Sunday School - Sept 16

This past Sunday we had another combined class for iConnect and Youth. Normally, the groups will only be combined on the third Sunday of the month and will be doing topical lessons together. The rest of the month each group will be studying theology separately (youth will be more advanced).

Our lesson was about TREES because it's always great to start the year with a reminder of why we do what we do. For those of you unfamiliar with the acronym, TREES stands for teaching, relating, evangelizing, exalting, and serving - the five areas we focus on at Bethany. For each letter, we did some Bible drills (I call out a verse and the students try and find it first because the winner reads the verse and gets a candy), discussed a few questions about the letter, and then each student wrote a prayer for that letter on bright paper, which we then taped to a cross. The cross is now extremely full of neon-prayers for different areas of our ministry and other areas of Bethany - I think I'm going to keep it in my new office :)

Parents, here are a few questions you could ask your kids about TREES:

• Teaching: What questions do your friends ask you about God?

• Relating: Why is it important to have friends who share your faith?

• Exalting: Why does God want us to worship Him and why does He deserve it?

• Evangelizing: Why does God command that we share our faith with others?

• Serving: Why does God command us to help other people?