In Real Life Books Testing the Waters Basic Tenets of Faith

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 makes Christianity Christian?

This unit will ferry youth through six basic tenets of the Christian faith—liberation, covenant, salvation, baptism, discipleship, and community—in a roughly chronological look at salvation history and how believers respond to it. Baptism marks our decision to embark on a life of following Jesus in the company of the faith community. This short course on the basics is a way to test the waters (baptismal) of Christianity before diving in, or to get a refresher. (6 sessions, plus extender session)

Sessions:

1. Your Basic "Way Out" God • For participants who sometimes wonder whether or not God is involved in human history, introduce them to this turning point in salvation history—the exodus.
2. Your Basic Covenant • As youth are acquiring values, invite them to order their lives around these ten words of covenant, as a response to God’s faithfulness.
3. Your Basic Salvation • Challenge participants to accept Jesus’ unconditional offer of healing and hope, which is salvation.
4. Your Basic Baptism • Invite participants to consider the meaning of baptism as welcoming God’s message into their lives, and being welcomed into the community of God’s forgiven people.
5. Your Basic Radical Discipleship • Present participants with an invitation to discipleship as a way of life, a natural response of people who have given themselves to Christ.
6. Your Basic Community • In the midst of a world where everybody is out for themselves, help participants see the interdependence of the community of faith as a “basic” of being Christian.
7. Celebrations (Extender Session option) • Understand the Jewish celebration of liberation by participating in a modified Seder. • Hold a footwashing service (or other similar symbol) to demonstrate another basic of Christian life—service.