LIFELONG FAITH
Week 1: Growing Closer to God
This includes:
1. Leader Preparation
2. Lesson Guide
1. LEADER PREPARATION
LESSON OVERVIEW
To grow spiritually, Christians need to develop personal habits to connect with God. We
need other Christians, but we also must learn how to feed ourselves spiritually. When your
students graduate from your youth ministry, will they have the desire to go deeper in the
Word and commit to studying the Bible on their own? We start this series by focusing on
three parts of the HABITS acronym—hanging out with God, Bible memorization, and
studying Scripture.
LESSON OBJECTIVES
1. WHAT: A Christian’s journey with God is a lifelong process.
2. WHY: God will do amazing things in our lives when we make the time to connect with
him.
3. HOW: Help students examine and develop some basic habits that will help them
grow in their relationship with God.
PRIMARY SCRIPTURE
Hebrews 5:11-14
SECONDARY SCRIPTURES
Psalm 119:11 and 2 Timothy 3:14-17
TEACHING PREP
The short overview below is designed to help you prepare for your lesson. While you may
not want to convey this information word-for-word with your teenagers, you’ll definitely
want to refer to it as you lead your small group lesson.
As Christians, we are responsible for our own spiritual growth—God works in us, and we
work alongside his Spirit. God wants us to grow spiritually just like we were designed to
grow physically. No one remains a baby forever! Spiritual growth isn’t automatic; we must
choose to grow. God loved us first, and we get to love him back.
There are lots of ways to grow closer to God. In this lesson, we’d like to focus on three:
spending time with God, studying his Word, and memorizing Scripture.
Read Hebrews 5:11-14.
The writer of Hebrews says that if you’ve been a Christian for a while, you ought to be
mature enough to do more than just learn the basics of the faith—you ought to be teaching
others. The writer also said that when you grow spiritually, you learn how to distinguish
right from wrong.
THE BEFORE & AFTER [optional]
Text Message Questions
We’ve provided a couple of different text message questions to send out to your students
prior to your meeting. Feel free to use one or both of the questions below. As with the rest
of the curriculum, edit these questions to fit the needs of your ministry.
How are you growing in your faith on your own? Text me back two things you like to
do to grow. Hope to see you at small group tonight.
Are you investing in your spiritual health? Don’t miss tonight’s small group.
Parent Email
We’ve provided you with an email below that you can send to your parents following the
lesson. Our hope is to encourage parents to continue the conversation at home. Feel free to
edit and customize the email to fit your ministry needs.
Dear parents,
This week, our small groups launched a new series focused on practical steps for spiritual
growth. We call them HABITS, an acronym that stands for: hang out with God, accountable
friendships, Bible memorization, involvement in our local church, tithing, and studying
Scripture. Our desire is to see teenagers maintain a strong spiritual life after graduating
from high school, but we know this only happens when they take ownership of their faith.
In our groups, we looked at Hebrews 5:11-14 and our young people discussed what it
means to mature as a Christian. They examined three of the six HABITS: hanging out with
God through regular devotional time, studying Scripture, and memorizing the Bible.
I’d encourage you to take some time this week to talk with your teenager about the process
of growing spiritually. Here are some questions you could use during your conversation:
How has your life been shaped and affected by spending time with God, reading
Scripture, and memorizing the Bible?
This may seem like an odd question, but as a Christian, what legacy are you leaving
from your high school years?
What are some things that pull you away from spending time with God?
I’m praying for you and your family!
LIFELONG FAITH
Week 1: Growing Closer to God
2. LESSON GUIDE
GETTING THINGS STARTED [optional]
Bring a backpack filled with basic camping gear to your small group. This object lesson
could work even if you don’t know anything about camping—actually, it could be funnier as
you make fun of your inability to survive without a hotel and Starbucks.
As you begin your small group, welcome your students and invite them into your meeting
area. Open in prayer. Dump out the pack’s contents and pass around the gear so kids can
look at each item. Ask them what’s missing from your gear, and why they’d include those
things. Ask them if you packed something they’d choose to leave behind, and why. Then
SAY SOMETHING LIKE:
Each item I’m carrying in this backpack has a specific purpose. [Pull each item out.] If I
were to go camping, I’d need all of this to survive the weekend.
ASK:
Imagine you were going to take a long trip: What is more your style, to plan out a
list of everything you need or throw everything into a bag at the last minute?
Have you ever gone on a trip but realized you left something essential at home? How
did that oversight affect your experience?
What are some ways this backpack and its contents might be similar to the process
of preparing for our spiritual adventures?
SAY SOMETHING LIKE:
You’ll probably live a long time—you may have 60 or 70 more years on this planet. That’s a
long time to walk with God. One of my goals for your life is that you’d learn how to connect
with God, on your own, so that you can keep on growing closer to him. The HABITS in this
series are all designed to help you grow spiritually on your own and take greater ownership
of your faith. Our focus this week is on spending time with God and studying and
memorizing the Bible.
