A Life of Worship-Week Two:Prayer

Post Introduction- Our goal for this study is to continue to further our students' understanding of the different aspects of worship and teach them about the power and importance of prayer.

The Lesson

(20-25 mins depending on conversation)

Introduce this week's lesson to your students with these questions:

Who here prays at least once a day? It can be a blessing for food or a prayer before bed.
Do you find that you typically pray when you want to ask God for something?

I'm sure that a lot of us find it easier to pray when we need things, not because asking for things is easy, but because remembering to talk to God when our life is going really well can be hard sometimes.  But, even if we mostly talk to God to ask for things, are there some things that you feel like aren't important enough to ask God? Have you ever had anything that seems too big to ask God about?

Ephesians 6:18 "and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people."

This verse and many others tell us that we should cry out to God for EVERYTHING, no matter how big or small.  Think back to when you were a little kid and you prayed for things that seem silly now, but you asked for them because you trusted God wholly to answer you.  Sometimes we need to get back into a childlike mindset and remember how awesome and powerful God is! 

Maybe you haven't had a problem with asking God for all sorts of things, but you have had a problem with seeing a result in your prayer.  As a new Christian, or a child, you may have felt like God was a vending machine that took in prayers and immediately deposited results, but as you mature in age and faith you realize that that isn't always the case, and it can be difficult.  Jesus told his disciples a parable that addressed this exact doubt! 

Luke 18:1-8 "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.  He said: 'In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' For some time he refused.  But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually come and attack me!'' And the Lord said, 'Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, He will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?'"

God is always listening to us, no matter how big or small the request, and He wants to give us all good things in His time.  We know that praying isn't just about asking for things, though.  Aside from saying a blessing before eating, when was the last time that you stopped to say a special prayer specifically to thank God?  God listens to everything we say, but I think we should strive to be at least twice as thankful as we are needy when we pray.  Even if it seems like there's not much to be thankful for, God is in everything around us and deserves to be praised and thanked for it!

Philippians 4:6-7 "do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Prayer isn't meant to be a one-sided conversation. Sometimes we get so caught up in asking for things and not seeing a quick result that we forget that God wants to respond to us!  We need to be looking and watching for Him to speak, maybe not audibly, but through other people or circumstances. Searching for things or people to be thankful for, even when your situation seems helpless, makes you more aware of exactly where you can see God in your life.

Activity: Encourage your student to take a few minutes to pray individually.  Encourage them to thank God for at least one thing and ask Him for something they either never considered asking for or they want to give up on.

To close, we will recite the Lord's Prayer together.  Some of you may not know it, and that's okay, but I would encourage you to take the time to look it up later this week. It's not a mantra that we should be reciting as so many people view it, but instead a great guideline of how we should be praying. It opens with praising God for how amazing He is and stating that His will will be done in all places.  It follows by making requests, TRUSTING Him to meet our physical needs, forgive us, give us the ability to forgive others, and protect us from spiritual and physical harm. The prayer closes by reiterating that God is all powerful and deserves to be praised for it.

"Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen."

This week's challenge is to thank God every day for at least one thing.  It can be anything from having clean clothes to wear to doing well on a test.  No matter how bad your day is, I want you to find one thing to be thankful for and see how it changes your overall mood day to day.

A Life of Worship-Week One:Music

Post Introduction- Our students were asked a few months ago what topics they may be interested in discussing, and worship and music were both topics that were listed.  While traveling for Christmas, my husband and I discussed what direction we could take the topic of worship in that didn't only pertain to music.  Our students are overall very talented musically and obviously already make music an important part of their lives, so we wanted to present worship to them in a new way that could help them to view their lives differently and realize that there is more than one way that we can worship God. Our goals throughout this four week study are to encourage our students to worship God in as many aspects of their life as possible and help them to know and believe that God loves any type of worship that they bring to Him, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to them.

