
Ideal Group Size: 2 to 40
Age Range: Middle / High School
Theme: Active Teaching Tool
Selfless - Lesson Overview:
As Christians, we are called to put others before ourselves. This can happen in both big and small ways, but more importantly it should happen frequently. In fact, we should strive to make it a habit that we practice automatically.
We will explore the fact that God has already equipped each of us in different ways to live out our Christian faith. Being able to move from selfishness to selflessness is a reflection of real growth in our faith journey. This idea is often the opposite of what the world encourages in us. God has equipped each of us in different ways to succeed in this endeavor.
What is a Game-Driven Lesson?
Most youth workers make the same mistake: Their meetings are either all lesson, which makes them boring, or they’re all games, which makes them lack meaning. But the key to successful youth ministry is using games to teach your lesson.
The problem is that it’s hard enough finding fun games online, let alone games that tie-in to what you’re talking about. Well that’s where Game-Driven Lessons come in.
First, you play a fun game...
Our curriculum provides an active game that you’ve likely never played with your group before! Playing games creates memories, drives attendance, and encourages youth to be themselves.
We choose games that designed to be versatile, so no matter how many people are there, how large of a space you’re meeting in, or what materials you have, you’ll be able to run the game with ease.
...and then you tie that
game into your lesson!
We give you all of the guiding questions you need to lead a meaningful, Christ-centered message that is relevant to the game you just played.
Teaching through experiential learning is the best way to get your message to stick. Between the game you play, engaging questions, and the usage of videos and other external media, your youth will remember your teaching and come back for more!
What's covered in the Level series?
There’s a lot that goes into building something. In construction, it’s incredibly important to keep your structure level, or parallel to the ground. If you don’t, not only will your building be tilted, but your pieces won’t line up, your structure will be weaker, and you risk collapse.
Our relationship with God is very similar. Many temptations can pull us out of level, but there is plenty we can do to pull ourselves back into level. This idea serves as the framework for every lesson in this series. You’ll discuss what strengthens our faith and the things that draw us away.
Have you ever heard the saying Man plans, God laughs? As much as we like to think we’re in control, there’s no knowing for certain what life has in store for us. So if we aren’t able to guarantee what the future will look like, how are we supposed to know what to commit to?
Thankfully, the answer lies in Proverbs. While it’s true that no one outside of God knows the specifics of the future, God’s Word tells us to commit whatever we do to Him, and then He will establish our plans. God will provide opportunities, remove barriers, and spiritually reward us if we first seek out His will.
Most people would agree that knowing something or someone at a surface-level isn’t as ideal as knowing it / them deeply. The difficulty comes from the fact that to know something deeply, you have to spend some time and effort.
The things we commit ourselves to are a reflection of what is important to us. In a world where our attention is pulled a million ways at once, being able to prioritize what you spend effort on is crucial. Paul tells us that we are on the right path when we commit ourselves to God.
Buying expensive clothing when we can’t afford it… falling in with the wrong crowd… being ashamed to tell people we’re Christian because of the stigmas that come with it. These are all manifestations of what it looks like when we live our lives to try to please others.
It is tempting to allow the way that people see us to influence our actions. The world often makes a lot of empty promises to those who live to please it, but there is never any substance behind it. So then, how do we change ourselves from being people who live to please others to being people who live to please God?
Have you ever lost something that you cared about? Chances are you have, and if it was truly important to you, you probably spent a lot of time searching for it. However, if what you lost was something minor, you probably gave up on it pretty quickly.
We spend a lot of time talking about ways that we can seek God, but it’s also important to remember that God seeks us as well. When Jesus shares the Parable of the Lost Sheep, He shows us that we are valuable, and that He will always provide us with a way to be found when we are lost.
How many times have you set off on a journey of self-improvement? Inspired, you spend the next day or two making huge sweeping changes… only to return to your normal life within a week or so.
We don’t fall short of our goals because we’re not good enough, but rather because of how we approach the challenge. If we can open our hearts to the change God wants to see in us, and then work towards that goal every day, we will find success.
Our last meeting, ‘Renovate’, focused on the importance of habits. This meeting goes one step further. We often have a difficult time creating new habits because we tend to focus on the results they will bring. These surface-level commitments fall flat as soon as the journey gets difficult, and we give up before we ever even really get started.
Instead, if we form habits based on who we want to become, the narrative changes. Rooting our actions in our identity allows us to persevere through the tough times. The question we can then ask ourselves is “Who am I?”
There was a time when there was no way to search Google for an answer to your question. A time when if you needed to contact someone, you’d have to leave them a message that they may not see for hours. And worst of all, people didn’t carry around a calculator in their pocket.
Sound bad? Well during that time period, you could actually have a conversation with someone that was fully engaged in what you were saying. They weren’t busy looking down, comparing themselves to someone else or endlessly scrolling. Technology has drastically changed our lives, but it’s our responsibility to make sure that our lives are changed for the better.
It’s incredibly easy to place blame on the people around us. We can be naturally selfish beings that like to see ourselves as the good guys, but when there is conflict in a relationship it’s far too easy to find faults in the other person. But truthfully, most people have good intentions, and by showing empathy we have the power to take care of things before they grow to be problems.
Most young people haven’t learned this lesson yet, and some people never do. The world teaches us to allow our pride to take over, and just cut those out of our lives that get in the way. But that is not how strong relationships form, and it is certainly not God’s plan for us.
There will be many times in life when you need to make a choice. Often, the choice is between what you want to do versus what you know is right. When your friends, family, people from school, or social media all tell you to choose different things, how do you do what’s right?
