MONTH OF JULY

For the month of July we are taking things out doors.  We are excited to spend time in the sun building community.  Our focus will be building friendships within our students that will last over this next year.  We want to create an environment that our students feel comfortable bringing their friends to join.  So invite your friends and neighbors!

We will be playing out door wide games. If it's raining we will spend time in the gym instead.  We will have some games that are messy and a game or two that may cause your son or daughter to come home wet.

We are asking 56ers to bring a change of clothes every week for the month of July.

MONTH OF JUNE

We have started Bible Reading Journals with our students.  We want to journey through the Book of Matthew and take time to hear what God is speaking into the lives of our Grade 5 and 6 students!

 In the back of each journal is a reading plan. Students are encouraged to read 4 times a week at home, and we come together on Sundays and read one section together.  We would love to invite all the parents to engage with us and do this reading together.

 In class on Sunday we take about 10 minutes to read the section, 10 minutes to write down what verse stood out (or what God was putting on our hearts as we read), and what thoughts came to mind. Some of our students will draw a picture that symbolizes the story or simply of what what happening.

After this is done we take 10 minutes or so to talk in our small groups about what God was speaking to us about.  We encourage the students to share their ideas. At the end we wrap up in prayer to thank God for speaking to us, and to ask for his help as we apply what we learned to our lives.

Students are asked to bring back their journal every week, along with their bibles.

Session Three: Big Team (May 6, 2012)

Who has had the most influence in your life? Your mom? Your dad? A coach? A camp counselor? There are all kinds of people that play a part in our lives, in our stories. And some of these people have played a part in how you see God. In fact, God has used some of those relationships to grow your faith. We call these relationships providential because they are about having the right people in your life at just the right time.

Session Three Parent Cue: Who are the people in your life who have had a direct impact on your relationship with God? In what way did these people influence, guide or encourage you?

Session Two: Big Life (April 22, 2012)

You can know a lot. Maybe you know the stats of every football
player in the NFL. Maybe you know the cheat codes to hundreds of games. Maybe
you know every Scripture in the New Testament. But unless you do something with
what you know, then what you know isn’t enough. Especially when it comes to our
faith. God’s truth was meant to be put into action. It was meant to affect our
lives, our relationships. And when we begin to live out the truths we know,
something happens to us our faith. It begins to grow.

Session Two Parent Cue:
What is one truth that you know from the Bible that you can commit to live out
this week? Follow up with each other to see how that’s going.

GROW UP: Series Overview

Do your students ever wish they could just grow up? Maybe they yearn for the day they will get their driver’s licenses. Or graduate from high school. Or go away to college. They don’t really want to be kids anymore. They want to be seen as adults. They want to feel like they’ve moved on, grown up. We all know how that happens physically, but what about spiritually? How do we know we’re growing in your faith? How do we know that you’re moving forward in that area of our lives? The good news is that God is just as passionate about growing our faith as we are. And there are five ways He will use to do that—some involving things that we probably already know, and other ways that we may have never thought about before.

Session One: Big Faith (April 15, 2012)
Your faith in God matters to God. In fact, God is most honored through your living, active, death-defying, out-of-the-box faith. That being the case, He’s committed to growing it. Big. Imagine how differently you would respond to difficulties, temptations, and even good things if you knew with certainty that God was in all of it and was planning to leverage it for good. But in order for all of that to happen, there’s one thing it all hinges on—your trust.

Session One Parent Cue: What area of your life are you most reluctant to trust God? Why?

Session Two (April 8, 2012)

If the cross is where we come to die, then how do we live? Because the cross is not the end of the story. There is also an empty tomb. The cross isn’t just about death, it’s about life. We die to something, but we also live as well. After all, Jesus says: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10 NIV). This week, we’ll talk about not settling for a half-life, but a life that is full.
Session Two Parent Cue: What does it mean to live life to the full? How does that compare to my life?

The Cross

Series Overview
People wear a cross on necklaces, sport one on bumper stickers and even slap one across T-shirts, but what does the cross really stand for? What does it really mean? Over the next two weeks, we will take a look at the cross in a different way, a way that moves beyond gratitude and nostalgia to a way of life. The cross teaches us that we live so we can die, and we die so we can live.

Session One (March 25, 2012)
Most of us think of the cross as the place where Jesus died for us. That is true. But it’s also about more than that. The cross isn’t just the place where Jesus died. The cross is the place where we die too. It’s not just an event that happened thousands of years ago. It’s an ongoing part of being a follower of Jesus. This week students will discover the ongoing, sacrificial life Jesus called His disciples to lead—a life characterized by the cross.

Session One Parent Cue: What are some ways that I am challenged to sacrifice myself in everyday life?

Session 3: Switch (March 18, 2012)

“Who do you say I am?” This is the question Jesus asked His disciples centuries ago, and it is the same one He asks us today. When we answer Him, when we decide to trade what we know for what we don’t and to trade judgment for love, we are making a decision to also trade in our old lives for new ones. We are trading our “talk” for our “do.” We are choosing to put our faith into action. This may mean something different for each of us. But when we answer Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?” we are making a statement with our mouths and with our lives. We are accepting His offer to trade in something good for something better.

Session 3 Parent Cue: Who is Jesus to you—what does He mean to your life? Would you be willing to trade something you think is best for something Jesus says is better? If so, what is it? What would you need to overcome to do that?

Session 2: Swap (March 11, 2012)

“That group of people is too weird. I don’t hang out with those types of people—or they don’t hang out with me.” Most of us have said or thought things like this before—or heard them said about us. We categorize people based on superficial things, and then we judge them, write them off. But when we do, we miss out on something beautiful. We miss out on the opportunity to live out the message Jesus came to proclaim. We give up the chance to trade judgment for love. And that’s not just about following a set of standards or rules. It’s about understanding that every person, including you, is valuable and worthy and has something to offer.
Session 2 Parent Cue: How do you see groups in your world including some and excluding others? How can you reach out to those who are excluded to show them that they are loved by Jesus just as much as anyone else?

