This Week #4-8

This Week in OFF ROAD we ended our DUSTY series with, “Yearning to be covered in the dust of the master.” Yearning is an intense or overpowering longing, desire or need and to be covered in the dust of the master means following Jesus so closely that you look like Him. So in OFF ROAD our desire is that we all have an intense longing to follow Jesus so close that we look like him. Luke 6:40, “Students are not greater than their master, but the student who is fully trained will become like the master.” After reviewing this we gave the students a chance to respond in answering the question: Where are you with God and where do you want to be? Students were able to write their prayers down on the chalkboards and it was really cool to see them process this.

Parents: Ask yourself and your child this question too.
Where are you at with God and where do you want to be?
Do you have a yearning to follow Jesus?
When was the last time you day dreamed about being more like Christ? Why do you think it happens so infrequently if ever?

This Week #4-7

Dear Parents,

This week in Off-Road we continued our Dusty series with the “T” “Telling the Truth of who He is.” We looked at Mark 16 and Matthew 28 which command us to go, proclaim, make disciples, and baptize. The command is what makes the Telling of the Truth part of our jobs as Christians. Then we endeavored to discover what the truth was and we found that “The Truth was Eternal Life, Because Jesus Christ Died for us, and How we follow is to Believe.” The process of telling others the Gospel or the truth is called evangelism and to truly evangelize we need to show who God is in love. But, it is not enough to just love someone we actually have to tell them the truth, because if we don’t tell them they can never know or say yes. We left with the goal to take a picture with a friend who does not know Jesus who we wanted to tell and bring it to Off-Road so we can put it up and pray for that person and so the leaders can help the students follow through on telling their friends. The questions we discussed with them afterward were:

•What makes it hard for you to talk about God with your friends?
•Can you think of any creative ways to break the ice and share Jesus with your friends?
•If you don’t know very many non-Christians how can you find places to share the truth?
•Why is it important for you to share the truth instead of just showing love?
•What can you do to be more prepared to share the truth of the gospel?

This Week #4-6

As we continued our D.U.S.T.Y. series we focused on the “S” of DUSTY, Strengthening our desire to imitate Christ. We want to grow closer to God and imitate the example Christ set for us. Ephesians 4:31-5:2 is a great starting point for our imitation of Christ because it is the motivation for why we should imitate Him. We should imitate Christ because He first loved us. Jesus is not some bully that makes us imitate Him, instead He loves us so much and wants the best for us so we should imitate Him. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 tells us that if we choose to follow Christ imitation should naturally happen AND this is our witness to others. So how do we learn to imitate Him? We need to spend time with Him, get to know Him so we can know what to imitate.

Are you imitating Christ?
What does it mean to imitate Christ?
What do you need to do to imitate God better?
Who is someone you know that really imitates Christ? What is it about them that makes you think they imitate Christ?
How can you be like them?

This Week #4-5

This Week in OFF ROAD we explored what it means to be unified with other believers. John 13 describes part of the last supper where Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment, that they love others the way the He has loved them. Now we can quickly skim over this passage knowing that we are supposed to love each other but when we take time to think about it the idea of a new commandment is confusing. Hasn’t Jesus told us this before? Well he has told us that we need to love others the way that we want to be loved, but now he is calling us to follow His example. We are no longer the standard, He is the standard. That is a huge calling!!! But how is this possible? It is easy to love those that we get along with and like, but how do we really be unified with all other believers? The answer is in John 17. Jesus’ final prayer before being arrested is for the unity of all believers through a unity with Christ. If we rely on behavior modification and just decide that we are going to be unified without making God the focus of our unity it will be very difficult to be unified and we won’t be unified the way Jesus wants us. So let us all develop our relationship with Christ and grow to love Him more so that we can grow to love each other more and be unified with other believers!

-What does it mean to be unified with other believers?
-Is that really possible? How?
-What do you need to do to make sure you are unified with other believers? (Are there any relationships you need to mend?)