As students transition from middle school to high school, it is a key time for a youth ministry to be very intentional about keeping students. That means that for middle school ministry there will be a new set of 6th graders coming in and a group of 8th graders heading out.  These moments of transition can be scary and often are difficult; it is all too common to lose students as we try to transition them from one group to the next.  Yesterday on Josh Griffin's blog I posted 5 Ways We Encourage a Smooth Transition.

High School student leaders. As a part of our middle school ministry, we encourage some of our older high school students to attend some of the middle school retreats as leaders.  Whenever we have high school students leading on retreats, the relationships that are built between the two groups is incredible.  And because of this there are healthy relationships built with high schoolers and some natural promotion of high school events and programs.

Dual role volunteers. There are a few volunteers that spend time volunteering for both the middle school and high school ministries.  This is great as it provides some familiar faces as students make the jump from one to the other.  Because of the comfort of having a leader that you already know, I also try to make a point to join our high school team on a couple of retreats throughout the year.

To read the other 3 ways, read Josh's post.

What do you do to encourage the transition between middle school and high school?