NEW OFF ROAD WEBSITE

All OFF ROAD information can now be found at www.westgatechurch.org/ministries/students

This Week

This week in OFF ROAD we continued our path to the cross series, discussing the crucifixion, and Jesus’ great sacrifice, but ending with the great news and promise that Christ has risen from the grave! Our hope is in the work of the cross through Christ paying the debt for our sin, but it doesn’t stop with the cross. Our hope is made complete because the story doesn’t end on the cross. It ends with Christ conquering death, trampling over death and sin and offering us the same opportunity made available only through Him. What will our response be? Will we celebrate the story the way it should be, by giving our lives to Christ as he sacrificed everything for us? Or will we chalk it up to another holiday that doesn’t transform us. Jesus conquered death because of his great love for us and desires a relationship with us. Let us be changed by the sacrifice Christ made.

This Week

This Week in OFF ROAD we simply opened up the word of God and read Romans 12. While I read it students had questions that helped them focus on what God was say to them. I encourage you to do the same and then discuss it with your child.

Did you learn something from this passage today that you didn’t know before you came in? What was it that you learned?

What verse stuck out to you? Why?

What do you feel like God is telling you to do?

What questions come up for you after you hear/ read this?

This Week

This Week in OFF ROAD we began our Letter to Romans series, working through the book of Romans. Kelly spoke this week on the message of the first few chapters of Romans. The basic message if the message of the gospel. We are sinners separated from Christ. God is perfect and we are separated from Him. Christ was sent to die for our sins and bridge the gap. If we accept Christ and give our lives to Him we are made clean and brought into relationship with God. In hearing the gospel we must ask ourselves: Have we chosen to live for God? And if we have are we living for Him because of His great love for us? See our motivation to live for God has to come from His great love for us because of the work of Christ on the cross. When we decided to give our lives to God we aren’t promised it is easy, but we are promised that God will be with us.

Questions:
Have you decided to accept God’s love? What does that mean?
What motivates you to live for God?
What is the toughest part about living for God?

This Week

This Week in OFF ROAD we concluded our series on apologetics. So far we have looked at the big bang and how that doesn’t disprove the bible, but actually points to greatness of God. The following week we discovered that Jesus is not just a character in the Bible, but is actually a historical figure and the authors of the Gospels have been archeologically and historically accurate in their accounts outside of Christ’s life. If they are accurate with their information outside of Christ, the rest of what they say has weight in being true. This week we looked into Evolution, exploring how the theory of evolution doesn’t contradict the bible in the process, but when added that it all happened by, “random chance,” which is not part of the theory, it does contradict the bible. In exploring evolution many people believe that it was random chance (something which is mathematically impossible) and some people believe that there is an intelligent designer (in our case God) who orchestrated the evolutionary process. The impossibility of this all just randomly happening points to a God who is fully engaged in creation, and who has made each and every one of us as a beautiful, unique, amazing, intricate, detailed, finely tuned, wonderfully designed miracle! In the end, if life is just random our life is purposeless, but with God we find our true value as His creation.

This Week

Hey Parents,

This week in Off Road we were in our second week in our Apologetics Series. A series designed to give our students some tools to deepen their own understanding of their Christian beliefs and to learn why they are warranted in believing them...as well as giving them some tools to defend their faith! This week we focused on the questions: Did Jesus Exist? How do we know if Jesus was a real person? and Is the Bible True? (Based on the book A Case for Christ student edition, by Lee Strobel)

We talked about the fact that the Bible was written by many different people, many eyewitnesses who saw Jesus, recorded his miracles, heard his teachings, and saw him after he was raised from the dead. We looked into the biography of Christ, the first 4 books of the New Testament written by Matthew, Mark, a historian who interviewed Peter and wrote his first hand report in the book of Mark, Luke, a physician and first century reporter (of types) and John. We also discussed the consistency of the New Testament, the fact that 24,000 copies of ancient manuscripts have been found... 5k in Greek, 8-10k in Latin, 8k more in Ethiopic, Slavic, and Armenian...99.5% of the manuscripts match up!

We discussed the evidence for Jesus outside of the Bible...in an ancient Jewish work called the Talmud, and from other ancient historical writers such as...Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. And we learned a little about archaeological evidence that supports the New Testament. We wrapped up our time by chatting about the importance of not just knowing facts about our faith, and having arguments to defend our faith..but allowing Christ to transform our lives! That our greatest tool in sharing our faith is not our defense or our facts...but our very lives and how God is changing our hearts!

Chat with your child...
1. What did you learn this weekend in Off Road that you didn't know before about the Bible, the Christian faith or Jesus?
2. How do you feel like your life and heart are being transformed by God?

