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Youth version: LEADERS GUIDE
Welcome to The Way Of The Spirit. This is a bible discovery course designed to take you and your young people on a journey to help you understand the Bible, the ways of God's Holy Spirit in it, and how to enter into the richness of life that people of Bible times enjoyed. It will teach you and the people you lead how to hear God for themselves and how to apply what they learn to their own lives.
As youth leaders, we all have passion to see our young people grow and develop in their relationship with the Lord. In order to do that, we recognise that the word of God plays a vital part, as does prayer, revelation and worship. That is what this course is designed to tackle.
The course is divided into 24 weeks; most have four readings in each. Each week, the young people are asked to read scripture and answer some questions, which should open up discussions in your group sessions.
What is a group session?
Group sessions should be held each week. They provide the young people with an opportunity to get together and discuss what they have been learning throughout the week, and encourage each other with testimony. Young people will get out of the course what they put in. They are very much left to their own devices with it, which is why it is so vital that they are encouraged in the right direction by peers who are doing the same thing.
As the Spirit begins to reveal more of himself, you will notice changes in your young people, and these group sessions are a fantastic way to encourage these positive changes.
What do they look like?
Group sessions should be held each week. They are very simple and should be run with a consistent format.
The readings are set weekly, and the young people will get out of it as much as they want to (you may want to tell them to keep one reading to do together at the group session, so for example, do all of the readings except reading four). The group sessions run each week so that everyone can talk about what revelation they’ve been getting. They come together to encourage each other, challenge each other, pray for each other and hear more from God together.
The Bible was always to be read, discussed, argued about, and wrestled with. You cannot read the bible without asking questions, talking about it and asking the Lord to reveal more and more of his unconditional greatness. We need a safe place and a community where trust can be built so that we can practise listening to God, for each other and ourselves.
The sessions should be run weekly and should include:
- Pray to start (use the 5 steps)
- Key verse
- Testimony of the week
- Anything creative
- Small groups
- Feedback session
- Ø Pray to close
Let’s unpack what that looks like.
Pray to start
We want to begin to encourage our young people in a life of prayer. Some of them will have never prayed out loud before, but we want them to grow in confidence. Giving them the opportunity to pray in this setting is a fantastic boost. The five steps are:
- Praise God for who he is and all the things he has done for us
- Ask him to forgive us so that we can come before him with a clean heart
- Silence any other voices that might want to speak to us e.g. the enemy, our own voice. We only want to hear what God has to say
- Invite the Holy Spirit to come and work
- Give him some time to speak to you and then respond to it.
This works really well, for instance, by asking the young people to pick a number between one and five. Then for the person that picked number one, they pray out a prayer of thanksgiving, praising God for who he is and all the things he has done for us. The person who picked number two prays for forgiveness and so on. This becomes a familiar activity, and you may notice patterns in who chooses to pray and which number. Encourage everyone to participate.
For number five give some time to hear what the Spirit is saying, and then get one of the young people to pray to close. Then ask for feedback. Some of the young people may have had pictures, or verses, or encouragements for the group or an individual. It is really good to share these things. It helps to create a safe environment.
Key verse and testimony of the week
In the workbook, at the end of each week is a review box to help your young people apply what they have learned and prepare for the group session. It includes:
- Testimony of the week – It could include anything that God has done or spoken to you about this week
- Key verse – Any verse or chapter that stood out from the readings for you personally
- Have fun! - Enjoy God’s word and hearing from him
It is important to recognise these preparation boxes each week and ask them for verses that stand out and why. Also ask them what has happened in the week. Sharing what God is doing in their lives and the lives of their friends will encourage everyone, even you, and will bless the heart of God. This is also a good time to look at the “challenges” and “more questions” that they may have been asked to complete in their weeks readings. Sharing with each other what they’ve seen in the bible as each reads it, and then discussing what that means for them is really key to this course and we want to encourage the young people to talk about their opinions of what they’ve been reading.
Anything creative
Some young people are more musical, or arty, or creative and love to express what they are learning and what God is saying through other methods, not just words. It is really important to give space for that and encourage it. It might be uncomfortable for some of them, but it may free some of them up!
Small groups
If you remember, we asked the young people to keep a reading behind to bring to the group session (for example, do all of the readings except reading four). This is the time to do that reading. Depending on the size of your group, it is an idea to separate the young people into boys and girls, or age groups, or into random small groups (try and keep these groups consistent each week). This is so that they can all input. Some groups find that reading the chapter together as a big group and then splitting off to discuss the questions works well, others prefer to split for the whole time. Do what is best for your group. Leaders don’t need to be involved in the small groups. The first couple of sessions, you may be needed to help spark off conversation, but as the young people become more confident they won’t need your input. Leave them to it.
Feedback session
Bring all the young people back together and find out what they thought. Summarise their opinions, debates, and conclusions. Try and get everyone involved. Also in this time, have a quick look through the next week’s readings and clear up any confusion.
Pray to close
Ask one of the young people to close the session with prayer.
The role of the leader
The beauty of The Way of The Spirit is that you as a leader are not (repeat…NOT!) being asked to teach anything. You are being asked to facilitate the work that God is going to do in your young people. In order to successfully facilitate what the Holy Spirit is doing, it is vital that you step back from teaching. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal what it is that he is going to do. Ask, as Paul did when writing to the Christians in Ephesus, that they might have the ‘spirit of wisdom and revelation’ so they could know God better.
As leaders, this is the one time that we really get to sit back and let the Holy Spirit work without doing everything else! We act as facilitators throughout these weekly sessions and you often find that leaving the young people to have the discussions themselves is the key.
For the first few weeks you may find that you need to start off some of the conversations and lead them into discussions, but as the course develops they will begin to get used to getting revelation and discussing and debating what it means. They may come to appreciate being given the space to discuss the readings and questions without you being there.
Every group is different so what works for one of your groups, may not work for the next, but be flexible to what your young people respond to. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work out how you planned, or if you have to do week one three times! Go at the pace of your group whether that is fast, slow, or somewhere in the middle.
Why?
Why should our young people get involved?
Psalm 119:9
“How can a young person keep his way pure? By keeping the word of the Lord.”
How can our young people connect with the Lord and be the witness that he is calling them to without knowing his character. God has given us his word, it breathes life!
As youth leaders, that is exactly what we want our young people to catch, his life and his truth.
Where can I get more information?
If you are interested in running a Youth The Way of The Spirit course and want some more information, please don’t hesitate to get in contact: info@thewayofthespirit.com
Visit The Way of the Spirit web site at www.thewayofthespirit.com to find out more about this ministry, get downloads and see the stuff in the web shop. You can see an article there ‘how to run a bible group’ by John McKay, the man who wrote the course.
