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Dennis

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Teaching Jr Highers

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I saw this post over on Kurt Johnston’s blog. He’s got a lot of great stuff on his blog. Click here to check it out.

Teaching 101….part one.

Here is a short list of what I believe to be fundamental when teaching/speaking to junior highers:

– The first minute is the most important minute
– It doesn’t need to be long to be good
– If it’s going to be long it needs to be good
– Junior Highers like to laugh
– Junior Highers like stories
– Be authentic
– Be relevant to THEIR world
– When possible, include active learning ingredients. Students learn more when they experience it.
– Offer specific application steps
– The last minute is also the most important minute

Lesson Helper: Real Heal

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I love leaving students with some kind of a memory they can tie to a lesson. At this weekend’s services, our high school students are writing “heal” and “real” on their arms to remind them that in order to experience healing, they need to get real with God. It’s a great visual that will remind them of the lesson until it washes off.

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Movie Review: 9

I got invited to see this movie I’d never heard of. Now that I’ve seen it, I want to tell everybody to go see it!

Reviewing this movie would be difficult without spoiling the story line. Instead, I’ll write why I’m so excited about it from a youth ministry point of view. Depending on your bent toward youth ministry or ecology, you may have a different reason to be happy with what you see. You can be passionate about either (or both) and have reason to be excited about how the content promotes your cause.

From my vantage point as a youth worker, I spent the entire movie drawing parallels between the story line and God’s desire to do a new thing through us. The plot of 9 illustrates our rescue us from a certain destruction of our own creation. In 9, you’ll see obvious references to David and Goliath, Israel taking the Promised Land, Jesus’ rebuke of the religious leaders and the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made through his death on the cross.

This is a movie for leaders to see with their small group students. A great idea is to prepare students ahead of time by telling them to look for the biblical themes. Following the movie, leaders can have an amazing discussion with students about how it illustrates the biblical truths so boldly portrayed throughout the movie.

Life Lessons: Spiritual Dryness

My mom travels a lot this time of year. When she’s gone, I water her plants for her. Because we’re having the hottest weather of the year right now, I got to thinking I better put a lot of water on her flower beds. By being generous with the water, it can absorb deeper into the soil so it doesn’t all evaporate when the day is at it’s hottest.

As I’m doing this, it occurs to me how that’s a great illustration of an important spiritual principle. When I’m spending time with God in his word, through prayer, worship, service, etc, I can can have a quick, shallow visit with him. When I don’t allow myself to be saturated with him through the process, I get a shallow experience that evaporates when life heats up.

This is a valuable illustration for teaching my small group students about connecting with God on a deeper level. However, it’s definitely something that helps me think through my own connection with God, as well. I like the idea of being saturated as I spend time with him. I can tell the difference when I’m not.

Leaders Are Learners, Readers, Thinkers

My pastor teaches that leaders are learners. He says, “Once you stop learning, you stop leading.”

I’ve gone through seasons when I feel like I’m out of material to make generic curriculum personal and applicable for my students. Nothing seems fresh. Teaching becomes a chore. I think it’s normal to go through dry seasons. However, sometimes dry seasons are brought on by neglecting to stretch our minds or create experiences.

Some ways I stay fresh and stretched mentally include:

– Reading books or magazines – Resources which focus on spiritual growth, self-improvement, trivial information and something that makes me laugh out loud (all types are important, but don’t need to happen simultaneously). For trivia and laughter, Mental Floss Magazine typically does the trick. MANY times what I read becomes part of my lesson or inspires an opening activity a Bible study.
– Getting out in public – Thought-provoking, maddening and funny things go on all around me when I’m in public and paying attention. Being reclusive tends to dry out my imagination and miss out on life lessons.
– Staying current on the news – I watch news or listen to a talk radio show every day… without fail.
– Telling stories – I love conversations with people where we tell stories back and forth. We don’t start the conversation for that purpose, it just happens. Often times stories I tell or hear tend to find their way into my teaching the following week. As I prepare my lesson, stories I’ve told or heard will be on my mind and can be readily inserted to make the lesson come alive. This also can be a great source of mind-stretching and hysterical laughter.

These are simple, yet important ways to keep the mind sharp, young and fresh, and stocked up with teachable moments.

Right now I’m reading:

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

The Sacred Romance, Desire, and Waking the Dead (Three Life Changing Books in One Volume)

I’d love to know what you’re reading or doing to keep yourself fresh for teaching. Leave a comment on this post to share your thoughts.

Growing Stronger Through Temptation

Luke 4:14 has given me some new perspective about temptation and how my obedience to God’s commands enhances the Holy Spirit’s power in my life. My mind is opening to a source of God’s power where I didn’t even think he was present. This new perspective is revolutionizing how I look at temptation.

What’s been on my mind is how the process of going through temptation, using God’s word to combat it, enables the Holy Spirit’s power to increase in my life. I’m internalizing this concept of the reward of the Holy Spirit’s strength in exchange for my obedience through temptation (Luke 4:14 – Jesus emerged from his temptation in the desert full of the Holy Spirit’s power). Typically, regardless of having victory over temptation or being defeated by it, I feel beaten up, weak and ashamed for being tempted.

