Labyrinth One: It’S Not Exclusive
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LABYRINTH ONE: IT’S NOT EXCLUSIVE BOTTOM LINE: WHEN IT COMES TO HEARING GOD, ANYONE AND EVERYONE IS INCLUDED. INTRODUCTION “Why do they have it all together?” “Why can’t I ‘get it’ like they do?” “How can I be as close to God as they seem to be?” Sometimes we have these kinds of questions when it comes to our faith. And, sometimes, we feel like everyone else has it all together when it WONDER. comes to hearing God and knowing where their life is going. It can DISCOVERY. make us feel excluded from God’s plan and from knowing what that PASSION. plan is for us. But the truth is God does have a plan for you and does want to speak to you and use you. So maybe, when we wonder why WWW.XP3STUDENTS.ORG we can’t seem to connect with God, we need to stop wondering what is wrong with us, and ask ourselves instead, who do we believe God CHIEF EXECUTIVE to be? OFFICER Reggie Joiner CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jared Herd XP3 STUDENTS TEAM Sarah Anderson Jaime Handley Steve Underwood GRAPHICS & VIDEO Landon Donoho ORANGE SPECIALISTS USER AGREEMENT Kristie McCollister Orange gladly grants permission to churches, schools and other Jeremy Zach licensees to tailor XP3TM materials to fit their unique leadership Matt Ivy requirements, locale and format preferences. However, if you wish to edit the content substantively, including teaching scripts, small TECHNICAL & WEB group dialog and any other content in which biblical principles and SUPPORT concepts are presented, you are obligated to do so within the doctrinal Hadley Brandt guidelines we’ve expressed in our Statement of Faith (see page 2). Alex VanRossum These resources are intended to be downloaded and printed for use CHIEF OPERATING by the subscribing entity only and may not be electronically transferred OFFICER to or duplicated by other non-subscribing entities. Any unauthorized Reggie Goodin reproduction of this material or incorporation into a new work— including podcasts or video of this content—is a direct violation of U.S. copyright laws. ©2011 Orange. All rights reserved. XP3 and the XP3 logo are trademarks of The reThink Group, Inc. WWW.XP3STUDENTS.ORG ©2011 Orange. All Rights Reserved. STATEMENT OF FAITH ABOUT GOD God is the one and only true God, yet He exists in three persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God is the Creator, so everything belongs to Him and is under His control. God is holy, so He is righteous, majestic and loving. God is all knowing and purposeful, so He’s at work to bring about His will. No person, thing or idea compares to God. ABOUT THE SCRIPTURES God reveals Himself to us through the Bible, and it is 100% accurate, reliable and authoritative. ABOUT PEOPLE People are made in God’s image and for His pleasure. But everybody falls short of God’s intention, or ideal, for people. In other words, everyone has sinned. As a result, we are all separated from Him, even though He wants an intimate relationship with each of us. ABOUT SALVATION That’s why Jesus, God’s Son, came and lived on this earth, died and rose again. God offers His free gift of salvation to all who believe in Jesus and accept Him as Savior, the only way to be forgiven and reconciled to God. Anyone who accepts this gift is adopted as a son or daughter into God’s family and will live with Him forever in heaven. Scripture marked “NIV” is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. WWW.XP3STUDENTS.ORG ©2011 Orange. All Rights Reserved. CREATING THE EXPERIENCE Pg. 1 We believe that the set, stage, music and everything in your room communicates a message—without you saying a word. That’s why we put together a list of production ideas to help you set the stage for the session and the series. From the music you play when students come in the room to the worship set your band plays, we want to make sure that your room conveys “Labyrinth” in a multi-sensory way. There is a downloadable checklist available in your series downloads that will give you all the elements for this session (and the entire series). BACKGROUND PLAYLIST FOR LABYRINTH SERIES “Flashing Red Light Means Go” by The Boxer Rebellion (from Union) “End of Me” by Building 429 (from Building 429) “We Are Broken” by Paramore (from Riot!) “This” by Darius Rucker (from Charleston, SC 1966) “Don’t Carry It All” by The Decemberists (from The King Is Dead) “Consider the Ravens” by Dustin Kensrue (from Please Come Home) “Don’t Waste Your Life” by Lecrae (from