Transcript
XP3 Middle School Students Collide Session 1: Impact Bottom Line: When two things collide, at least one of them is not going to remain the same. Not many people would place themselves in the path of a moving object. Well, not most sane people. But if you understand the principle of collision, then you put yourself out there. You think about what you need to do, who you need to intersect with to make change happen. With whom or with what do you need to collide? Because if you never collide, you’ll never change. CREATING THE ENVIRONMENT We believe that the set, stage, music and everything in your room communicates a message—without you saying a word. That’s why we put together a list of production ideas to help you set the stage for the session and the series. From the music you play when students come in to the room to the worship set your band plays, we want to make sure that your room conveys “Collide” in a multi-sensory way. There is a downloadable checklist available in your series downloads that will give you all the elements for this session (and the entire series). BACKGROUND PLAYLIST FOR THE “COLLIDE” SERIES: “A Beautiful Collision” by David Crowder Band (from A Collision (or 3+4=7)) “Lucky One” by Vertical Horizon (from Burning The Days) “Hello Seattle” by Owl City (from Ocean Eyes) “Closer to Love” by Mat Kearney (from City of Black & White) “Before We Come Undone” by Kris Allen (from Kris Allen) “Waiting for the End” by Linkin Park (from A Thousand Suns) “My Own Little World” by Matthew West (from The Story of Your Life) “The Sound of Sunshine” by Michael Frenti & Spearhead (from The Sound of Sunshine) “Halfway Gone” by Lifehouse (from Smoke & Mirrors) “Crashing Down” by Mat Kearney (from Nothing Left to Lose) “How In The World” by Family Force 5 (from Dance or Die) WORSHIP PLAYLIST FOR “COLLIDE” SESSION 1: “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan (from The Medicine) “Came to My Rescue” by Hillsong Live (from The Very Best of Hillsong Live) “Healer” by Hillsong (from This Is Our God, Live) “Surely We Can Change” by David Crowder Band (from Remedy) “God Of Second Chances” by Carlos Whittaker (from Ragamuffin Soul) THE SET: If possible, go to a local junkyard or auto body shop and ask to borrow some bumpers, dented doors, smashed headlights, etc. Place the items on both sides of the stage and if you are able, position the car as if it’s coming out from a wall behind you. And if you don’t have access to the smashed car pieces but you have some amazing artists around, then you may want to consider creating those pieces out of foam. For a backdrop, use a white piece of foam board or a white sheet and draw an outline of a person in the middle of the sheet, to appear as if someone ran into the wall. SERIES ART: Art for PowerPoint backgrounds and for series promotional ads is available as a free download with every series. Visit the XP3 website, log on to your account and download the images to use in your presentation, newsletters and website.
VIDEO: There are four videos available for the Collide series—three video communicator videos and one bumper video. The three video communicator videos can be used in each session of this three-week series in place of a live communicator. The bumper video was created to be used as an intro for all three sessions of the Collide series.
Collide Session 1: Impact
MIDDLE SCHOOL ADAPTATION The following activities and illustrations will help middle school students connect with the subject matter in ways that engage them physically, mentally, socially and sometimes emotionally. You can also adapt the Collide series for middle school students by using the teaching outline found in this document to edit the teaching script to a 20-minute presentation. In addition, by using the separate middle school small group dialog questions (found in the series downloads) that are geared specifically for 6th-8th graders, you can make each section more middle school friendly. SESSION 1 GAME: BOTTOM’S UP (Play this game as an icebreaker to Session 1.) To play this game, you’ll need a table, at least four aluminum cans and a yo-yo. Set up the game by placing the empty cans around the edge of a table. Select one person to play the game, and tie the yo-yo to the player’s belt or belt loop on the back of the waist. When the timer starts, the player will have 60 seconds to knock down all the cans. But here’s the catch—that player can only use the yo-yo to knock down the cans—and he or she can not use hands, arms, feet or legs to guide the string or yo-yo. Instead, the player will need to use his or her body to move the yo-yo (swing hips, think hula-hoop motions). Source: Minute to Win It
SESSION 1 ILLUSTRATION: OUCH! (Use this illustration during the first part of teaching point “C” in the INTRODUCTION section of the teaching script.) To help illustrate the concept of collision, remind students how sometimes collisions are painful. And there’s no better way to do that than to lean into the folks at America’s Funniest Home Videos. Go to the show’s main website (http://abc.go.com/shows/americas-funniest-home-videos), and show some of the clips found in the “Videos” section. Make sure they are collision clips with people running into doors, trees, etc. Or you could make your own video showing various things colliding. You may also want to follow up a story about a collision of your own. Maybe it’s a car crash or a time when you ran into a sliding glass door. Do this before you dive into the latter part of teaching point “C” that begins to talk about the good aspects of colliding.
Collide Session 1: Impact
TEACHING SCRIPT The teaching script is divided into five sections. INTRODUCTION: The introduction is intended to connect you, the communicator, to the audience, usually through a personal story or observation. We’ve included our stories, but you may want to substitute your own story in this section. TENSION: The tension moves the message from the “me” mentality of the introduction to a “we” mentality. For example, a transition statement might be, “At some point in our lives, we have all been jealous of someone over something.” TRUTH: Once the tension builds, the next logical step is to uncover the truth of what the Bible says about the topic. APPLICATION: At this point, the message moves to a “you” mentality in order to teach the application. The “you” is the student. Take God’s truth and unpack how it relates to each student so that he or she can apply it to everyday life. LANDING: Here it is important to land the message on what each student needs to know and do with what they’ve heard. Just as the message began with a personal story or observation, the message also ends with a “me” mentality. For example, one possible landing statement might be, “I have a greater sense of purpose knowing that God created me in His image.” Leave the students with a clear sense of what all of you should do with what you’ve heard. Unless otherwise noted, the landing will always set up the small group dialog and give students an opportunity to process and internalize what they’ve heard.
