What's Happenin' @ Forward Mid-Week

Below is a brief summary of what talked about tonight. Most of the time we teach through a series for several weeks at a time that way students that miss can get caught back up quickly, and so we can dissect a topic more fully than just a one night deal. Use the overview and questions for both you and your teen to answer and have a dialog that continues outside the church walls and into your homes. Use this opportunity to see what God is teaching your student and also allow your student to see what God is teaching/taught you.

Current Series:

Science is fascinating. Even if you hate science class, you have to admit that the idea of conducting experiments is cool. It’s amazing how adding just a few drops of one chemical can create a reaction, adding a few drops of another can stop or deactivate the same reaction and adding a few drips of a third chemical can make the first two glow in the dark or it can make them explode! What’s crazy is that you can’t tell by looking at something what reaction it will cause. Maybe it’s an activator. Maybe it’s a deactivator. Maybe it’s neither. The only way to know is to keep testing it out and see what happens. Believe it or not, this is something faith and science have in common. We all experience moments that have the potential to activate or deactivate our faith, and it’s hard to tell at first glance which is happening. This was especially true in the life of one of Jesus’ followers and dear friends, Peter. As we take a closer look at his ups and downs, we’ll discover how sometimes the very experiences that threaten to destroy our faith are the ones that can activate it in a whole new way.

 

This Week's Recap:

Week #2 (08.17.2016): Sink or Swim

Bottom Line: Jesus is ok with our doubt

What we talked about:

When it comes to science, it seems like you never really know what might happen. One chemical might cause a huge reaction while another might deactivate your entire experiment. When you think about it, the same thing is true of faith. There are things in our lives that have the potential to either destroy or fuel our faith. And sometimes it’s hard to tell which one is happening. Sometimes what looks like a faith-destroyer might actually be the very thing that builds our faith if we let it. Believe it or not, one of those potential faith-activators is doubt. Even Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers, dealt with major feelings of doubt. But as we’ll learn from Peter’s experience, our doubt doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, it’s when we trust God with our doubt that our faith can be activated in a whole new way.

 

This Part is For YOU Parents:

(Part 2 of 4.....the intro paragraph will be here each week, but the action item will change) 

 By Carey Nieuwhof

So, let’s just start by saying I’m not the most mechanically inclined person. But somehow that doesn’t exempt me from owning a garage filled with small engines: a snowblower, lawnmower, leaf blower, weed trimmer, and the like.
My technique for starting these machines is always the same: push the buttons and pull hard on the pull-cord. When that works, I’m off and running. When it doesn’t, I try the exact same things again. Then, I give up or call my friend John who fixes these kinds of things to tell him they’re broken.
 
More often than I’d like to admit, my friend John has come over only to tell me that my lawn mower wasn’t actually broken. I just needed a new approach. Sometimes I need to remember to adjust the choke, or try priming it again, or even to leave it because I flooded it. And then...like magic, it started because I tried something new. Teenagers are a bit like that.
 
When they don’t respond at age 15 to the things they responded to at age 10, we’re tempted to just try harder. But saying the same things more loudly, or trying the same tactics again and again won’t always turn things around.
 
After all, the teen years take away some of a parent’s favorite opportunities to connect, like bedtime stories and pick ups from school. So what do you do? Change your strategy.
 
If you want to get through to your teenager, here are some ways to connect that are unique to the teen years:

EAT TOGETHER
As your kids get older, it’s easier to let them fend for themselves at supper.

Don’t.

Plan family meals. And eat them together.

Even though I led a busy church throughout my kids teen years, wrote, traveled, and my wife worked, we almost always had supper together five nights a week when my kids were in high school. Why? Because we made it a priority.

Sometimes the meals were 10 minutes long (I have sons, after all...), but they were an anchor point for our family. We prayed together. We talked. And still today at 24 and 20, my kids love to get together for family meals.