Rebel) “The Cave” by Mumford & Sons (from The Cave and the Open Sea) “The Outsiders” by NEEDTOBREATHE (from The Outsiders) “Beautiful Ending” by BarlowGirl (from Love & War) WORSHIP PLAYLIST FOR LABYRINTH SESSION ONE “Save Me from Myself” by Carpark North (from Lost) “You” by Hillsong Live (from A Beautiful Exchange) “Where the Spirit of the Lord Is” by Chris Tomlin (from And If Our God Is for Us, Deluxe Edition) “Live for You” by Connersvine (from Connersvine) “From the Inside Out” by Hillsong Live (from Mighty to Save) THE SET Obtain three large poster boards or banners to create this set. More creative students can be called upon to draw these mazes or outline them from a projector image. Each poster will have a different maze or labyrinth drawn or printed on it and a new poster will be displayed each week of the series. Session one will display a poster with a high level of difficulty, a lot of turns and passages that make it time consuming and confusing. This labyrinth will help convey to the students the frustration we face when we try and manage every aspect of life and seek to direct it by our own means. Session two will display the first poster as well as a second poster with a new, more intermediate level maze that will continue to rep- resent what life looks like for us when we begin allowing God to take hold of our decisions. Session three will display the first and second posters, along with a third poster with a maze that can easily be solved to finally illustrate the simplicity of God’s will for our lives—loving Him and loving people while not getting so caught up in the nooks and crannies of life. It’s about getting to the center, the crux of it all, to glorify God. WWW.XP3STUDENTS.ORG ©2011 Orange. All Rights Reserved. CREATING THE EXPERIENCE Pg. 2 Below are a visual examples of how this set might look. To cover more space on stage, or if your budget permits, you may also want to hang additional mazes with fishing line in varying sizes and heights to create a fuller back ground or hand out 3X5 cards with a maze printed on them as a take-home visual reminder to students of what they learned during this series. To best communicate this idea of progressing simplicity the speaker may want to take a few minutes during the message to solve the maze. If you’re drawing these by hand, this link provides a step-by-step guide to creating a labyrinth: http://www.herbsfromthelabyrinth.com/labbox96gif.gif For images similar to these search “Celtic labyrinth designs.” SERIES ART Art for PowerPoint backgrounds and for series promotional ads is available as a free download with every series. Visit the XP3 website, log on to your account and download the images to use in your presentation, newsletters and website. VIDEO A video bumper is available for the Labyrinth series and was created to be used as an intro for all three ses- sions of the Labyrinth series. You can purchase the video by logging into your XP3 account and clicking on the “XP3 videos” link. WWW.XP3STUDENTS.ORG ©2011 Orange. All Rights Reserved. MIDDLE SCHOOL ADAPTATION: LABYRINTH The following activities and illustrations will help middle school students connect with the subject matter in ways that engage them physically, mentally, socially and sometimes emotionally. You can also adapt the Labyrinth series for middle school students by using the teaching outline found in this document to edit the teaching script to a 20-minute presentation. In addition, by using the separate middle school small group dialog questions (found in the series downloads) that are geared specifically for sixth to eighth graders, you can make each section more middle-school friendly. SESSION 1 GAME: TOUCHY FEELY (Play this game as an icebreaker to Session 1.) For this game, you will need five brown paper bags, numbered 1 through 5. You will also need five common household items, such as a remote control, hairbrush, Scotch Tape, etc. (the more oddly shaped, the better). If you have a larger sized group, you may want to find ten items instead of five. Place each of the items in a paper bag. Have your students sit in a circle and then pass the items around, one at a time, for each student to feel. Each person is allowed 15 seconds to hold the bag and then they have to pass the bag to the next person. Each student will need a pen and paper to write down what they think each of the items is. After you have passed the items around and everyone has had a chance to guess what they are, call out the correct answers from each numbered bag.