How Long Should You Speak For?

Let me ask you a couple of questions: how long do speak for when you’re speaking to students? Does that length vary depending on whether it’s middle school or high school students? Is the timing dependent on the programmatic day or feature?

When I first started out in youth ministry, my messages were incredibly short because I was terrified of speaking in front of a group that I thought would judge me. I was a college freshman and was helping lead a middle school ministry. There were so many times I fumbled along and rushed through the message because I assumed middle school students couldn’t and wouldn’t pay attention for longer periods of time.

Compare that with when I was fresh out of Bible college with a preaching degree, and my message time swung to the other extreme. I began teaching for longer periods of time because I felt more confident in my study and preparation. I wanted everyone to know how to dig super deep into Scripture and see all the work I had done. But if I’m honest with you, it was very self-serving and I can’t begin to count how many students I would see with glazed over eyes beginning to fall asleep.

So if the two extremes don’t work well, what should we do instead? I’m not willing to call myself an expert in this by any means, but after working with students for over two decades, I think I have a decent barometer on how long we should take when teaching our students. What I want to share today are some suggested time lengths and some tips for engaging speaking for the different settings in which we teach.

Each of these timeframes are suggestions and not indicative of every single group. These are meant to be broad brush strokes and I would encourage each ministry leader to gauge where their group is at and how long they can engage with what is being shared. The other truth is that depending on the teacher and their teaching capability, you may be need to elongate or shorten teaching times.

Middle school.

I love middle school ministry. Students are quick to say whatever is on their minds so it’s rare that you wonder what they are thinking. They’re inquisitive and thoughtful. They ask great questions.

But their attention span is often shorter than high schoolers and adults. Rather than bemoan the various reasons that their attention span is shorter (I’m looking at you social media), we should be thoughtful in how we choose to engage with that reality.

I have found that typically fifteen minutes is the sweet spot for teaching middle school students. If you are teaching straight with no breaks, this is roughly the timeframe that works best. Utilizing different teaching styles, question and answer formats, or even breaking for discussions can allow the teaching time to be prolonged.

Another way to break up the teaching time and to afford yourself a longer teaching timeframe is to incorporate video clips. I would encourage you to keep your video clips to under a couple minutes when at all possible, because the longer the video the more likely students are to either only remember the video content or tune out (if they find it boring).

High school.

This is my primary teaching focus for our ministry, and I’ll be honest with you and say I struggle with staying on time. If you ask Elise, she knows I tend to be pretty wordy. But I’ve been in our present context long enough that our high school students have afforded me more grace and still listen if I go longer than I should.

I have learned though that the best length of time to speak to high school students is twenty to twenty-five minutes max. Similar to middle school students, if you’re going to speak at the longer end of that matrix, incorporate different methods of interaction and engagement. Give them time to discuss different parts of the lesson. Show video clips. Ask for volunteers to read the Bible passages. Utilize games when appropriate.

Different programmatic days.

Typically different events or special services denote a different style and length for teaching. If you’re hosting an event that is evangelistic in nature and has brought in a large contingent of unchurched students, it may be a better idea to have a shorter, more concise Gospel message.

If you’re hosting an immersive Easter or Christmas experience for your students, a longer message might be appropriate. A fall kickoff where everyone has come back together to celebrate the start of the school year would be better suited with a shorter and more focused lesson time. Taking time with a discipleship oriented leadership team would mean a longer teaching and discussion shaped timeframe.

Even thinking through Sunday mornings versus youth group nights, your teaching timeframe will look different. For our group, we look at Wednesday nights as our 100 level programming and Sunday mornings as our 200 level programming.

We know that on our youth group nights we have a wider swath of unreached students coming to youth group and that on Sundays most of our students are tracking with Jesus and desiring to grow in their relationship with Him. That affords us more opportunity on Sunday to focus on teaching time and discussion.

We still try to break up the teaching time with different formats like table discussions, question and answer, and videos when possible to help switch up how students are engaging and learning. For us that means our Sunday teaching and discussion time is roughly thirty-five minutes but we allot more time for table discussion to help students think through practical applications.