Upended

What We Want Students to Learn: Students will learn that when they begin to see as God sees, they will do what God says; it's a paradox of perspective.

Main Scripture: Romans 12:1-2

Session Snapshot: In this first session, your students will be introduced to the overall theme of the Upended study, the idea of how God upends our expectations. You're going to save the most complete fleshing out of this concept for Small Group Session 1. In this first large group session, you'll begin to present this concept of Biblical paradoxes found in Scripture but will focus more on students beginning to see things from God’s perspective.

What We Want Students to Learn: Students will learn that the desire of God’s heart is for His people to hunger and thirst to be filled with His righteousness.

Main Scripture: Luke 18:18-30, Ephesians 4:17-24, Matthew 5:6, Galatians 5:22-23, James 1:22

Session Snapshot: God’s desire is for us to hunger and thirst to be filled with His righteousness. Jesus promises to fill that hunger and thirst (Matthew 5:6). However, many of us have already stuffed ourselves full of so many things that there is little hunger left or room to be filled. This session will look at the Biblical paradox of full is empty and how your students can empty themselves and in doing so create a hunger and thirst that can only be filled by Jesus.

What We Want Students to Learn: Students will learn that true life comes only through Jesus Christ and that for us to be fully alive in Christ, we must put to death our old self.

Main Scripture: John 14:6, Galatians 2:20 

Supporting Scripture: John 10:10, Luke 9:23, John 14:16-17, Ephesians 4:22-24

Session Snapshot: There is a battle that's raging right now in the hearts and minds of many of your students. On this battlefield, the rules of engagement are often difficult to navigate. The stakes couldn't be any higher. Tripwires and snares are all around. This isn't a conventional war that can be won with greater strength or a better strategy. In fact, the key to victory on this battlefield is an act of daily surrender. Who are these warring factions causing so much chaos and causality? They are the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of self. In this session, we will look these two rival kingdoms that are locked in a power struggle as old as the fall of man, and wage into the battle of the Biblical paradox that real life requires death of the old self.

What We Want Students to Learn: Students will learn that experiencing the most incredible life possible in Christ and the greatest blessings of God as His children comes from living a lifestyle of humility and servanthood out of a love for meeting the needs of others.

Main Scripture: John 13:1-17, Matthew 20:25-28

Supporting Scripture: Luke 22:24, Colossians 3:12, James 4:6, Proverbs 11:2, Luke 9:23-25, James 4:10

Session Snapshot: This session will challenge your students’ view of serving by looking into the Biblical paradox of greatest is least. Most of us see servanthood as a burden or something we “have to” do or are “ordered to do,” but the part we often miss is that the best, most rewarding, most challenging, most life to the full we can imagine comes from a life in service to Jesus. Through Christ, we are not burdened to serve but are instead free to serve.