EQUIP WEEK
LIVING WITH JESUS
LEADER PREPARATION
Lesson Summary:
Note: These lessons are designed to be 30 minutes long. If your club time is shorter than this, we encourage you to be prayerful about parts of this lesson to put more or less emphasis on. If limited on time, we urge you to prioritize Tool Time and summarize Dig In, as Tool Time is what prepares you for sharing the Gospel. As always, let the Holy Spirit guide your leadership.
Just as the branches of a vine produce fruit in proportion to the health of the vine, when we abide (remain or stay) in Jesus as the true vine, we have good fruit.
Main Point
Jesus’ words and actions show us how to faithfully obey God.
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
Materials Needed
- Snack-Sized Pack of M&Ms
- Snack-Sized Pack of Skittles
- Two Blindfolds
- Prayer Cards
(7 minutes)
Say: Welcome to First Priority. As we kick off our new month and New Year, let’s review the Mission and Vision of First Priority.
- Mission: To take the Hope of Christ to every student.
- Vision: Students Reach Students.
Say: Whether you have been a part of our meetings over the past few months or this is your first time, we’re so glad you are here.
Welcome everyone and be sure to get the names of any new friends.
Icebreaker Game: Tasting Colors
Supplies Needed: Snack-sized pack of M&Ms, snack-sized pack of Skittles, two blindfolds
Select two volunteers who admit to loving candy.
(Be sure neither has any food allergies before playing.) Explain that each of them will taste-test individual pieces of candy while blindfolded. Their job will be to determine the color of each piece of candy they taste. Whichever student guesses the most correctly will be declared the winner. Once both students are blindfolded, present one with the bag of M&Ms and the other with Skittles. The game concludes when both students run out of candy.
DIG IN
(5 minutes)
Say: Before we get started, let’s talk about what happened in our game.
Ask: Why do you think the Skittles volunteer could guess their candy colors more accurately than the M&Ms volunteer? (Take a few moments for students to share.)
Say: Although each of the M&Ms looked different, they all shared the same contents. The Skittles, however, were different on the inside and outside. You knew that one candy was the Skittles because you recognized their fruity flavors.
Ask: Can others see that you represent God by how you live? Do the people in your life recognize Jesus in your words and actions? (Let students think about this for just a moment.)
Say: Over the past several months, we’ve looked at our relationship with God individually and as His community. We’ve learned that God created us to experience all the benefits of home in a perfect relationship with Him.
We’ve also looked at how that peace and intimacy of friendship with Him was broken by sin, which is disobedience to God. Our choices have driven us away from home. Still, God promised to send a rescuer to restore our relationship with Him. That rescuer is Jesus.
Today, we’ll dig into what it means to live a life connected to God through Jesus.
Read Scripture: I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the words I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (John 15:1-4)
Say: In this teaching, Jesus uses an image of a grapevine to communicate a powerful truth about our relationship with Him and God. Jesus is the true vine, we are the branches, and it is through Him that we are connected to God.
God is the gardener of the vineyard who cuts off branches that are not growing fruit. As branches, we can only live and be fruitful in our lives when we are connected to and remain with the vine, who is Jesus. When our lives are influenced by and led by Jesus, we will grow fruit in our lives. Just like branches that need nutrients and water to grow fruit, it is through Jesus that we will receive all that we need to grow in our faith every day. If we don’t remain in Jesus or follow His direction, we won’t be able to produce fruit in our lives. But when we remain in Him, our lives will produce the Fruit of the Spirit. We read about these in Galatians 5:22-23.
Read Scripture: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Say: When you remain in Jesus, the Holy Spirit grows these fruits in your life, and they bless the people around you.
TOOL TIME
(18 Minutes)
Ask: So the big question is SO WHAT? What does Jesus’ grapevine illustration mean for the way I go about sharing God’s love with my friends? (Take a few moments for students to share.)
Say: Jesus explains even more about what it means to remain in Him in John 15:5-8.
Read Scripture: I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:5-8)
Say: If you cut off a branch of a vine, you wouldn’t expect it to live for very long, let alone produce new fruit. Jesus is clear that a branch can only produce good fruit as long as it is connected to the vine.
Ask: So, what are some of the ways you can remain in Jesus? (Take a few moments for students to share.)
Say: Great answers! We choose to remain in Jesus by talking to Him in prayer, reading the Bible, connecting to other believers, worship, and sharing His love with others. When you pray to God you can do this at any time of the day. Prayer is a form of worship. It doesn’t have to be long, using fancy words. It is simply a conversation with God that you can do when you are at home, at school, in the car, on the bus, or even playing sports. You can pray to God individually or with others. When you do this regularly, your faith becomes stronger.
Similarly, reading the Bible can be a form of worship and a way to connect with Jesus. When we read God’s Word our faith becomes stronger. Through it, we receive guidance for our lives on what we should do and where we should go. When we do this with others, they can help us to see things in the Bible that we may not see. Together, we are building one another up in our faith as we learn from Scripture.
When we remain in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will produce great fruit and a strong foundation in our lives. And it’s from this strong foundation that we will be able to better display love and hospitality to other people. To someone who is in despair, you can shine hope. To those who feel outcast and alone, you can extend love. When you are tempted to do what will serve you and your emotions, remaining in Jesus and strengthening your faith through prayer and reading the Bible enables you to stop and consider the consequences.
Say: Look at your daily schedule to see where you can add prayer, worship and Bible reading into your life. As our main point reminds us: Jesus’ words and actions show us how to faithfully obey God.
God wants us to talk to Him. He wants us to share our needs and desires through prayer. Let’s think for a moment about how we can use prayer to spread the Gospel. How can we pray for our friends? How can we share the power of prayer with others so that they too can have a relationship with God? In First Priority we talk a lot about tools that help us spread the Gospel.
In the Bible, Matthew 6:9-13, God gave us a tool for prayer called “The Lord’s Prayer!” Maybe you have a friend who wants a relationship with God but has never prayed before. God gave us what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” that is basically a template for how we can pray. Some of you may be familiar with the Lord’s Prayer already, but let’s say it together. (Have the prayer up on a board in the classroom, or pass out sheets with the Lord’s Prayer written out so that the class can follow along.)
Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your Name, your Kingdom come, your Will be done,
on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one
God gave us this tool for us to learn how we can talk to Him. Of course, we don’t need to say these exact words everytime, but it is a great place to start when we are first learning how to talk to God!
Take a moment and think of someone who could use this guide to prayer! When you are sharing the Gospel with your peers and those around you, use this as a way to show them what prayer and talking to God can look like! It is often that the reason people don’t pray is because they simply don’t know how to.
One of the most loving things you can do as a follower of Jesus is to pray for others. Let’s spend some time thinking about who we can pray for. Put their names on the card and pray for them before you leave today.
Closing: Pass out prayer cards to each student. Remind students to write names of friends they would like to pray for on their prayer cards and spend some time praying for them before they leave today. End your time together with prayer.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Announce the upcoming meeting date and anything else members of the club need to know to be ready for the next meeting or event.
