Category Archives: WrapUp

weekly wrapup 3.30.11

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our Revolve Tour ladies

This was a busy week.  First up we heard some great stories from our ladies who traveled to the Revolve Tour in Columbus.  Lots of good stuff happened while the six students and their adult leader Trish Edmondson were away.  Late night memories…even fun things on the trip there and back.

we began the teaching time with this video to help raise the awareness on bullying.   seemed a natural part of our conversation.  (what’s amazing is when i downloaded this earlier tonite it had only 24,000 views…it now has more than 64,000… in less than 6 hours…thats more than 2 views a second.)


Series:  Relationships Week 2:A Woman’s Place We’re in week two of our series on relationships, and we tackled one of the controversial biblical passages about gender roles in marriage: Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:22-24. We started by examining the word “submit” in the context of a marriage relationship and our relationship with Christ.

We freely submit to Jesus because he is good and trustworthy, and we would never feel that is a bad thing. We encouraged students to examine how they view God and how that perspective can affect the way they view relationships, including dating relationships.

We also used this passage to challenge students to think about their future “significant other.” Understanding God’s expectations for marriage can help people think about qualities that they might want to possess or qualities they might want their future mate to possess.

We used this video to push the point that relationships are meant to last a lifetime.

If you’re a parent of a teen this is an important topic to discuss. You may already have healthy dialogue with your teenager about dating relationships, or this small group series could open the door to start having those conversations. You might find your student is willing to talk about views of marriage and the future.

When talking about dating relationships or marriage, look for ways to keep a focus on what it means to submit to God and ultimately what it means to be in a relationship that honors God. Here are some questions that can help you discuss the content from this week’s small group:
•    How trustworthy would your friends say you are? What are some of the ways you demonstrate your trustworthiness?
•    Think about the word “submit.” What would be some antonyms-words with opposite meanings? Which of these words are consistent with a Christ-like attitude-or are any of them consistent?
•    What’s the purpose of starting a dating relationship with someone? Why would you date a person you’d never want to marry?

FUN FACTOR: Amazing how many students are eager and willing to make a mess of themselves. Had too volunteer so we let each adult leader pick on. lots of fun. all four contestants were new to our weekly gathering. two were first visitors tonite…and Nick won a sweet itunes card!


ht www.youthleaderstash.com for bear hunt.

weekly wrapup 3.23.11

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it was chinese nite for dinner

Series: Relationships: The Good, The Bad, and Me (Hosea 1:2)
This week we began a new series on relationships. We spent some time looking at what the Bible says about our relationship with God, and we looked at some insights on dating relationships from Scripture, too.
The Big Idea:  To see the power of God’s unconditional love, and  our tendency to stray from God.  In big group we read through portions of the Old Testament book of Hosea. Hosea was a prophet who delivered a lesson to Israel about God’s radical, crazy, passionate love-a preview of the intense love Jesus has for us. Lots of heads turned and eyes perked up as we  read about how God asked Hosea to marry a prostitute, and even after she left Hosea for another man, God instructed the prophet to return and love her again.
We watched this amazing video before heading to small groups that really helped to get the discussion going.

We used this story to discuss the intimate and unique way that God loves us and God’s desire to be more than just a master or ruler in our lives. Hosea 2:16 tells us, “When that day comes,” says the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master.’” We also talked about our tendency to stray from God’s love, and we examined how not to stray-and how to respond when we do stray.

If you’re a parent or a student we’d encourage you to think more about the story of Hosea and Gomer and what this story means to your life, especially when thinking about God’s passionate, radical love. Here are some questions you could use to get the conversation going (and don’t forget to share some your own responses right here on the blog in the comments):

  • When did you most recently not “feel” like following God? What caused that feeling? How do you handle days like that?
  • What’s the difference between conditional love and unconditional love?
  • How long do you think most people can go without sinning? Why?

funfactor

weekly wrap-up 2.09.11

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Started out with a fun nite for food.  Lots of different pasta.  great garlic bread and good desserts.

series: REALLY? Do I really want the gifts God has to offer? This was the last in our series focuse on  basic questions about a students identity and the Christian faith.

big idea: helping students understand that the best gift they’ve gotten from God, after salvation is God’s love letter to each on us through the bible.  We gave out more than a dozen new bibles to our students. It was humbling to hear students who were so excited to get their very own copy of the bible to keep.  Shows that even in a church that is intentional about the proclamation of the Word, we need to do a better job of growing those that call the outpost home.

Small Groups: great discussions in all the groups.  love it when the “light bulb” goes off as you start to tie the truths of God words into practical applications. Answering the deeper questions about our faith and wrestling through the big questions: Who did Cain marry?  What happens to the poor innocent native?  Do babies go to heaven.  We left many things unanswered, but left the door open that there are answers.

Played a really new fun game that our own Daneul Miller came up with.  We called it “monster”…mostly because Skillet’s Monster seemed like a great song to play during the game.

UPDATE: Our pal Chad at youth leaders stash calls this game can war .  go and grab the fun title graphic there.