This Week

This Week in OFF ROAD we began a three part series on Apologetics, defending the faith. This is a topic that fascinates me as it has played a big role in my confidence in Christianity. The goal of this series is to address some of the topics that will come into question when discussion their belief in God. The week we dissected the Big bang, a theory that is often used to say that there was no creator, but instead the universe came to be by random chance. When we take this theory and compare it to the Genesis explanation of creation and our belief that there is a God then there is a conflict. In the biblical account we must first understand that Moses’ account of the creation of earth is not a scientific account so to say that is was most definitely a literal 7 days is difficult. We must also know that in another part of the bible it says that a thousand years is like a day to God. This does not mean that God could not have created the earth in 7 day, it just means that the bible and science don’t contradict each other in a time line of the formation of earth, they contradict each other in the cause (random vs. God) of the earth. With God at the helm of creation we have explanations for the literal impossibility of the perfect conditions for the big bang or beginning of time as well as we have explanations for the moral law that exists within us. Without God both of these mathematical and philosophical quandaries are left unexplained and confused. Lastly, if the big bang did happen one must ask how did the sub-atomic particle get there in the first place and what created the explosion to occur? I know this discussion will probably conjure up more questions so if you or your child have any questions please feel free to ask. A good resource is Case for faith student edition.

Advent Conspiracy- LAST WEEK

We are encouraging each student to bring AT LEAST $20 for advent conspiracy. Please encourage your student to do so, form their own money

This Week

Dear Parents,
This week in Off Road we introduced our Advent Conspiracy series. The focus of the season that we are in is to Change from me centered to God centered. We also talked about the time of preparation for God’s coming that is found in the Advent season. The first way we focus on this Joyful Preparation is with Hope. Advent is a time to hope for the coming of Christ and to realize that we are not the center. We challenged to students to rethink their giving and receiving of gifts this year and challenged them to raise $1500 of their own money to buy pigs, wells, or other things for needy families in other countries and to take the focus from their own wants and put them on the things that God desires. We asked them to reflect on this with these questions:

What is it like waiting for the best gift you can imagine?
Can you describe what it was like when you finally received that gift?
What can you do to make Advent a time to be excited for the best gift of Jesus?
How can you refocus on the meaning for Christmas?
How can you give the gift of presence and show people you care?

This Week #4-9

This week in OFF ROAD was our second part of our “Rethink Worship” series, exploring why we worship and how we are to worship. The “why?” was answered last week in that God says that we should and that God is the only one who truly deserves it. This week, in exploring the “how?” we looked into John 4, focusing on Jesus’ statement in verse 24. Here Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman who doesn’t understand the difference of worship rituals of the Jews and Samaritan. Jesus clarifies that the old rules of worship (through Jewish rituals God commanded prior to Jesus) will soon not be the standard of true worship. Instead, true worship will happen when you engage in worship in spirit and in truth. This idea is one of giving yourself to God, giving Him your full self, not ritualistic acts that don’t have any truth of worship behind them. We must do the same. In worship (which we established last week is not just singing) we must truthfully engage ourselves in giving ourselves to God. Worship is not about us, it is all about God and to truly worship we must come to God at this level, in spirit and in truth.

• Have you ever experienced an amazing time of worship? What made it amazing?
• What does it mean to worship God in spirit? In truth?
• What can you do to help you always worship God in spirit and in truth?
• What are ways you can give yourself completely to God, making your worship all about HIM?

This Week

This Week we began our three week series titled, “Rethink Worship,” discovering what worship is and why we do it. The goal of this series is to help student really realize the importance that worship plays in our walk with Christ, that worship is so much more than singing, and that our God deserves more worship than we can give Him. In the first lesson we answered the questions, “What is worship?” and “Why worship?” In the bible the word worship actually has very different meanings depend including service sacrifice, submission, reverence, professing faith, praising God, thanking God, and proclaiming truth. When we look at these definitions it becomes clear that worshiping God can happen all the time through the way we live, not just when we sing. We need to understand that worship is physical, mental and spiritual and we need to engage in worship in each of these ways. To answer the question, “Why worship?” we look to Luke 4 and Hebrews 12:26-29. In the former verse Jesus is tempted to worship the devil, but references God’s command to worship Him only. So the first reason we should worship God is because he tells us to. There are a lot of things to worship, but the only thing we should be worshiping is God. In Hebrews it speaks of God’s kingdom that will not be shaken and that our God is a “consuming fire” and because of that we should worship God. God’s great power and authority should give him enough reason to be continually worshiped. He is the only one that DESERVES our worship.

• What is worship?
• What are some ways that you can worship God every day? With your parents? Siblings? Those at school?
• Why is worship so important?
• How might this new view of worship (not just singing) change the way you worship?

