Breaking Ground
What was your greatest source of angst as a teen? Keep your answer light hearted & funny if you can!
The Dig
This Sunday, we finished The Next Generations, our series on parenting, mentoring, & engaging new generations with the story of Christ.
Lead your growth group in a dialogue over the questions addressed by the panel during this Sunday’s gathering. Do so with humility & open-mindedness, while understanding that you, nor your members, need to speak as experts on any given subject.
QUESTION 1: How have you best shared faith with teens in your sphere, specifically in the teen years?
QUESTION 2: What do you wish you could’ve done in your teen’s faith walk now? What did you do well that was awesome and would recommend to others in sharing with teens?
QUESTION 3: How do you motivate an apathetic teen?
QUESTION 4: It seems like teens want everything and anything to be “accepted” and believe everything they see online is true, how do you break through and talk about Jesus as Truth.
QUESTION 5: How can I help my grown teen (college-aged) child see the value of going to church?
QUESTION 6: How do I explain to my child why different groups of people who all profess to be followers of Jesus interpret parts of the Bible and/or respond to the world so differently?
QUESTION 7: So… the Old Testament is kind of weird, right? Horrific stories way out of societal context and time. How would you go about engaging teens with complex stories like these in a way that doesn’t convey horrifying ideas about God? Do you think there’s a developmental stage/age that kids should reach before being engaged with such complicated, culturally contextualized stories? If so, what is it? How would you go about engaging teens with complex stories like these in a way that doesn’t convey horrifying ideas about God?
Getting Out of the Hole
Take time this week to reflect on the panel & how each participant brought their own unique perspective to these hard questions. Journal about what you agreed & disagreed with, as well as how you might apply the insights you garnered from it to your daily life.
Journal, reflect, & pray on how God might be speaking to you through each week’s teaching. Share your experience with your growth group next week!
Additional Resources*
How People Grow by Henry Cloud & John Townsend
Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger
Common Sense Parenting
TheBibleProject.com
Coming Up This Week:*
Saturday, March 19th: Join us next Sunday for the first week of Expect Resurrection, our new series on the importance & nature of the concept of resurrection in the biblical story!
* Please see mye3.org for details.