Thankfully, among all of the voices that you have to choose from, there is one voice that will always have your best interest in mind. This voice doesn’t trick you with instant gratification, only to hurt you down the road. This voice doesn’t have ulterior motives. This voice is God’s. In order for us to hear God’s voice, we need to actively listen, and then we must choose to follow.
We’ve all had fights with the people we care about. Sometimes you’re on the side of the argument where you are the one that needs to forgive someone who has wronged you, and sometimes you’re the one that needs to be forgiven.
Dealing with disputes can be scary, but ignoring the problem only makes things worse. Regardless of whether you’re the one forgiving or asking for forgiveness, it is vitally important that you find reconciliation quickly. Don’t allow your disagreements to fester, because letting things simmer only leads to a more difficult discussion with more massive consequences.
Do you believe in karma? Do you believe that there’s some sort of external force out there that makes sure you get what you deserve? After all, if we lived in a world that was fair, everyone would get what’s coming to them eventually… Right?
Everyone makes mistakes, and we often feel we should face consequences when we mess up. Thankfully, that’s not how God handles things. God is loving, He knows that extending us grace (even though we don’t feel we deserve it) will lead to a better outcome than punishing us every time we mess up. So then the question becomes… How do we show God’s mercy to each other?
Lies are all around us. Companies want to sell you products, people want to be perceived in a certain way, and we even lie to ourselves. When you’re forced to decide between what’s right and what’s easy, we can be fooled into believing that lies are the “better” option.
While lying is often considered “not such a bad sin,” it is still a sin. Relationships are built on trust, and it is significantly harder to regain someone’s trust after you’ve lied to them. To be able to rely on one another we have to have confidence that we have each other’s best interests at heart, which comes from a strong foundation of truth.
The phrase “Obstando Promoves” is Latin. It translates as “By standing firm, one moves forward”. By resisting the negative pulls in our lives and by allowing ourselves to be led by the positive currents around us we are able to lead better and more fulfilling lives.
Peer pressure can be both positive and negative. Good friends should only have a positive influence in their friends’ lives. Positive peer pressure is real and should be encouraged as youth interact in and out of your group’s setting. Adopting the attitude of a positive role model for our friends helps us lead a less self-centered life.
As Christians, we are called to put others before ourselves. This can happen in both big and small ways, but more importantly it should happen frequently. In fact, we should strive to make it a habit that we practice automatically.
We will explore the fact that God has already equipped each of us in different ways to live out our Christian faith. Being able to move from selfishness to selflessness is a reflection of real growth in our faith journey. This idea is often the opposite of what the world encourages in us. God has equipped each of us in different ways to succeed in this endeavor.
We are all guilty of passing judgement on others who are not like us. We look at people and consider them our adversaries, and all we see is our differences. But, when we put that superficiality aside, we find that we have more in common than we might think. We find their feelings, emotions, frustrations, motivations and joys are often similar to ours.
When we look for these similarities instead of our differences, we start to bridge gaps and can begin real communication. If we stay focused on our differences, no growth can occur. The Christian call is to love others, not just those who are our friends. There will always be differences between ourselves and others, our challenge is to look for and find points of commonality and use those to identify how we might show love despite our differences, as Jesus would.
The world seems to do its best to knock us down. The world’s message is “You’re never good enough!” God simply says “We are His children.” Salvation is ours because of His love for us.
Our “true” friends can be an invaluable resource by lifting us up when we’re down and steadying us when we’re up. This meeting will help young people practice kindness toward others and at the same time accept the kindness of others. By putting new habits in place, we can start a chain reaction that can change our lives for the better.
Apathy. Withdrawing from life and displaying a lack of emotion is one of the most harmful modern habits. Its effect on us is more negative than we realize. It can stand in the way of young people becoming the person that God would have them be.
The activity of this lesson focuses on the insidious nature of apathy and its far reaching effect on our lives. As people who live by faith, we Christians must do our best to stay motivated and involved in order to have a positive impact on our world. As with all parts of our lives, it all begins with us showing up and being involved.
During this meeting, we’ll explore the idea of strength and dig deeper into its varied nature in an effort to understand not only what it means to be strong, but also the source of our strength. There are four basic types of strength we’ll explore; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
As believers, we give the glory to the creator for all that He has created. God is ever-present during our times of ease and our times of trouble. By leaning on Him, there is nothing we wouldn’t be able to handle.
Many of us tend to suffer from the same problem: misplaced focus. The pace of life in our society and our tendency to try to pack too much into too little time leads us into a never ending spiral. This activity will explore the need to change those habits and rather develop a new way of thinking about the one resource that is perhaps our most precious… time.
Depending on the stage of life we are in, most of us find ourselves focusing on either the past or the future or some combination of both of those. It takes intentionality to focus on today and make the absolute most of the opportunities with which we are presented. The best part is this way of thinking allows us very naturally to turn outward rather than inward.
Occasionally, we all experience what some people call our “just rewards”. That is, our actions in the past have a consequential impact on our future self. While this is often seen as a negative result, it doesn’t have to be.
This lesson looks at the need to not only make wise choices from the start, but also to maintain our focus throughout our lives in order to finish strong. This is equally true in both the short and long term, but can be easier said than done. As Christians, we are encouraged to do good for others and by doing so, we too gain a reward for a life well lived.
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All of us have been given gifts and abilities in order to serve God’s kingdom here on earth and share love with one another. While good works are not required to earn God’s love, we are encouraged to do good in response to the love we have already received in Christ. How can you share the good news of Jesus Christ in big and small ways in your life?
We’re so confident that you’ll love the ‘Level’ series, we’re offering you a 200% money-back guarantee. That means that if for any reason you’re not satisfied with our curriculum, you’ll get your money back and get to keep the content.
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