Jørgensen, Sune Lehmann, ‘Abundance of information narrows our collective attention span’, 

Stanley, Andy, ‘Communicating for Change’,

Sweet, Leonard, ‘The Gospel According To Starbucks’,