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I don’t read my Bible During The Week because I go to Small Group Bible Study

March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Faith Loophole – “I don’t read my Bible during the week because I go to a small group Bible study every Tuesday night.”

More than once I’ve heard this when I’ve asked students if they read the Bible or have a quiet time every day. I think it’s also a trap that adults fall into. We go to church on the weekend, maybe go to small group during the week and think that’s all we need. I used to be that way. Wow, was I ever wrong.

First, when you read the Word and have a quiet time everyday that means that you are connecting with God each and every day. Not just once a week. When I connect with God every day it’s easier for me deal with everyday problems and situations, it’s easier for me to live my life in a manner that is pleasing to God. And just like any other relationship or friendship if we don’t connect on a regular basis that relationship will never grow. I don’t want my relationship with God to be one that is casual; I want it to be a close relationship. I want to connect with God in good times as well as running to him in times of trouble.

The Bible can be hard for students to understand sometimes, it’s hard for all of us at times. I’ll read a passage and think to myself, “Okay what in the world did that mean????” But I’ve learned when that happens now to look at a commentary or to ask someone. I don’t want to just read the Bible, I want to understand it the best that I can. We need to point students to where they can get help understanding what they read.

I also think that when we say we don’t read the Bible everyday because I we go to a Bible study each week…well that’s just a cop-out. It’s just an excuse for laziness or doing something else. When students tell me they don’t have time to read the Bible every day, my first question is, “How much time do you spend each day playing video games?” What if you gave up 15-30 minutes of that time each day and devoted that to Bible study?

Tomorrow: Part three  of Faith Loopholes

Filed Under: Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , ,

Make Bible Reading More Interesting

November 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This year I really want to put a huge emphasis on Bible reading with my small group students. I want them to not just read the words on the page but understand what the words mean, to know what the writer was talking about and what circumstances he was writing about.  I also emphasized that what was important 2,000 years ago is still relevant and important today.

Last week I used some scripture from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Before we read I spent a few minutes explaining that Paul was writing to the people of Thessalonica and gave some background on why he was writing to them.  Books of the Bible come to life when we take the time to explain the background. I kept it interesting and gave them enough facts from other books in the Bible that show when the letter was probably written and who was with Paul at the time. But at the same time I didn’t give them  information overload with too many details. I realize there is a fine line there and you probably need to judge where that line is with your students.

Instead of just reading words from a book in the Bible, they had a better understanding of Thessalonians. I want them to read AND understand what the Bible is telling us. Having a better understanding of the author and what was going on at the time he wrote the letters brings the words alive on the page. If students understand what they are reading I think it drives them to want to know more, which in turn gets them reading their Bible more.

Filed Under: Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,

Student stories are way more powerful than ours

July 5, 2012 by Leave a Comment

On Tuesday my junior high small group co-leader and I decided we wanted to do a good, old-fashioned Bible study with our guys. We were planning things out before we met, and we landed on talking through Exodus 4, when God tasks Moses with bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. The big idea we wanted the guys to take away was that even though you may seem inadequate at times or not equipped for what God has planned for you, his plan will always prevail.

After we talked a bit about how Moses didn’t think he was a good speaker and begged God to give this task to someone else, we asked the guys if anyone had a similar situation where things seemed so tough they didn’t think they could do it. No one responded at first, so I gave an example from my life. We opened it back up to the guys again, and this time there was silence…until one of my boys answered up.

The guy that spoke started telling a powerful story that he had told Kyle (my co-leader) and me about, but this was the first time he was sharing it with the whole group. It was a perfect example of what we were talking about, and it was an amazing story about how God worked to overcome a difficult situation.

The moral of the story is this: You might think you have a great story or illustration that gets your point across. You might put a ton of time into something that you think is really going to bring your message home. But if you can get one of your own students to speak to his or her peers, it is worth way more and will work 100% better.

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Sometimes The Real Ministry Happens Before and After Your Small Group Time

March 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

My high school small group has been studying and unpacking Philippians these past two weeks. Last night my plan was to unpack chapters 3 and 4. I spent a lot of time on this lesson, I read and re-read those two chapters, read two different commentaries on Philippians, and I was more than ready and was feeling good about this lesson.

Our group always starts off with a “go around the room and tell us how your week went” session. Usually this takes just a few minutes. I say usually but as you can probably tell by now that didn’t happen last night. Everyone had a lot of stuff to talk about, good and bad and we spent the first hour just doing that. At first my initial inclination was to try to hurry this along, I had a great lesson that would need at least an hour and a half.

