How should we approach 'preaching' to young people?

In my last article we considered the importance of considering Scripture as a dynamic where our young people encounter God. It is not primarily about God or about them, but about how God communicates with them. If it were just about God, then it would be a lot longer! How does that affect our ‘Bible talks’?

I am going to call this preaching. I think we lose something in calling them ‘Bible talks’ – we lose the sense of encountering God when we open the Word of God with young people. We therefore need to move beyond the thought that we are just telling young people what the Bible says. No-one comes to Scripture in a vacuum, with no previous experiences, sufferings, troubles, or doubts. Nor do teenagers. There are hundreds of questions they will be looking for answers for, and hundreds of things they think you are wrong about!