Sunday was a busy day!  If you missed it, we had our summer missions’ trips informational meeting.  Applications are due NEXT Sunday (you can download forms here).  Also, just a reminder that we are now podcasting the senior high teaching time – you can find it here.  Here’s the breakdown of what we studied during Student Quest and some follow up discussion ideas:

The middle school kids continued the series from Mark Oestreicher’s ‘Wild Truth Bible Lessons‘.  Matt O taught the lesson on Balaam (talking donkeys are always cool), the key verses for the lesson can be found in Numbers 22:21-33.  The goal was for students to understand that there are good and bad ways to respond to embarrassment, as well as decide how to respond to embarrassment in several case studies.  Some follow up activities could be to read the passage in Numbers together and use the following discussion questions:

• Who was Balaam with?  Why did who he was with make his situation more embarrassing?
• Why was Balaam embarrassed by his donkey’s actions?  How did Balaam respond to the embarrassment?
• What did it take for Balaam to understand why his reactions to embarrassment were wrong?
• What’s an embarrassing situation you have had?  How did you respond?  What would have been a God honoring way to handle the situation?

I taught the fourth of six lessons in our series working through Galatians.  I’m using The Complete New Testament Resource, Volume 1 from Youth Specialties as a launching pad for the series, which has been really helpful.  This week we read chapter four of Galatians, with a focus on Galatians 4:8-20.  The topic was ‘No turning back,’ with an emphasis on slavery to the law versus the freedom of grace.  Ultimately, the hope was for students to know and feel how foolish it would be for the Galatians (and us) to turn their back on their faith in Christ and return to their old ways of living.  A follow up activity for families would be to read the Galatians 4:8-20 passage and use the following discussion questions:

• Paul was concerned about these people turning away from their faith and trust in Christ Jesus. What makes Christians turn away from their faith?
• What would you say to a friend who was losing the excitement and commitment to follow Jesus?
• Who in your life is zealous to win you over to their way of doing 279 things (dressing, acting, cliques, and so forth) and why would that alienate you from God?
• Paul really cares about these people even when they’re going the wrong direction. What can you do to show love and truth to people who have walked away from Jesus?