“We’ll just water this down a bit for middle schoolers.” Or even worse… “We’ll dumb it down from the high school version.” Oof. I get an eye twitch every time I hear it. Anybody else feel that in their soul?

For decades, that’s been the default in a lot of youth ministry spaces. You’ve got a combined group of 6th–12th graders, and you’re asking, “Okay, who am I really talking to here?” The answer? “The middle.”

Okay, real talk for a second.  I spent the last 20+ years building youth ministry curriculum around series titles. You know what I mean: