Small groups last night were GREAT!  Meeting on Wednesday nights is still kind of a new thing for us – only the second week so far.  In the past our church had student ministry small groups on Sunday nights, but it felt like it really crowded up all of our student ministry activities.  Special events, Sunday morning, and small groups all seemed to happen in the same 24-48 hour period of time, which basically meant that kids had to pick and choose what they would attend.  Moving them to Wednesday nights has a couple advantages; kids are meeting to study the Bible and pray together every few days instead of just on the weekends, and it’s really opened up our weekends for other events!  One of the things I’d like to start doing is posting a weekly update; not just on how the night went, but also provide some tools for parents to follow up with their children on what we studied in the various groups the night before!

Last night we had a higher number of kids than the first week, which was nice.  There was a lot of energy, which was also fun.  There’s just something exciting about having a ton of kids out to see each other and get into the Word together!  Very, very cool.  The middle school students covered the ‘Experiencing Time with God’ lesson from SYM’s Active Bible Studies.  If you’re a parent of a middle schooler, here’s some follow up activities you can do this week:

• Read Ephesians 6:19-20
• In this passage, Paul asks for prayer; why?
• What is Paul’s mission?
• Have your child bring the answers back next week!

The high school small groups were in the second week of a two week study entitled ‘Secrets to Praying Well,’ from the Live Curriculum.  To get an example of what it means to pray that God’s will is accomplished, we turned to the Old Testament Book of Psalms to see how David prayed. Our focus was on Psalm 31. Throughout these verses, you can see David struggling with people around him. He turns to God for help, because God is David’s rock and fortress. Like David, we all go through tough times, and we may feel like everyone around us is trying to cause us harm. And like David, we all need to turn to God in prayer.

Using David as our model, we talked about several ways we can pray—the “how” of prayer to build on the “why” of prayer from our previous lesson. Start by affirming your trust in God. Thank God for answered prayers, protection, provisions, and changes in your life. Be specific when you pray. And continue pursuing God’s will and purposes for your life.

This week, if you want to take some time to follow up with your child about prayer and what we studied. Here are some potential questions:

• What prayer habits are you developing?
• How would you characterize the way you pray?
• How are David’s prayers different from your prayers? What do you really like about the way David prays?

You might also want to take time to talk about how God has answered specific prayers in your life—maybe even some of the prayers from your family prayer time this past week. Continue to encourage your child to pray for God’s will.