If you came up with an opening activity, movie clip, or game that worked well with your
group, and you’d like to share it with other youth workers, please email us at
[email protected].
TEACHING POINTS
The goal of the Teaching Points is to help students capture the essence of each lesson with
more discussion and less lecture-style teaching. The main points we have chosen here are
(1) Examine your tools, (2) Examine your journey, and (3) Examine your legacy.
Remember: All throughout these lessons, it’s up to you to choose (1) how many questions
you use, and (2) the wording of the main points—keep ours, or change the wording to make
it clearer for your audience.
Read Hebrews 5:11-14 together as a group. Consider allowing one or more of the teenagers
to read the text.
SAY SOMETHING LIKE: Let’s do a little examination to find out what we can pack and how
we can prepare for this lifelong journey with God.
1. Examine your journey
SAY SOMETHING LIKE: Look at your journey since you first decided to follow Christ. When
you made that decision, you started the process of becoming like Christ. Like any journey,
to reach a destination you have to be moving forward. If you aren’t moving, then you will
never get anywhere. The same thing is true with your spiritual journey.
ASK:
Think back to when you first decided to follow Jesus. How has your life changed since
that day?
Tell us about your spiritual journey. This passage from Hebrews 5 talks about new
Christians being “like babies who need milk.” What words or phrases would you use
to describe where you are right now?
As you think about your spiritual journey, what people have had the greatest
influence on you along the way, and why did they have such an impact?
What are some of the things you’ve done to further your spiritual journey? Be
specific.
2. Examine your tools
ASK:
This passage talks about mature Christians “who through training have the skill to
recognize the difference between right and wrong.” How can you train yourself to
grow spiritually?
Hebrews 5:11 talks about people who are “spiritually dull.” What does this mean,
and how can you avoid that condition?
What’s the difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible? How does
each activity help you grow spiritually?
How has your life been shaped and affected by spending time with God, reading
Scripture, and memorizing the Bible?
SAY SOMETHING LIKE: God gives us some incredible tools to help us grow spiritually,
especially the Bible. It’s a book that reveals God’s love for you and reminds you how he has
cared for people for generations.
3. Examine your legacy
ASK:
According to Hebrews 5:12, if you’ve been a Christ-follower for a while, it’s important
to be teaching others—investing in the legacy of other Christians. How might that
responsibility help with your own spiritual growth? Let’s say you don’t see yourself as
a teacher—how can you live out the message of Hebrews 5:12 anyway?
This may seem like an odd question, but as a Christian, what legacy are you leaving
from your high school years?
What are some specific ways you’ve made a difference in the lives of your friends?
What have you taught your friends about having a relationship with God?
SAY SOMETHING LIKE: Everyone leaves a legacy of some kind. Some legacies are good,
some are bad, and others are average. When you started your spiritual journey, people
helped and guided you along the way. The challenge is for you to do the same thing in the
lives of people around you. You don’t have to wait until you’re older.
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION [optional]
ASK:
Spiritually speaking, what is milk and what is meat? How does a Christian progress
from spiritual milk to spiritual meat?
Read 2 Timothy 3:14-17. Paul wrote this letter to Timothy—a young leader and a
committed Christian. What inspiration might you as a teenager find from these
words?
What do these verses tell you about the value of studying Scripture?
Look at verse 17. How do studying Scripture and memorizing Bible verses prepare
and equip you to do good works?
Read Psalm 119:11. How can Bible memorization help keep you from sinning against
God?
APPLICATION
ASK:
What obstacles currently or frequently hinder your spiritual growth, and how can you
remove them?
How do you see yourself making a difference for God 10 years from now? What will it
take to reach that target?
What new challenges might you face after high school, and how can you prepare
yourself for these challenges?
Pair up with another person in the group for these questions.
ASK:
How might being a teenager affect the impact and influence you have on other
people? How might your age be an asset?
Why do some teenagers move into a deeper, stronger relationship with God that
affects the rest of their life while others don’t?
Everyone has a busy schedule—so what’s one suggestion for finding a way to include
daily Bible study in your life?
Bring everyone back together to share answers from the previous questions.
SUMMARY
End your small group lesson here. Provide your teenagers with a quick summary or takehome challenge based on (1) the content of this lesson, (2) the dialogue that took place
during the lesson, (3) your understanding of the issues and struggles your teenagers are
facing, and (4) the big picture of your youth ministry and what your leadership team wants
accomplished with the teaching and discussion time.
FOR KEEPS [MEMORY VERSE]
Encourage and/or challenge your teenagers to memorize the verse below.
Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the
difference between right and wrong (Hebrews 5:14).