The Beautiful Trade - March 2012

Series Overview
The book of Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels, but it’s packed with one central message—that Jesus wants us to trade up. He wants us to trade what we know, what we think and how we see others for something better. It’s a beautiful trade, because not only do we exchange something for something different, we exchange our lives and our perspectives for something better. It’s a message that’s at the heart of the Easter story, but it’s shown through Jesus’ interactions long before the crucifixion and resurrection.

Session 1: Exchange (March 4, 2012)
Have you ever had to do research for a class paper? Sometimes you start out with your topic thinking that you know exactly what you are going to write about. But then, after you start reading some books and digging into the research, you realize that you actually know very little about the topic and have to start from scratch and just learn. You have to trade what you think you know for what you don’t. And it’s the same when it comes to following Jesus. Sometimes we have to trade what we think we know—about Jesus, about what is best for us, about what we think about others—in order to fully participate with God in what we don’t know.
Session 1 Parent Cue: How is it easier for you to make Jesus an addition to your life rather than to trust Him in every area of your life?

Session Three: An Upside Down World (February 26, 2012)

It’s easy to think that God’s kingdom is just about Him and us. It’s easy to forget that we are part of something bigger, something more vast that just our relationship with Him. We are part of His kingdom both some day, and now. We are a part of His mission to restore things that are broken, whether that’s in our own lives or in the lives of those around us, or those half way around the world. And when we live with a future kingdom in mind we can start to make it a more present reality.
Session Three Parent Cue: What are some things that are “broken” around us? How can we be a part of God’s restoration with those things?

Session Two: Inverted Reality (February 19, 2012)

Last will be first. Give to receive. Lose to gain. People who mourn are blessed. All statements Jesus made, yet they seem so opposite from how our world functions and even how we are wired, don’t they? But the kingdom of God is upside down compared to the kingdoms we seek to establish. The life Christ calls us to counters every natural and selfish inclination we have, but His way, His kingdom, is far better than anything we could have in mind. And when we surrender to God’s kingdom, we begin to live this upside down life that somehow brings more fulfillment, more peace, more satisfaction than the reality we live in every day.
Session Two Parent Cue: How is God’s kingdom the opposite of how the world operates?

UPSIDE DOWN

Series Overview
In the Upside Down series, we are going to look at something Jesus talked a lot about—the kingdom of God. Many of the people who heard His message firsthand thought that He was talking about a kingdom where Jesus would be in political power, and that their lives would be easier than their present circumstances under Roman rule. But Jesus was talking about something bigger than that—a kingdom where His desire for broken things to be restored is met. Jesus was talking about ushering in an upside down kingdom

Session One: Collision (February 12, 2012)
When we’re talking about our lives, most of us wouldn’t think in terms of “kingdoms.” But the reality is that each one of us has one. We have some area of our lives where we rule and reign. A kingdom may be as vast as a school, team or group. Or it may be as small as your bedroom or your cell phone. There’s a place in your life where you are in complete control and really don’t care what anyone else thinks or wants. The problem is, when we live with only our kingdom in mind we often end up doing a lot more damage than good. But in Christ’s kingdom, His desire is for restoration and as difficult as it can sometimes be to allow His kingdom to reign, there is only room for one kingdom and one king.
Session One Parent Cue: What are some of the characteristics of my kingdom? How do I try to control it?

Session Two: The Checklist (February 5, 2012)

What does a Christian look like? Stop for a minute and think about that, because aside from the basic belief that Jesus was the Son of God, He died for our sins and rose from the dead, there are some things that most of us would add to that. Maybe our response would be someone who reads the Bible or helps people in need. Maybe it’s someone who prays every day and attends church regularly. Maybe it’s someone who has memorized a bunch of Bible verses and knows a lot about the Bible. But we also have some responses we probably wouldn’t feel very comfortable saying aloud—things like the kind of music someone listens to, what someone wears or what someone says. So what does a Christian look like? The answer is probably a lot more simple than we make it out to be.
Session Two Parent Cue: What does a Christian look like to you? Do you think you have overcomplicated the picture? Why or why not?

56ers Serve!

On Sunday, January 29 our 56ers will be serving throughout the church.

Dear Galations Week 1

Series Overview
We all like to receive letters. These days they come primarily in an e-mail but in Biblical times, letters were handwritten. The apostle Paul wrote a lot of letters, many of which are included in the Bible. His letters were intended to help the early church sort out what it meant to really follow Jesus. But the Galatians may not have been too excited to get Paul’s letter to them because Paul was mad. The Galatian church was a mess. People were saying that what Jesus did on the cross wasn’t enough. They were looking around them and determining who was in with God, and who was out. So Paul set out to bring some clarity to the situation in the passionate, sound way that only He could. And while this may seem like a great look back in history, we probably have more in common with the Galatians than we would care to admit.

Session One: Jesus + (January 22, 2012)
If Paul was around today, he would be emailing and tweeting all the time—and for good reason, people needed his help. God had placed Paul in a strategic point during the early church to help bring some clarity to the chaos. And there was chaos . . . a lot of chaos. People were trying to add to the gospel, saying Jesus’ death and resurrection weren’t enough. That it needed a few extra things to help someone “be a Christian” and be “in” with God. That got Paul fired up, and he set out to clear things up. And thousands of years later, Paul’s words are a great reminder for us because it’s easy to think and act as if what Jesus did wasn’t enough.
Session One Parent Cue: What are some ways that you add to the gospel—things you feel like you have to do to make God love you more or accept you?