OC ’12: Navigating the 5th/6th Grade Transition

This breakout was led by Dan Scott who is a Large Group Editor for 252 Basics.

Generation Z:

• Born between 1994-2010
• Over 16 million 9-12 in the US alone!
• This years’ 5th/6th graders (1999-2001)

Most are growing up in a a Post 9/11 world.  That is important because it changed the way parents operated with their children (a lot of over-protection and over-parented)

Tween-Agers: Do they even exist?

• Term showed up in the late ’90s from a marketing company wanting to brand to the 7-12 year olds.
• Tweens spend $30 billion a year on clothes, music, toys and entertainment
• The youngest mom in 2011 was 11 years old 🙁
• THE PROBLEM: our culture is redefining the word kid

Tween-Agers: What do they face?

• Home: Untraditional
• Currently 6 living generations:
• Seniors: 1900-1928
• Builders: 1929-1945
• Baby Boomers: 1946-1964
• Baby Busters: 1965-1980
• Millennials: 1981-1993
• Generation Z: 1994-2010

School is unconventional. More students are home schooled than ever before.  Co-Ops are popping up as well.  Unschooling is becoming popular as well.

Culture is unprecedented.  Never before in history has culture so targeted this demographic.  From TV shows to magazines to the mall, culture is focused on raising your kids a certain way.

The Church

What Culture can’t do:  bring in leaders who authentically care for the FULL development of kids and students.

Church can provide Leadership

• If you don’t have a common end in mind, you will each have your own end, which will ultimately confuse your kids.

What does the same page look like?  It means you agree about the most important things.  What’s happening in your department is as imporatnt to my department as what is happening in my department.

2 Ideas to do that:

1. Weekly Prayer Meeting where you all pray together.  Create and environment that builds and cultivates staff relationships.
2. Quarterly Team Meetings (Celebrate Wins, Present Status Updates, Review and Set Goals)

Where do we need alignment?

1. Salvation Discussions
2. Basic Truths
3. Unified Scope and Cycle

Church: Programming

Transitions are not a one-time event, but years of preparation in the life of your ministry. The question is not “how do we get them to stay?”  The question is “How do we get them to engage?”

5th Graders:

• Relevant does not mean “cool”.  It means you present content in a way that it makes sens to their personal story and connect with their life.
• Elevate Community: 2 > 1 + 1
• We have never had a generation so relationally connected to a greater community yet so unable to co communicate.
• Refine the message with the Power of the Story.  Kids learn when there is a gap in their knowledge and when there is a conflict between what they knew to be true and what they’re being taught.

Bloom’s Taxonomy:

1. Dictionary: Virtues
2. Encyclopedia: The Bottom Line
3. How-To Manual: Applications
4. Sorting Tray: Analysis
5. Debate: Seeing Both Sides
6. Einstein: Self

The Transition to 6th Grade

We need to build bridges with transitional events. This event should be influenced by the kid’s department but thrown by the student department!

How do we get 6th grader to engage: the power of experience.  Embracing the story of the gospel is not hte same as experiencing the mission of the gospel.

Home: We want the parents help.

How do parents win?  Parents don’t partner with church.  The church parents with parents.

CUE: Connect them to something about God (Wonder). Uncover something that matters about life (Discovery). Experience something together (Passion)