That’s when I remembered something that Steven and I have written on before. Sometimes the real ministry happens before and after the planned lesson. I just let the guys talk. I chimed in every now and then with some advice but for the most part I sat back and watched as they ministered and counseled each other, it was so great.

We eventually got to an abbreviated version of the lesson I had planned and it went off great, the guys loved it. Last night was a very successful small group night because I remembered to let God run the group and not me. I let God’s plan for the night happen, not mine. This morning I thought to myself that a couple of the guys had some pretty heavy stuff they needed to talk about, if I had cut that part of our small group short that would not have happened and some prayer requests would have been missed.

 Thank you God for running small group last night and for helping me to remember that my high school small group is not about how great of a lesson I can prepare, it’s about how I am preparing these guys for life after high school and making God be the focus.

Filed Under: Small Groups, Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,

You Can’t Feed Students If You’re Not Getting Fed

February 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of the amazing things I have noticed about teenagers is how perceptive they are, when they want to be. I make this point because I think as a leader of a high school small group, I can’t preach to them about doing the right thing if I’m not doing it myself, they see right through you. I don’t want to get preachy here but you can’t teach and lead students about living Godly, biblical lives if you’re not doing it yourself.  When we decided to be involved in student ministry, either as a paid worker or a volunteer, we all made a committment to live our lives as examples to students and not just go by the “do as I say, not as I do” rule.

I could give many examples of living your life in a way that’s a great example to to students but one that really comes to mind is in your own daily Bible study. Teens know when you’re faking it. We can’t tell them how important a quiet time and daily Bible study is if we are not getting fed by the Word ourselves every day. Getting in the Word keeps you connected to God, it helps you stay true to your morals and values, it helps you with problems that come up in your life and also when students come to you with a problem. 

It’s like someone who has never run a marathon deciding that tomorrow they are going to run a marathon. You might make it for the first mile or so, if your lucky, but you’re going to fall out of the race pretty fast compared to those who are committed to running. Same thing applies here. If I’m getting fed from the Bible on a regular basis, its easy for me to turn to the Bible in times of need and also to refer students there. The Bible is God’s love letter to us and for lack of a better term, it’s an “owner’s manual” for life. The more you know the Bible, the more you’re able to use it in life applications.

Question:  Are you getting in the Word on a regular basis?

Filed Under: Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

40 Days in the Word

January 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

How well do your students know the Bible? How well do you know the Bible? I think I’m like most volunteer leaders, I can find stuff in the Bible when I’m looking for it, I can use the index and the concordance in my Bible and eventually I can find what I need. But I’m not content with that. I want to be able to have scripture at the ready when I’m dealing with a student going through a tough time. I want to be able to give him the right words at the right time. To do that I need to spend some intentional time in my Bible study each day.

At Saddleback Church we just kicked off a church-wide campaign called, “40 Days in the Word” Click here for more information on how you can participate in this awesome study. I want to use this 40 days to my advantage. I want to greatly increase my knowledge in scripture so that I can use God’s word not only for myself but also be able to minister to my high school group. When we as leaders show our students that we are willing to take the extra effort to know the Bible and read it on a daily basis we are showing them how they can do the same thing. I’m afraid that in the past, my fumbling through my Bible probably sent the wrong message to students.

In our student ministries at Saddleback, we are also participating in the “40 Days in the Word” series. Click here for Josh Griffin’s (our high school pastor) link on his website for the series arc that he is teaching on. The first week went really well and I’ve had a ton of positive feedback from students about the weekend service. It showed me that students are just as hungry for more Bible knowledge as we leaders are. If you’re not teaching students on Bible study methods or on ways to unpack scripture your students are missing out, and you’re missing out on better ways to use scripture to walk a student through a crisis in their lives.

Are you taking the time to teach students how to read study and interpret the Bible?

Filed Under: Small Groups, Volunteer ministry, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,

Bible Reading vs. Bible Resources

January 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Our church (Saddleback Church) is about to embark on a series called “40 Days in the Word”. It’s a six week series that will teach ABOUT the Bible and how to read to Bible, how to love the word, learn the word and live the word.  This will be a church-wide campaign that will include our student ministries as well. Before our High School Ministry begins the six-week series I want to spend some time with my small group guys and show them how the Bible was not meant to just increase our knowledge of God, but to change our lives. I want to show them how to be a “living Bible” for their friends who are not believers.

