FOLLOWUP | September 4, Sunday AM

Grades 9-12 // In the Beginning, God Created Relationships
We’ve begun a new series focusing on the theme “Friends and Family.” For the next three weeks, students will study different passages of Scripture to discover the powerful, life-giving exchange that happens in relationship with God and with people he’s given to us to share life with.
In this first lesson, we looked at Genesis 2:4-25 and Genesis 3:1-11, where God is in relationship with Adam and Eve. Through his perfect love, God gave the first couple everything they needed. Even when they disobeyed his command not to eat the fruit of one tree, God pursued them and brought them out of hiding. God desires to engage in authentic relationship with us, as well, and he wants to be at the center of our relationships with others. God’s perfect love provides all we need, and together we can trust him.

This week, I encourage you to spend a few minutes talking with your teenager about our lesson. Consider building your conversation around these questions:

• What might it have been like to live in a garden that God created for you, with everything you needed to enjoy life with God?
• How can trust and honesty build relationships? How can a lack of trust and honesty destroy relationships?
• When have you relied on a person so much that you began placing your trust in him or her instead of in God? How did you begin trusting in God again?
  

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Grades 6-8 // How Things All Got Started​

We’ve launched a new series focused on the book of Genesis. Starting at the beginning of the Bible allows us to see how God intended things to be, what went wrong, and how God launched a plan to make things right.
This first lesson focused on Genesis 1, where we immediately encounter God’s creative nature and see that at the start, God’s creation was good. And while Jesus isn’t mentioned by name, we know from such passages as John 1 that he was there from the beginning and desires to restore us to the relationship that God created us to have with him.
This week, I encourage you to spend a few minutes talking with your teenager about our lesson. Consider building your conversation around these questions:

• How do beautiful things in nature point you to God’s creativity?
• Why is it significant that Genesis says humans were created differently from other creatures?
• All people were created in God’s image—how does that truth affect the way you treat other people?

Thank you for all your prayers for our students and our ministry. Have an amazing week!!!