In Real Life Books The Radical Reign Parables of Jesus

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 God like? What is heaven like?

Jesus turned people’s worlds upside down when he told them—through parables. This study highlights how parables reveal God’s reign as radically different from the world we live in, and what that means for the life of faith. Some drank up his words with thirsty souls, and others recoiled from his radical statements about God’s way of loving and judging. How will it be with you? (6 sessions, plus extender session)

Sessions:

1. No Fair! • As participants approach their lives with a “get the best bang for the buck” mentality, help them confront the parable’s radical message of God’s unconditional love.
2. The Great Feast • Challenge participants to arrange their daily tasks with a new awareness of the importance of God’s radical reign.
3. The Sinners' Club • Help participants dispel the notion that church is a club for “good” people, because God searches for all lost souls.
4. Stick with Me! • As teens face tough times of feeling alone, help them experience the comfort and confidence of knowing that they are connected to the Vine who sustains them.
5. Against the Grain • Encourage youth to “go against the grain” by being humble, even though their culture so loudly trumpets the value of personal pride.
6. Love Is an Action Word! • Though participants would most often rather eliminate their enemies, help them consider ways to show active compassion, seeking to turn enemies into friends.
7. The Good Shepherd (Extender Session option) • Help participants accept, freely and responsibly, the outreaching love of the Good Shepherd who seeks us.