One thing I think we as leaders tend to do is use the Bible to teach on the latest hot issue. If we want to teach a lesson on the evils of pornography, we find Bible verses that deal with that issue. We seem to have gotten away from just taking a chapter or book in the Bible and unpacking what it means to us. I love that when a student is going through a tough time or dealing with a particular issue I can use the Bible to point him to specific scripture that will help him with what he is going through at the moment. But I also want students to know how to use the Bible for a daily quiet time and how to read through books in the Bible and unpack what the scripture is saying. I want them to know that the Bible is not one book, but 66 books wrapped up in one.

I’d love to hear how your favorite ways of teaching Bible reading techniques to your students. You can comment here.

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Find the “Message Within a Message”

December 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Christmas is a great time to talk to students about their relationship with Jesus. I’m using it as my “message within a message” this week with my high school small group. Here’s how it’s going to look:

Christmas is a time for family. Christmas is a time to share. Christmas is a time for letting the people in our lives know how special they are to us. Christmas is a time when we forget about the wrongs that our family or friends have done, we set that all aside and just enjoy and love each other.

Translate that to a message within a message:

We are also a part of God’s family, not just at Christmas but all year-long. Being a part of God’s family means God will be there to provide and care for us. Maybe not always in the way we want, but in the way that God knows is best for us. When we share God with others it brings us closer to Him and when we share what we have with God it shows Him our trust. God doesn’t need our money but when we tithe we are showing that we trust God in our finances. We are special to God. All of us. When we have a special relationship with Jesus our lives are richer and fuller than we could have ever imagined. Jesus forgives and forgets our wrongs; He loves us and wants us to be with Him.

There you go, the “message within a message”. Four simple points, but all things that show Christmas is way more than gifts under a tree. You can probably come up with 100 different points like this when you put together a Christmas lesson for students. When I use this lesson with my students tonight, I want them to share what these points mean to them. I want to show them that when they have a true relationship with God, everyday is Christmas!

 

 

 

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Unpacking Scripture

December 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

One of the phrases I use with my high school small group guys is “unpacking scripture”. It dawned on me this week that most of them probably didn’t know what that term means. Tonight we had decided to do a Bible study on Romans chapter 8. I used this as an example for “unpacking scripture”, to show them what God is telling us in the verses in the Bible. We only “unpacked” verses 1-16 and we spend an hour and a half discussing what they mean. We spent half an hour alone on Romans 8:1, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus”.  – NLT

We talked about what condemnation meant, how God wants to change us, not punish us. It was an awesome experience for me to show them how to do it, and then just sit back and watch them do it on their own. I’m guessing for most of them they won’t look at Romans chapter 8 in the same way again.

The hard part for me was not doing all the talking. Once they got the hang of “unpacking scripture”, I just sat back and let them run with it. Most of the time being a good leader means you lead and then sit back and let your students run with the ball. If you’re doing more than 50% of the talking then your students are not participating enough and probably aren’t getting as much out of a lesson as they could if they were doing more of the talking. I have a few guys who can be quiet at times; I wait for the right opportunity to call on them for an answer to something without making them feel like I’m putting them on the spot. I recommend you try a lesson on “unpacking scripture” with your student small group. Once students know how to unpack scripture, it makes Bible reading and quiet times a lot more productive.

 

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10 Christmas Story Takeaways Students Need To Know

December 10, 2011 by 2 Comments

I saw this awesome article posted on youthministry360.com. The post is on “10 Christmas Story Takeaways That Students Need to Know”. It’s an awesome article, I’m going to use these with my high school small group. I’ve posted the first two, you can find the other eight here.

The Christmas story is literally crammed full of powerful teachings. Here are 10 takeaways that speak directly to students:

1. The Incarnation Is Awesome

Luke 2:6-7 says, “And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

It seems this generation of teenagers places a high value on authenticity. There is nothing more authentic than the God of the Universe taking on human form in order to perfectly save His creation from themselves. Students can know, and worship, and relate to God because He became one of us.

2. You’re Never To Young To Be Used by God

Luke 1:26-27 says, “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.”

Mary was pretty young. Scholars’ opinions range anywhere from 13 or 14 years old to 18 or 19. The point is this: God used Mary in a miraculous way. That’s God’s M.O. He used Mary when she was a teenager. He can and will (and does) use young people today as vital parts of His plan to redeem humankind.

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