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    Half Truths Youth Leader Guide: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say
    Half Truths Youth Leader Guide: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say
    Half Truths Youth Leader Guide: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    Half Truths Youth Leader Guide: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say

    By Adam Hamilton

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    About this ebook

    They are simple phrases. They sound Christian—like something you
    might find in the Bible. We’ve all heard these words. Maybe we’ve said
    them. They capture some element of truth, yet they miss the point in
    important ways.


    Join Adam Hamilton in this 5-week Bible study to search for the whole
    truth by comparing common Christian clichés with the wisdom found in
    Scripture. The clichés include:


    Everything happens for a reason.

    God helps those who help themselves.

    God won’t give you more than you can handle.

    God said it, I believe it, that settles it.

    Love the sinner, hate the sin.


    Contains everything needed to conduct a 5-session study, including discussion questions, activities, and suggestions for organizing and facilitating a group. Can be used with the adult-level DVD.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateApr 4, 2016
    ISBN9781501814013
    Half Truths Youth Leader Guide: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say
    Author

    Adam Hamilton

    Adam Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City. Started in 1990 with four people, the church has grown to become the largest United Methodist Church in the United States with over 18,000 members. The church is well known for connecting with agnostics, skeptics, and spiritual seekers. In 2012, it was recognized as the most influential mainline church in America, and Hamilton was asked by the White House to deliver the sermon at the Obama inaugural prayer service. Hamilton, whose theological training includes an undergraduate degree from Oral Roberts University and a graduate degree from Southern Methodist University where he was honored for his work in social ethics, is the author of nineteen books. He has been married to his wife, LaVon, for thirty-one years and has two adult daughters.

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    • 3/5
      2.5-3 stars. Kind of bland and some of his arguments are just weak, around Biblical hermeneutics in particular. I tend to assume that’s because of the nature of the book, but I know he doesn’t go deeper in his book on reading the Bible, so...

    Book preview

    Half Truths Youth Leader Guide - Adam Hamilton

    ADAM HAMILTON

    Author of 24 Hours That Changed the World, The Journey, and The Way

    HALF

    TRUTHS

    GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES

    AND OTHER THINGS THE BIBLE DOESN’T SAY

    Youth Leader Guide

    by Mike Poteet

    Consists of Leader Helps + Youth Study Book

    HALF TRUTHS

    Youth Leader Guide

    Copyright © 2016 by Abingdon Press

    All rights reserved.

    No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., PO Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228-0988; or e-mailed to permissions@umpublishing.org.

    This book is printed on elemental chlorine-free paper.

    ISBN 978-1-5018-1400-6

    Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

    Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 —10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

    CONTENTS

    Leader Helps

    To the Leader

    1. Everything Happens for a Reason

    2. God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

    3. God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle

    4. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It

    5. Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin

    Youth Study Book

    Introduction

    1. Everything Happens for a Reason

    2. God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

    3. God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle

    4. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It

    5. Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin

    Notes

    LEADER HELPS

    TO THE LEADER

    Welcome to the Youth Leader Guide for the Half Truths study program.

    The study program is based on Adam Hamilton’s book Half Truths: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn’t Say. The book examines five commonly used sayings that sound biblical but in fact aren’t in the Bible and sometimes actually work against the core messages found in Scripture. Hamilton calls these sayings half truths, because in most cases they get the truth partly right and partly wrong.

    Half truths are a topic that youth, often passionate about honesty, will be keenly interested in. This youth component of Hamilton’s study, consisting of five sessions, may be used as part of an all-ages, congregation-wide study of half truths, or by itself as a unit in your Sunday school or youth ministry programming. You can use all five sessions or a selection or a single session—although some sessions reference others, they do not build on each other in a strict sequence.

    About This Youth Leader Guide

    As you may have noticed on the title page and in the contents, the Youth Leader Guide consists of two parts: Leader Helps and Youth Study Book.

    This first part of this guide, Leader Helps, gives you as leader the information and support you’ll need to facilitate a successful study with your group. It contains session plans for the five chapters in the youth study.

    The second part of the guide, Youth Study Book, reproduces in full the youth participant book, allowing you—literally—to be on the same page as your group.

    Each session uses the following format:

    Gather Around God’s Word

    Design a worship space for your group and meet there to read and pray aloud the brief litany at the beginning of each session. The Scripture responses at the beginning and end do not change from session to session, but the prayer does. You may wish to listen to joys and concerns from participants and pray about those before using the printed text as a concluding prayer. Each session includes a suggested hymn for participants to sing (or read aloud) together.

    Getting Started

    Each session includes an icebreaker or other activity to engage youth with the theme underlying the half truth to be discussed.

    Study the Scripture

    Use these questions to discuss each session’s key Scripture passage. With the exception of Session 4, the Scripture passages are the same ones chosen by Adam Hamilton in Half Truths. Session 4 substitutes a passage Hamilton discusses at some length in the book and which should help youth get more directly to that session’s content.

    Read and Reflect

    You may want to ask youth to read these essays on their own before your session; or, if time allows, you can have them read the essays during your meeting. Each essay examines the theology and Scripture (or lack of Scripture) behind the half truth. These Leader Helps contain questions keyed to each essay.

    Suggested Activities

    Each session presents four activity options intended to reinforce the content or to move youth to practical action based on the session. One of each session’s activities is movie-related. (As noted, however, exercise judgment before deciding to show the clip from Dead Man Walking in Session 5.) If you are meeting in a setting that is not a private home, be certain your congregation participates in a program that provides a license to show film clips publicly.

    Daily Bible Readings

    Encourage youth to follow these six-day schedules of readings in between sessions.

    Session 1

    EVERYTHING HAPPENS

    FOR A REASON

    Gather Around God’s Word

    This week’s suggested hymn, Be Still, My Soul, addresses in verse 2 some themes relevant to the session. Without claiming that everything happens for a reason, the hymn text promises that God will guide the future, as in ages past, and looks forward with hope to the day when all now mysterious shall be bright at last. (You can find historical information about this hymn at http://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-be-still-my-soul.)

    Getting Started

    Allow youth time to complete the activity in

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