Ephesians 6:14-17 - Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
We continued in Ephesians tonight. We are going back to old-school G, where in we are taking the verses Pastor Mike teaches on Sunday and breaking them down for the kids on Wednesdays...making them applicable to them and on their level.
We are using the discipleship training method taught to us by Pastor Billy a month ago. We begin each night now with praise and prayer reports and then pray before we continue.
Next, we are having a time of praise and worship with YouTube songs that include the lyrics on the screen. It just seems to get the kids ready for the lesson and get their minds focused on God's Word and off their school days or what went on before they got to youth.
Then we read the passage from Sunday and ask one of the kids to tell it back to us, but in their own words. We proceed to talk about what captured their attention or caught them off guard, what bothered them and why, what does the passage reveal to us about God/Jesus, what does it reveal about us, and what lessons does the passage reveal about being disciples of Jesus. We discuss what the passage tells us about living to honor and please God and what God wants us to obey from the passage. I can't tell you how rewarding this method of study has been for us. Instead of me doing all of the talking and teaching, the kids are digging deeper to discover truths and nuggets of wisdom for themselves. They are teaching each other! It's awesome to listen to them. And ALL of them are sharing now, even the more shy ones. This is how we plan to conduct youth every week from now on.
After our discussion, we follow up with an object lesson if God gives us one and maybe a few YouTubes.
Tonight was all about the armor of God. We showed this clip from Avatar and talked about the unseen war we are in every single day and who our enemy is. We talked about the Roman soldiers' shields that protected their entire bodies from arrows soaked in pitch and lit on fire by the enemy. We talked about how important each part of a soldier's armor is in protecting him from danger.
Then we discussed with the kids what those fiery arrows might represent in our lives, Satan's arrows. We talked about doubting who we are in Christ, temptations, parents who are divorced or who fight all the time, bullies at school, struggles learning, distractions, etc... We did a little experiment then to show the importance of our spiritual armor from God. We showed the kids that an orange can float in a bowl of water as long as it has it's peel still on...its armor, which helps it "stand" in times of tribulation. Then we peeled another orange. We named a weapon of Satan's for each section of the peeled orange and then dropped it into the same bowl of water with its armed brother. This time, the peeled orange sank. It could not withstand the fiery arrows from the enemy because it was not properly armed.
To really show the kids how important the sword of the Spirit is as a part of their armor and how, even they can use the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, we gave them scenarios and then had them read Scriptures that applied to each situation. Here are a few examples:
- You're feeling so discouraged because you were supposed to go camping this weekend and the weather is calling for tropical storm weather. Proverbs 19:21
- You know you're a Christian, but you can't stop feeling like you'll never be good enough because of your past sins. 2 Cor. 5:17
- If one more bad thing happens to you this week, you'll explode! James 1:2-4
- You're so mad at yourself for blowing it with your attitude at home last week and how upset your parents were with you. Phil. 3:13-14
- You hear all the crazy stuff happening around the world and on the news and start to freak out about your future. John 16:33
- Your parents have been fighting a lot lately, especially over money. You are starting to worry too. John 14:27
- There's this group of kids at school that keeps trying to get you to hang out with them. They seem cool, but have a reputation for always getting in trouble. Psalm 1:1-3
- You are so nervous about your math test this week! 1 Peter 5:7
- You feel like you're the only one whose parents gives them so many chores and like you'll never get them done so you can hang out with your friends. Col. 3:23
- You're trying to stay positive and be thankful, but it's so hard when all you can think about is the difficult situation at home. Phil. 4:4-8
- You are really nervous and scared about your upcoming performance in band or a school play. Joshua 1:9
- You really like this girl/boy in your class and find yourself daydreaming of what it would be like to kiss him/her. Psalm 119:9-11
- Everyone has the new ipod touch it seems. Yours is the older version and still works fine, but still.... Hebrews 13:5
- Your brother or sister borrowed your favorite shirt and got a stain on it! James 1:19
And those are just a few! Anyway, it was a great night and we ended it with this YouTube on the Armor of God in the Life of Teens.
