2021-05-05 About Us
SMALL GROUP MATERIAL
MESSAGE NOTES
ABOUT US SERIES
WEEK 1
Purpose of this series.
(10 minutes)
Purpose: This talk is for the purpose of setting up the series and explaining what tonight will look like.
Tonight will be small group based.
Each small group will go through the “About Us Survey.” There are 12 questions, 2 informational and 10 opinions. These questions have been designed for students to have their say as to what Beulah Youth is about (priorities, values, best bits, worst bits).
Please fill out the survey as a small group allowing the questions to spark your small group discussion.
The reason we are doing this series is because it is essential to know your identity and have skin-in-the-game of the youth ministry you call home. Here are four quick reasons why knowing your identity is extremely important.
1. Our identity tells us where we belong.
We want – no, we need – to belong. To identify with a group of people. To love what they love and value what they value. And that’s a question we seem to always be seeking to answer, for in all of us, there is a desire to belong. To know the inside jokes. To be accepted. To be deeply known.
This question of identity answers that question for us. Where do you belong?
At Beulah Youth you belong and are loved.
2. Our identity tells us we are wanted.
Can you just breathe that in for a second with me? You are not only loved. You are not only accepted. But you are wanted. As silly as it is, the image that comes to my mind is the pressure cooker of the elementary school playground when teams are being chosen up. Now perhaps you were always the best athlete on the playground and you spent those moments thinking, Which one of these teams is going to win, because that’s the team that is choosing me. But the rest of us spent those agonizing moments sizing up everyone else out there on that field thinking, Is there anyone for sure that will be chosen after me? Because I don’t want to be the last one.
Knowing your identity means knowing that you are wanted.
At Beulah Youth you are wanted.
3. Our identity gives confidence to our actions.
Imagine this: You have been invited to a dinner with important dignitaries – maybe this is a state dinner. So you go and rent a tux or buy a new dress, and you show up, and immediately you know you’re in over your head. The conversations around you seem to be about geopolitical politics, deep economic issues, and other such things that you don’t know much about. You don’t even know which fork to use with which course.
You might end up doing the right thing, but you would do it with shaking hands and a nervous stomach. That’s because you know you don’t normally attend these kinds of things. As cool as it is to be there, you feel a little bit out of place.
The point of the illustration is this – knowing your identity in Christ gives you confidence in your actions. When you begin to accept that God has declared you to be a royal priesthood, a chosen people, His own possession, you start to act in godly confidence.
Because you have been made new by Jesus.
At Beulah Youth we want to help you be confident in Jesus.
4. Our identity reveals our deeper purpose.
Finally, knowing our identity reveals our deeper purpose. The greater end of our identity, and therefore our actions as Christians, is the glory of God. And there is no greater end than that.
Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits (1 Peter 2:9-12).
Think about the context of these verses with me. These Christians were being persecuted and maligned because of all kinds of rumours floating around about them. Peter does not tell them to organize and launch a “truth about Christians” campaign. He does not tell them to conduct great rallies of self-defence. No – Peter tells them simply to remember who they are. To live out who they are. And know that those same people who are maligning them will not only see but benefit from their faithful acts of godly kindness and grace and glorify God.
At Beulah Youth we want you to live out your purpose.
KNOWING OUR IDENTITY MATTERS… so who are we? Time to go to small groups and have your say.