Collide Session 1: Impact Bottom Line: When two things collide, at least one of them is not going to remain the same.
TEACHING OUTLINE INTRODUCTION Collide. When I say the word, most of us don’t have good thoughts. But collision can be a good thing. Collision = change Principle of collision: When two things collide, at least one of those objects isn’t going to remain the same. TENSION What we collide with determines the change that is possible in our lives. Every day God gives us the opportunity to collide with something. What would happen if we said “yes”? TRUTH Every time someone collides with Jesus, they always leave changed.
Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. "Who touched me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me." Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace" (Luke 8:40-48 NIV). She knew her condition wouldn’t change unless she collided with Jesus. APPLICATION This woman put herself in the position to collide with Jesus. Change only happens when we put ourselves in a position to be changed. Put yourself in circumstances where you have the opportunity to be changed. Be intentional about colliding. What’s holding you back? Does what you want to change outweigh your fear?
If we don’t collide, we don’t change. Nothing will.
LANDING We need a collision to get where we want to go. We weren’t meant to be the same forever. We need to collide.
XP3 Students Collide: Middle School Small Group Dialog [FOR STUDENT PASTORS] Remember to email your leaders every week with the small group questions attached. This will allow your leaders to review the material before they sit down to lead discussion. Use the email to encourage your leaders and celebrate their successes. Encourage them in their key role of leading students to truth. The XP for the Collide series involves each small group leader taking their students on a road trip to visit another church. See the XP document for more details. There are devotionals available in your series downloads that correspond to each of the three sessions of this series. Use these devotionals to continue the discussion from the small group dialogs. You can either post the devotionals to your group’s website and have small group leaders direct students to the site, or you can give the devotionals to your small group leaders and have them email the devotionals directly to their students as a way of connecting with each student during the week. To give your leaders an idea of what we will be discussing over the next three weeks, copy and paste the following description into your email to help convey the main goal of this series.
Email for Small Group Leaders Collide Series Overview Ask anyone who’s ever run into a sliding glass door that was closed, or went for the same baseball as a teammate, or experienced a fender bender at a stoplight—a collision changes things. Whether it’s a bump on the head or a cracked bumper, something is not the same as it was before. The same thing happens when we collide with God or His truth or even other people. We’re changed. But unless we put ourselves in a position to collide, everything will stay the same. So are you ready to change, are you ready to collide? Session One: Impact (MAY 6) Not many people would place themselves in the path of a moving object. Well, not most sane people. But if you understand the principle of collision, then you put yourself out there. You think about what you need to do, who you need to intersect with to make change happen. With whom or with what do you need to collide? Because if you never collide, you’ll never change. Session Two: Blindsided (MAY 13) Have you ever met someone who was such a great example of Christ, but that person wasn’t a Christian? It sort of messes with your head, doesn’t it? After all, Christians don’t have a monopoly on caring for people. Not all things that are God’s truth exist exclusively with Christians or in the walls of the church. And if we realize that we can collide with truth in places other than the expected, God can use those collisions to show us new things about Himself and even change us. Session Three: Totaled (MAY 20) Are you a safety boy/girl? Do you like the predictable? Do you like to know the outcome before you dive into something? Do you like to keep things the way they are—predictable? Isn’t that, well, a little boring? Maybe you need to collide with God. Maybe you need to place yourself in His path so that something in your life will change. It’s a collision that will leave you different than the status quo—and that’s a very good thing.
XP3 Students COLLIDE SESSION 1: Impact Middle School Small Group Dialog Bottom Line: When two things collide, at least one of them is not going to remain the same. Scripture References: Luke 8:40-48 Real change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing. That’s what brings us to the point of desperation. The point when we’re ready to collide. We want our lives to be different than they are now. We want our relationships to work differently. We want something to change. It’s what drove the woman in today’s Bible story to put herself in the path of Jesus, to collide with Him. She was determined that things were going to change, that things were going to be different. And for some of your students, they are desperate for something more, something different than where they are. Use today’s discussion to help them see what they need to do to be intentional about colliding, and what it will take to get them there. Create meaningful conversation. Adjust questions as needed, and don’t feel like you need to answer all of them.
1. Do you have a “collision” story? (Start with physical examples to get the group talking.) 2. Do you think collide is a positive or negative word? Why? 3. Is it true that collision brings change? What examples have you seen in your life or other people’s lives? 4. What are some changes people usually like? What are some changes people do not like? 5. Give examples from the Bible of people who “collided” with Jesus and experienced change. 6. In a large group, we talked about a woman who was healed. Describe her situation. What do you think she had to overcome or risk to get to where Jesus was? 7. Why would she take that risk? It’s been said that change happens when the cost of NOT changing is greater than the cost of changing. Could her life have changed if she had not taken the risk? 8. What are some changes that you might need to make? What “collisions” could help with those changes? 9. Why might keep you from making those changes?
10. What is one thing you could do this week to be more intentional about colliding for change? NEXT STEP: There are devotionals available that correspond to each of the three sessions of this series. Use these devotionals to continue the discussion from the small group dialogs. If your leader has posted the devotionals to your youth group’s website, direct your students to the site this week. Or you can get the devotionals and email them directly to your students as a way of connecting with each student during the week.