This Week #4-8

This Week in OFF ROAD we ended our DUSTY series with, “Yearning to be covered in the dust of the master.” Yearning is an intense or overpowering longing, desire or need and to be covered in the dust of the master means following Jesus so closely that you look like Him. So in OFF ROAD our desire is that we all have an intense longing to follow Jesus so close that we look like him. Luke 6:40, “Students are not greater than their master, but the student who is fully trained will become like the master.” After reviewing this we gave the students a chance to respond in answering the question: Where are you with God and where do you want to be? Students were able to write their prayers down on the chalkboards and it was really cool to see them process this.

Parents: Ask yourself and your child this question too.
Where are you at with God and where do you want to be?
Do you have a yearning to follow Jesus?
When was the last time you day dreamed about being more like Christ? Why do you think it happens so infrequently if ever?

This Week #4-7

Dear Parents,

This week in Off-Road we continued our Dusty series with the “T” “Telling the Truth of who He is.” We looked at Mark 16 and Matthew 28 which command us to go, proclaim, make disciples, and baptize. The command is what makes the Telling of the Truth part of our jobs as Christians. Then we endeavored to discover what the truth was and we found that “The Truth was Eternal Life, Because Jesus Christ Died for us, and How we follow is to Believe.” The process of telling others the Gospel or the truth is called evangelism and to truly evangelize we need to show who God is in love. But, it is not enough to just love someone we actually have to tell them the truth, because if we don’t tell them they can never know or say yes. We left with the goal to take a picture with a friend who does not know Jesus who we wanted to tell and bring it to Off-Road so we can put it up and pray for that person and so the leaders can help the students follow through on telling their friends. The questions we discussed with them afterward were:

•What makes it hard for you to talk about God with your friends?
•Can you think of any creative ways to break the ice and share Jesus with your friends?
•If you don’t know very many non-Christians how can you find places to share the truth?
•Why is it important for you to share the truth instead of just showing love?
•What can you do to be more prepared to share the truth of the gospel?

This Week #4-6

As we continued our D.U.S.T.Y. series we focused on the “S” of DUSTY, Strengthening our desire to imitate Christ. We want to grow closer to God and imitate the example Christ set for us. Ephesians 4:31-5:2 is a great starting point for our imitation of Christ because it is the motivation for why we should imitate Him. We should imitate Christ because He first loved us. Jesus is not some bully that makes us imitate Him, instead He loves us so much and wants the best for us so we should imitate Him. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 tells us that if we choose to follow Christ imitation should naturally happen AND this is our witness to others. So how do we learn to imitate Him? We need to spend time with Him, get to know Him so we can know what to imitate.

Are you imitating Christ?
What does it mean to imitate Christ?
What do you need to do to imitate God better?
Who is someone you know that really imitates Christ? What is it about them that makes you think they imitate Christ?
How can you be like them?

This Week #4-5

This Week in OFF ROAD we explored what it means to be unified with other believers. John 13 describes part of the last supper where Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment, that they love others the way the He has loved them. Now we can quickly skim over this passage knowing that we are supposed to love each other but when we take time to think about it the idea of a new commandment is confusing. Hasn’t Jesus told us this before? Well he has told us that we need to love others the way that we want to be loved, but now he is calling us to follow His example. We are no longer the standard, He is the standard. That is a huge calling!!! But how is this possible? It is easy to love those that we get along with and like, but how do we really be unified with all other believers? The answer is in John 17. Jesus’ final prayer before being arrested is for the unity of all believers through a unity with Christ. If we rely on behavior modification and just decide that we are going to be unified without making God the focus of our unity it will be very difficult to be unified and we won’t be unified the way Jesus wants us. So let us all develop our relationship with Christ and grow to love Him more so that we can grow to love each other more and be unified with other believers!

-What does it mean to be unified with other believers?
-Is that really possible? How?
-What do you need to do to make sure you are unified with other believers? (Are there any relationships you need to mend?)

This Week #4-4

This Week we started our D.U.S.T.Y. series discussing what OFF ROAD is all about. “We exist to have a lifelong DEVOTION to God, UNIFIED with other believers, STRENGTHENING our desires to imitate Christ while telling others the TRUTH of who He is and YEARNING to be covered in the dust of the master.” In order to be devoted to God we must have a desire to be devoted. A true desire results in action. Many of us say we desire to do this or that, but nothing we do looks like we really desire that (i.e. I desire to play the piano, but I haven’t done anything about it.) This is not true desire. Read 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. Paul is saying that he is devoting himself to God and spreading the word by being disciplined, having direction and determination. These are also key factors in being devoted to God. OFF ROAD is all about Jesus and making D.U.S.T.Y. students. In order to be DUSTY we must have a desire that leads to devotion so are you ready to get DUSTY?
• What did Paul mean when he said we should go into strict training?
• How are you “training” for God?
• What are some steps you need to take to head toward being devoted to God?
• What is stopping you from being completely devoted to God?
• Of the 3 “D’s” (Discipline, direction, determination) which is the most difficult for you? Explain why.

