We had a crowd out last night!  Over fifty of us got together for high school and middle school small groups.  There’s just something thrilling about seeing kids come together and study the word – I sat in with the tenth grade guys’ group last night and it was awesome to see this group of guys debating and working through scripture together.  They were working together as a group to hammer out the meaning in God’s word.  That’s an awesome thing to see!  And a testament to their leaders for guiding them in such a way that that’s the environment they have created!  Here’s a recap of the night and some ideas for parents for follow up discussion:

The middle school students were doing small group studies from Simply Youth Ministry’s Active Bible Studies; it was a little different this week with the girls doing one and the guys doing another.  The guys were doing one entitled ‘Power Up.  ‘ For most junior high boys, living out their faith in Christ is much more difficult than it needs to be. The reason for this is because most junior highers are trying to live life on their own power and forget that as Christians, they have the power of the Holy Spirit within them. The goal of this lesson was to encourage the junior high boys to allow God’s Spirit to give them the power to live for Christ on a daily basis.  They used Acts 1:8, 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, and Galatians 5:16 as launching points for discussion.  Here are some follow up questions you can use:

• According to the verses we read earlier, what is one of the primary roles of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian?
• How often do you “plug into” the power of the Holy Spirit to help you live out your faith in Jesus?
• Can you think of some examples in a junior high guy’s life where he might need the power of the Holy Spirit to do what’s right?

The middle school girls did a lesson entitled ‘Becoming God’s Girl.’  The Bible is filled with analogies and illustrations that help us learn important principles and ideas. The goal of this lesson was to take something as familiar as the human body and help the girls discover steps they can take to become women of God.  The verses used were Matthew 22:37; John 3:16-18; Proverbs 12:19, 15:4, 18:8, 21:23; 1 Peter 4:9-11; Isaiah 52:7; and Psalm 46:10.  Here are some follow up questions:

• Ask what they thought of the night – what did they learn, what did they do?
• How can we listen to God?
• Does God really speak to us? How?
• Has God been speaking to you lately?

The high school small groups were in the first week of a four week study entitled ‘A fresh look at the New Testament,’ from the Live Curriculum (a great four year high school small group resource).

It’s a series that overviews the New Testament, and we began by looking at the birth of Jesus. We read Luke 2 and focused on verses 1-20. The passage describes the interaction between some shepherds and angels. It’s a great passage that reminds us of four things:

• We can worship God instead of worrying about things in our lives.
• We have the responsibility to both “show and tell” others about God’s love.
• Every Christmas we can seek or hide from the true meaning of Christmas.
• We can choose to forgive others, or forget about it and ignore the tension that might exist between us and others.

Here are some questions that might help generate dialogue:

• Do you think “peace on earth” is possible?
• Do you spend more time worrying or worshiping?
• What if your friends have heard the “good news” but don’t seem to care? How should you handle that situation? How might it affect your interaction with those friends?

If you came up with a good question that worked for you and your child, please send it to me! If it worked well for you, I’m sure it will work well for another parent as well.

As always, thanks for your prayers and for your support for our small group ministry. Have a great week!