Weekend Teaching Series: RESET: Jesus, Fresh Starts & Screaming Goats (series kickoff, week 1 of 4)

Sermon Synopsis: This weekend was a special one because it is the first weekend of the New Year and featured a special guest speaker: Doug Fields! Fun and games then one song and right into the talk. Fields taught through the passage in Luke 8, helping students understand that Jesus is available and His touch brings healing. He played the clip of the Pope from this week, which was a perfect cultural moment to illustrate the point of a healing touch, and helped students understand that Jesus can bring healing in their lives emotionally, physically and spiritually as well. He invited them into a “reset” moment as part of the closing. It was a great start to a series in a New Year reminding them that Jesus is all about giving people a fresh start.

Service Length: 66 minutes

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We are going all out for this series to capitalize on the momentum of the New Year. We had a fun promotion where if you bring someone who has never “checked in” … both of you get a free T-shirt! Huge win – had lots of visitors. We also played the incredible and hilarious Screaming or Fainting Goats game from DYM and had lots of donuts for winners. We also tried out a fun skit idea that totally worked (you can download the skit here for free). Good times, lots of laughs and energy all around.

Music Playlist: Just one song this weekend: Endless Praise

Takeaway: This week if a student made a decision to “reset” something with Jesus’ help, they could take a round Reset sticker with them when they left and were challenged to place it somewhere to remind them of this moment.

Home/parent emphasis: This series we’re working to connect students’ experience at the weekend to their parents/home. So at the bottom of the program there was a little  “have any conversation with your parents about the service and have them text in” and students would be entered to win a prize. So far the response has been quite minimal honestly, but we think it’s a good idea and something to build on!

Favorite Moment: Seeing my son jump right into a 7th grade boys group was really awesome, and since we had more students than we expected, we were short of leaders, so he just jumped right in and asked the discussion questions on the leader sheet like a boss. Proud youth ministry dad moment right there!

Up next: RESET (week 2 of 4)