In Real Life Books How to Be a True Friend The Bible Reveals Friendship’s Heart

Exploring tough questions facing youth today • Also available as an eResource

OPEN THE BIBLE • Help youth apply the Bible to real life and discuss their faith. This all-in-one curriculum guides youth and their leaders on a journey for meaning and identity. In Real Life encourages youth to ask the hard questions, and helps them encounter Scripture in search of answers. In a time of violence, injustice, materialism, and new pressures, this series offers a different point of view. Compatible with a whole family approach.

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What is a true friend? Does the Bible give us examples to follow?

Friendship supplies much-needed security, loyalty, and love. With friends being so important to them, youth want to figure out what to look for, and how to make and keep friends. Each session focuses on a quality that can raise relationships to a new level. Each quality is modeled by Bible figures—David and Jonathan (trust), Ruth and Naomi (loyalty), the Samaritan woman and Jesus (taking risks), Paul and Barnabas (reconciliation), and Jesus and his disciples (servanthood and commitment). (6 sessions, plus extender session)

Sessions:

1. True Friends Can Be Trusted • Encourage participants to build trust in their friendships through consistent acts of kindness and by being reliable.
2. True Friends Are Loyal • Encourage participants to be loyal friends in their relationships while maintaining their loyalty to God.
3. True Friends Take Risks • Encourage participants to risk forming new friendships and deepening the friendships that they already have.
4. True Friends Fight • Encourage participants to expect conflict and to pledge not to walk away from it in their relationships.
5. True Friends Serve Each Other • Encourage participants to show their love for each other through giving and receiving service.
6. True Friends Commit Their Lives • Encourage participants to commit their lives to their community of friends through the power of abiding in Christ.
7. Listening Skills / Spending Time (Extender Session option) • Introduce or hone listening skills that are essential to effective communication between friends. • Help participants strengthen their friendships in the group by spending extended time together and intentionally sharing their lives.