Take Home Family Youth Group May 4th 2016

The purpose of this session is to discuss within your family your spiritual gifts, explain each gift, and challenge each other to begin thinking of a specific ministry or ministries where you can put your gifts to work. While acknowledging that the miraculous gifts exist, the focus of this study is on the service gifts. Start out by doing dinner together as a family. Plan out dinner ahead of time and help prepare the food and table. When you are finished, serve your family by helping with or doing the dishes altogether. Schedule for the night: Dinner plus Activate Your Audience plus Bring them Closer Communicate the Word Take the Spiritual Gifts Test (separate documents) Do Something About It Help clean up from dinner

Activate Your Audience Would You Rather... This activity is adapted from the popular book from Youth Specialties (author Doug Fields) by the same name. Explain that you are going to read a statement of the form, "Would you rather A or B? Would You Rather... kiss a dog or a cat on the mouth? eat cow eyeballs or monkey lips? die by a fire or by a drowning? win free tickets to a professional football game or baseball game? live without TV for one year or be homeless for one month? have a phone or a TV in your room? keep your siblings or be an only child? win a million bucks all at once today or get $1000 a week for the rest of your life? lose both arms or both legs? work during the summer or stay at home all day?

Bring them Closer o What are your favorite vacation ideas? Why?

o What bothers you most at work /school?

o What is one thing you appreciate about each person at the table?

o What is one thing you are looking forward to in the next few months?

o Ask the others what you do that makes them smile.

Communicate the Word: It's Your Thang -- Spiritual Gifts Have a Bible ready. PRAY. Discuss the outline below and have family members at the church look up the verses as you get to them. I. What is a spiritual gift? I.A. What it is not I.A.1. A talent (something you just happen to be good at) I.A.2. An ability (a developed skill) I.A.3. A personality trait (whether environmental or genetic) I.B. What it is I.B.1. You get it when you become a Christian (Ephesians 4:7, I Corinthians 12:7) I.B.1.a. There are no believers without gifts I.B.1.b. There are no unbelievers with gifts I.B.2. It is a supernatural ability that works through God's Holy Spirit (I Peter 4:11) I.B.2.a. The reason you have it is to do God's work I.B.2.b. You supply the availability and God will supply the ability I.B.3. Your gift is not for you -- it is for the youth group and the Church (Ephesians 4:12) I.B.4. God gave us all different ones so that we could all work together (Romans 12:4 - 6)

Do Something About It Talk about specific things you could do in the following areas to put your gifts to work. Come up with at least two ideas for each area. 1. Home 2. School 3. Youth group 4. Church (outside of youth group) 5. Work 6. Other (your choice) Pray for the gifts that were revealed in the test for each person and that God would use each of you in those areas. You can break up the prayer so that everyone prays for the person to their left if you choose.