Happy Monday friends!

This past week in D-groups we spent some time just hanging out and getting to know one another, praying for each other, and learning some more about the Bible as a whole!

Two weeks ago we began talking about what the Bible is, how we came to have our modern translations, and why it's important to be reading it often! This week we continued that theme by reflecting on the overarching plot of the Bible as a whole, and why it's important that we know it!

We began by trying to list as many major plot points as we could from memory, starting with creation and moving toward the resurrection. I was so impressed by some of the little details that our students remembered! We made it from Adam and Eve to the fall, touched on the tower of Babel, the flood, Abraham, and a few random stories that took place before talking about the coming of Jesus! Then we turned back to The Bible Project to help fill in the gaps!

One of the major goals in this teaching series is to help our students understand that the Bible is accessible to them, and doesn't need to be a "chore" to read - especially the Old Testament. The OT is full of amazing stories about Kings (both good and bad), faithful prophets, and all sorts of very relatable characters but they are often lost in between the long genealogies and seemingly outdated laws. Two weeks ago I told our students about the prophet Elisha, who also parted a body of water, made an axe head float, raised a child from the dead, and even had bald jokes made about him that resulted in a bear attack. Those stories are fascinating and insightful, but we seldom hear about them! This week we talked about the evil king Eglon in Judges 3, and how even stories that mention poop can point toward God's faithfulness to his people in the grand story of scripture! As silly as it may seem, I saw one student reading her Bible aloud after our large group teaching time!

Those same books that have hard-to-pronounce names also contain the context we need to understand why Jesus' coming was so unbelievably significant. This teaching series also meshes really nicely with our upcoming Walk Thru the Bible event on November 12, and you can find those signups here! Having a greater understanding of the story contained in the Old Testament gives such a deep appreciation of how Jesus fulfills the law and prophets.

Next week in youth group we are going to talk about the importance of taming our tongues!

Thanks for checking in!!

We had a blast last night!

We discovered that we have a working slushie machine, played some Crossnet, spent some time in prayer, read some Max Lucado, and Noah forgot what time it was!

For our lesson time, we are continuing to work through the book of James and spent some time in chapter 2 this week talking about how Jesus doesn't play favorites. We made a distinction between having favorite people (like best friends) and playing favorites (which excludes others, and is hurtful.) James uses the analogy of a rich man and a poor man in his letter but if the Bible were written for a modern audience, that distinction would probably be more like cool vs. uncool, or popular vs. unpopular.

One of my favorite things to do as a youth pastor is go "back to the basics" of spiritual living, as it's easy to miss the forest for the trees in faith. One of the ways I love to do that is reading older students Max Lucado's children's books! So to drive the point home, I read You are Special to our students.

If you're unfamiliar with this story, it follows the life of a wooden person named Punchinello. I threw a quick summary at the bottom of this post if you're interested in that :) Just hit "Read More" under the pictures to reveal it.

While people don't go around sticking visible signs of approval or disapproval on one another, we live in a world of likes, hearts, and comments of disagreement. If we are going to be radical followers of Jesus we need to recognize that all people are made in God's image, and treat them as such.

Normally we would have had debrief groups too, but I was a dork and misread the clock, so we hung out and played games for the last half hour of youth group! I'll do better next time :P

Thanks for stopping by and checking in! Have a wonderful week!