LEADER PREPARATION
Lesson Summary:

Note: These lessons are designed to be 30 minutes long. If your club time is shorter or longer than this, we encourage you to be prayerful about the parts of this lesson to put more or less emphasis on. As always, let the Holy Spirit guide your leadership.

Throughout this month, we have explored what it means that God fulfilled His promises in Jesus. Throughout the centuries, no matter how hard people tried, they could not

fulfill their covenant or promise to God. From the very beginning, God promised that He would send Jesus who would not only offer us a new covenant, but would also be the new covenant.

As the Church, we are a community of promises. We are bound together not only by the faith that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises to restore us but also trust that what He promises about our lives today and for eternity are true.

Main Point
The Promises of God are for the whole Church.

Team Roles

Host: This Student Leader will lead the Start Up section of the lesson, helping create a fun environment, making everyone feel welcome and included.
Speaker: This student leader will guide the group in growing deeper in their faith by reading and reflecting on passages of scripture. They will then connect the content to the group’s daily lives by asking practical questions and leading the conversation.
Other Roles: Promo, Welcome, and Follow Up. 

Scripture References

• Hebrews 11
• Hebrews 12:1-4
• Hebrews 10:23-25

Materials Needed

• Sheet of Paper
• Sharpie 

(7 minutes)
Welcome everyone and be sure to get the names of any new friends.

Icebreaker Game: In Common
Materials Needed: Sheet of Paper / Sharpie 
Game Preparation: Before START UP, write down
“PLAQUE OF DESTINY” on a sheet of paper using a Sharpie or marker.

Begin by dividing the group into groups of 3-5.Explain that the groups will have 2 minutes to find the most interesting thing they all have in common with one another. This SHOULD NOT be something simple like, “we go to the same school”, or “we all wore pants today.” The group with the most unique similarity will be awarded the PLAQUE OF DESTINY.
Voting will be done by the Student Leaders.

(5 minutes)
Say: The connections we share can range from the most superficial to the deepest aspects of our experiences or personalities. While at first glance you may not recognize all the things that tie you together to the person standing next to you, once you learn more about one another, the connections are stronger, and a sense of community develops.

This is the same in the Church. When we first attend church, we may not see the things that each of us have in common with one another outside of our faith in Jesus. But once we make the choice to be a part of the community in a deeper way, we begin to learn more about one another. As we remain committed to spending time together, we grow spiritually and find that we may have some commonalities with one another that we didn’t realize at first. As we continue to build community with each other, we find that when we experience a difficult season in life, it is this community of faith that can stand by us and support us through difficult times.

Ask: Think about a difficult season in your life. How did your community support you through this challenging time? (Take a few moments for students to share.)

Read Scripture: Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another-and all the more as you see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:23-25)

Say: As God’s Church, we are a people who know God and His promises. Because we are confident in God as the One who is faithful to fulfill everything that He has promised, we can act with courage and faith. In spite of incredible challenges and difficult circumstances, our steadfast hope allows us to display extraordinary acts of faith like those listed in what is often called the Hall of Faith that we read about in Hebrews 11.

Read Scripture: Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered Him faithful who had made the promise.

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:1-2, 7-8,11, 32-40)

Ask: These people lived centuries before you, but is there anything that connects you to their story? (Take a few moments for students to share.)

Say: Despite their obvious differences, the bonds between the people whose stories are mentioned here are amazingly clear. They acted by faith, and they trusted in a Kingdom that was unseen. Their belief in this eternal Kingdom was so strong that they hurled themselves into obedience to God in order to experience and advance that Kingdom.

Did you notice that it is only when we are all together that the Bible says these heroes of the faith will see the complete fulfillment of God’s promise? They saw the seas parting, armies falling, the dead brought to life, and yet God reminds us that it is only when we are all united that the picture is made complete.