The revolutionary aspect of this, in my mind, is seeing God’s role in temptation. While he doesn’t cause temptation (James 1:13), he can strengthen me through it. The typical perspective I’ve had is because temptation is evil, as long as I’m in that place of struggle, God takes a hands-off approach. He gives me the choice to embrace or resist, but leaves it at that. However, as I read in Jesus’ time of temptation, Jesus is led to the desert by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1) and is full of the Holy Spirit power when he returns victorious from it (Luke 4:14). The Holy Spirit plays an active role during our temptation directly related to our response to being tempted: We are strengthened by the Holy Spirit as we resist.

Bringing the concept of the strengthening of the Holy Spirit through my desert experiences gives me a whole new perspective on temptation. I can grow spiritually through temptation and emerge stronger instead of feeling shame for having gone through it regardless of the outcome.

While these are not new ideas, it is a new perspective for me. I’d love to know your thoughts on the subject.
– Have you seen temptation as a chance to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit or simply a curse caused by original sin?
– As youth workers, how do our students see temptation. Are they defeated or strengthened through the experience?

Let’s be sure to be renewed as we are delivered from temptation instead of defeated for having gone through it. Then let’s pass on the perspective to our students.

Lesson Ideas: Changing Perspective

When I teach hope to change the perspective of my students. Most of them have heard the same stories taught repeatedly since they were toddlers. I hope they leave saying, “I’ve never thought of it that way.” That’s when minds are stretched and the biblical truths regain their attention.

Some examples I’ve seen from others lately are:

1. A teacher talking about Jonah revealed that Nineveh worshiped a fish god. When Jonah was delivered from a fish to tell Nineveh that God was going to destroy them, it had more meaning than we’ve realized before. This is a great way to show a deeper meaning of the Bible, a little humor, but, most importantly, the sovereignty of God.

2. Another teacher talking about purity said that he could jump to get off his roof, but would break his leg in the process. It would be okay because he would eventually heal. He used this to point out the flaw in thinking we can sin knowing God will forgive us. He said when we live like that, it’s true that God forgives us. However, we damage our souls. God’s forgiveness is instantaneous. However, the damage we do to our souls when we purposefully go against his design is lasting.

Teaching to change perspective takes more effort on our part. However, making the extra effort can make the difference between sending them home with small group checked off their to-do list and equipping students to make life change.

Lesson Helpers: World’s Strictest Parents

Today I caught an episode of MtV’s World’s Strictest Parents. The one I caught was pretty cool, but I can’t judge a series by one episode. Take this with a grain of salt, but I see a lot of potential for using clips of this show for teaching.

The premise of the show is to take 2 troubled teenagers who are strangers and put them in a house with strict parents who will whip them into shape in a week.

What I liked about the show:
– It showed how messed up students can be when they’re doing their own thing in an undisciplined lifestyle
– It addressed that people are heading down the wrong road
– The storyline of the show is how 2 teenagers’ eyes are opened to how much better life can be on a different path
– At the end of the show, the parents show up & the kids make commitments to live differently

What I don’t like about the show:
– The teenagers are only in the new disciplined setting for a week – not long enough for true character change
– Christianity was brought into the show, but in a kind of dorky, watered down and stereotypical way

How I will likely use clips:
– I will likely show the first part of this show to illustrate a life out of control as a springboard for discussion
– If I find an episode that doesn’t make Christianity look dumb, I might show an entire episode followed by a discussion about God’s way
– I could even use the commercial breaks as a natural stopping point to discuss each segment of the show and what we can learn and apply to our lives based on what happens

Click here to watch some clips of the show on YouTube

Lesson Helpers: 1 Samuel 20-23

Here are some thoughts from my quiet time today. While these are useful in my own life, I thought I’d share them because there’s also some good application for teaching on these verses.

In these chapters, David convinces Jonathan that Saul is out to kill him. David escapes and the chase is on. Saul kills the priests who he errantly believes have purposefully aided David in his escape. David is pursued and betrayed along the way. When Saul is within reasonable reach of David, he gets a memo that Israel is being attacked by the Philistines and takes off. David lives to run another day.

During these scary times in David’s life, God provides trusted advisers who help him know the danger he’s in. He also asks God for direction. God is faithful to help David know the truth. Although David is in danger and on the run, the help of God and trustworthy friends help him escape Saul.

In our lives, evil hunts us down wherever we go, much like Saul hunted David. We try to escape, but it seems to follow us. Too often, people give up resisting evil and become enslaved by sin. Pastor Kenton Beshore of Mariners Church rightly said in his message last weekend that while we surrender to sin knowing God will forgive us, we break our souls in the process and we put a distance between ourselves and God. We must flee temptation like David fled from Saul.

David did, however, make a big mistake when he lied to the priests. Because he went to them for help and caused them to believe a lie, they, their families and livestock were all massacred by Saul’s men. This is a great illustration of how we need to follow God’s plan even when it seems he’s not in control. When we swerve away from the guidelines he sets us up to follow, it shows a lack of faith on our part. It also can cause more damage than it prevents.