This Week #4-3

This Week in OFF ROAD we concluded our series on community looking in to what small groups are all about. We have an acronym that helps guide what we want to accomplish at each small group: M.A.P.S. the “M” stands for meaningful God-centered conversation. As God is the most important thing in our lives He should be the most important thing we talk about. “A” is for accountability. As believers we need to have people that can speak into our lives and we need to speak into the lives of others. “P” is for prayer. Often times prayer becomes a routine listing of needs and not a conversation with God. We desire to commune with God on weekly basis (at least). “S” is for scripture. Part of communing with God is allowing Him time to speak. We know this is most often done through His word, so scripture is an integral part of small groups. So what can we do about it? JOIN A SMALL GROUP!!!!

What percentage of your talk goes to: Gossip, Sports, the opposite gender, school, God?
What does accountability mean to you?
Who do you have in your life that keeps you accountable to living correctly? Is there anyone that you are keeping accountable?
Why do you pray?
What keeps you from reading the Bible more? Why is it important to read the Bible?
Of the M, A, P, S which is the hardest for you to do. Why?

This Week #4-2

This week in OFF ROAD we looked at why is it so important to be in community, especially a smaller community than our Saturday night gathering. Jesus shows us by choosing 12 disciples that in order to be really known and loved and really know and love each other we can’t be in huge groups of people. All of us desire more than anything to be known and loved and this should be fulfilled in a small group of Christians that support each other, go through life together and love one another. Small groups is also a great place to have discussion and deeper understanding of God. We see throughout the gospels moments where the disciples are confused about stuff Jesus said. When they don’t understand they ask Jesus questions to gain a better understanding. If disciples were confused about things and they were living with Jesus we can expect to be confused too, so let’s discuss things and come together and help each other figure this thing out.
So what can we do? JOIN A SMALL GROUP!! Starts tonight 6:40-8:15
• What does it mean to “be known”?
• Who knows you the best? Why do THEY know you the best?
• Where or who have you learned the most about the Bible/ God?
• What questions do you have about the Bible and God?
• What are you looking forward most to in Small groups?

This Week #4-1

Welcome to the school year!!!!! I am extremely excited about the new year here in OFF ROAD, the changes and improvements we have made and the opportunity to love God, love other and love one another this year. Before I describe what we talked about this week I want to remind you parents that there will be a brief meeting after OFF ROAD next week to let you know about all the exciting things happening in OFF ROAD this year. PLEASE DON’T MISS OUT.

This Week in OFF ROAD we began a 3 week series titled, “Community,” to discuss the importance of doing this Jesus thing with a group of people and not alone. We looked at the parable of the farmer scattering seed and the outcome of where the seeds fell (Matthew 13). The students learned that being in the good soil requires GOOD SOIL and good soil usually occurs when we are not alone. Instead we are supported, encouraged, challenged, and held accountable and loved by one another. This all happens in community and is impossible without community. We need each other, and we can’t have all of the benefits of community by just showing up on Saturday. That might be a good time to hang out with friends and get to know each other a little bit, but not a great opportunity for deep authentic community. That is why we have Small groups. Small groups will met every Tuesday from 6:40-8:15 and it will be our chance for authentic community that helps cultivate good soil. SO WILL YOU JOIN?????

• What are your biggest distractions from God (Lack of knowledge, Testing of faith, Worries of life)? Explain how that plays out.

• What do you need to do to be in the good soil?

• Why is being in community so important?

• Will you join a small group this year?

Introducing "Love one Another," and "Love Others"

This year in OFF ROAD we will have 2 types of events (outside of Small groups and Weekend services). They will be call "Love Others," and "Love One Another." Our "Love Others" events will take place the last Tuesday of every month during our small group time. Students are encourage to come even if they don't have a small group and they are encouraged to bring friends. These events will be our opportunity to serve those around us.

Our "Love One Another" events will occur after services on Saturday nights. These are our more wild and crazy events such as laser quest and comedy sports. These events allow us to hang out and get to know each other better. We also HIGHLY encourage students to invite friends to these events as it is our desire to reach the lost and this is a great opportunity for friends to experience the awesome community in OFF ROAD.

Keep an eye out for these in the blog, on the calendar and in announcements.