The Lesson
(15-20 mins depending on conversation)

Introduce this week's lesson to your students with these questions:

What do you think of when you hear the word worship?
Do you think that there are other ways to worship?

Most people think of worship as music that we sing together on Sundays and listen to in our cars, but we know that there are other ways to honor God. The definition of the word worship is to show or express feelings of reverence or adoration for a deity/God. This definition tells us that anything that we do that honors God and brings glory to Him could be seen as worship.

Since music is the most commonly thought of form of worship, it will be our starting focus. The bible contains many songs that honor God and many verses that command us to do the same!
(Here are a few that we chose, but feel free to add more or use completely different ones as examples)

Psalm 95:1 "Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation."

Colossians 3:16 "Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts."

God specifically tells us to cry out to him! Luke 19:40 says that if we won't, the rocks will! I don't know about you, but I think a God who would be praised by even inanimate objects is definitely worthy of being praised, and He knows this and desires it! We should never be so silent that the rocks have a chance to get in a word in, though, because we have so much to praise God for!

We should choose to worship God every day because we are grateful, but worship can have positive outcomes for us, as well! I can think of a few times in the bible that people chose to worship God on their own or at His command and it definitely paid off for them, can you think of any?
(Examples may vary, our group specifically mentioned David, Joshua at the Battle of Jericho, and Judah's victory in 2 Chronicles that was led by musicians praising God)

I think one great example of this is Paul and Silas in the prison. Paul upset the wrong person and he and Silas found themselves in a pretty terrible situation.

Acts 16:22-24  ^"The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks."

So, Paul and Silas find themselves in pain, uncomfortable, probably in the dark, and in what we can assume were pretty nasty conditions.  It would have been pretty easy to complain to God, but instead they chose to honor Him with worship, even in their despair.

Acts 16: 25-26 "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose."

The jailer sees what has happened and almost ends himself before Paul stops him.  Even though every prisoner had been physically freed, they all stayed put, much to the amazement of the jailer.  Paul and Silas go on to minister to the jailer and his household and were ultimately freed.
 (The entire story is in Acts 16, we've discussed this a few times for different reasons over the past months so I only included an excerpt and summary in our lesson.)

Worshipping may not break every shackle (physical, mental, emotional) in your life, but singing songs of thanksgiving is a good way to make you forget about your problems and focus instead on all of the amazing things God has done.  It's hard to stay negative and complain when you're focusing on how amazing God is and how grateful you are for the blessings He has placed in your life.

This week, our challenge is to try to worship with music or by crying out the best that you know how. All God expects from us is a joyful noise, so you don't have to be the most amazing singer around to make Him happy, He just wants to hear from you that you love and appreciate Him, and He honestly deserves to hear it.

Welcome to Our Blog!

I've created this blog as a space to share insights and student lessons for new and existing student ministry programs. My husband and I co-lead our student ministry with another couple and our ministry program is now entering its eighth month of existence.  My husband and I are both ministers' kids, with my father-in-law being a lead pastor and my dad being a music, youth, and children's minister, and grew up very active in our home churches. We have fallen absolutely in love with youth ministry and we are extremely grateful to have been given the opportunity to launch the student ministry at our church.

Our church is small, but growing, and our hope is to infuse our student ministry program with a love of God that can carry each of our students comfortably and confidently into adulthood.  Reality Shift Student Ministry launched in the summer of 2019 with an average attendance of 5 students, and while this number has only grown by ONE in seven months, every student counts! Our prayer and expectation for our ministry in 2020 (and the years ahead) is that it will grow in strength, faith, and numbers. As you use and view the content of our blog we ask that you join us in this prayer and comment with your ministry name below so that we may pray in agreement for your student ministry, as well. 

My goal for this blog is to post at least once a week, most likely on Thursdays following our Wednesday night meetings. These posts will include lessons and lesson series written by myself or my husband and updates on our student ministry program. We look forward to sharing this content with other student ministry programs and hope that you enjoy it!

God Bless!
Mandy