SESSION GUIDE SESSION TWO This Session Guide is designed to give you a quick overview of everything you ll need to make this session happen, from start to finish. WWW.XP3MS.COM THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE XP3 MIDDLE SCHOOL Chief Executive Officer Reggie Joiner Creative Director Elle Campbell XP3 MS Team Sarah Bragg Kenny Campbell Josh Lamm Tom Shefchunas Contributing Writer Brooklyn Lindsey Illustrator Brandon Earnhart Graphics & Video Ben Grant Beth Helmer Donny Joiner Anthony Young Orange Specialist Ben Nunes Technical & Web Support Hadley Brandt Chief Operating Officer Reggie Goodin USER AGREEMENT The rethink Group, Inc. gladly grants permission to churches, schools and other licensees to tailor XP3 Middle School materials to fit their unique leadership requirements, locale and format preferences. However, if you wish to edit the content substantively, including teaching scripts, small group guides, and any other content in which biblical principles and concepts are presented, you are obligated to do so within the doctrinal guidelines we ve expressed in our Statement of Faith. These resources are intended to be downloaded and printed for use by the subscribing entity only and may not be electronically transferred to or duplicated by other non-subscribing entities. Any unauthorized 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. XP3 Middle School and the XP3 Middle School logo are trademarks of The rethink Group, Inc.
FLIPPED SESSION TWO STUCK SESSION SUMMARY We ve all been given a nickname at some point in our lives. Maybe your nickname is a name your parents gave you when you were little. Or maybe it s just a shortened version of your real name. Or maybe your nickname has to do with something else maybe, for good or bad, it has to do with what you look like, what you sound like, or something you once did. Some nicknames can be endearing, but others can be downright embarrassing. That s because the things people call us are important to us, aren t they? So what do we do when we find ourselves stuck with a name, reputation, or label that we d like to get rid of? Who has the right to label us? And do we have the right to label other people? This week we ll talk about a woman who was given a painful label and what Jesus did about it. As we do, we might just discover that, just like that woman, the way that God labels us has the power to change everything. BOTTOM LINE Everything flips when you know you re His child. PRELUDE Setting the tone for the experience. BACKGROUND PLAYLIST Our suggested background playlists for each series are also available on Spotify. SOCIAL Providing time for fun interaction. Since we re talking about identity and labels in this session, we recommend the game Logo-A-Go-Go from the XP3 Middle School Games Library. A Real Hero by Smallpools (from A Real Hero) How Hard I Try by filous (from Dawn EP) Boomerang by Walf Off the Earth (from Boomerang) Rivers by Thomas Jack (from Rovers) White Light by Shura (from White Light) Stockholm by Atlas Genius (from Stockholm) Higher Love by Prides (from Higher Love) Hill Top by Josh Stevens (from Hill Top) Untouchable by Tritonal (from Untouchable) Climbing Walls by Strange Talk (from Cast Away)
SESSION GUIDE 2 TRANSITIONS Moving smoothly from one thing to another. SCREEN GRAPHICS Display the Main Slide image or Loop video from this series (found in your Graphic Support folder) on your screen throughout your program. BUMPER VIDEO Use the Bumper video for this series to transition into your teaching time. WORSHIP Inviting people to respond to God. Choose 2-3 songs from our recommended Set List: I Am Not the Same by Unhindered (from Unhindered) No Longer Slaves by Bethel Music, Jonathan David & Melissa Helser (from We Will Not Be Shaken (Live)) Sons and Daughters by Brett Stanfill (from North Point InsideOut: Hear (Live)) This I Believe (The Creed) by Hillsong Worship (from No Other Name) STORY Communicating God s truth in engaging ways. TEACHING SCRIPT You ll find the Teaching Outline and Teaching Script for this session in your Session 2 folder. INTERACTIVE In this session, you ll use a Prop (a board with sticky labels) to help your students think about the labels we believe about ourselves or that we give to others. TEACHING AUDIO The Teaching Audio of this session can be found in the Session 2 folder. STUDENT NOTE PAGE The Student Note Page for Session 2 features a blank name tag and instructions for your students to invent a new label for themselves for the day. TEACHING VIDEO The Teaching Video for Session 2 can take the place of a live communicator, but it won t cover the Interactive, so you ll still want to prepare for that. GROUPS Creating a safe place to connect. Use the SGL Email for Session 2 to tell your small group leaders what they need to know, and what they need to do, to prepare this week. Don t forget to attach the Small Group Guide, and print enough copies for all of your small group leaders. Be sure to prepare your SGLs in advance for the XP, which will take place during Session 3. They ll need some supplies and clear instructions to make it happen! HOME Prompting action beyond the experience. Use the Social Media Plan for this Series to stay in touch with parents and students during the week. If you haven t already, be sure to send parents their Parent Cue!
TEACHING OUTLINE FLIPPED SESSION TWO STUCK BOTTOM LINE EVERYTHING FLIPS WHEN YOU KNOW YOU RE HIS CHILD. SCRIPTURE A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed... MARK 5:24-34 (NIV) ANGLE OF SCRIPTURE This week, we re going to look at the story of the sick woman who touched Jesus robe. While there is a lot of great application we could potentially mine from this passage, we re going to focus on one big word that Jesus used to describe her: daughter. Because, like many of us, this woman wore a lot of labels. That is, until Jesus gave her a new one: His child. SESSION SUMMARY INTRO Today we re going to talk about something that we all have: a name. Tell a personal story. Sometimes the names we give or receive are harmful. TENSION Begin the Interactive. What are some labels you hear thrown around? When we re given a label, even if it isn t true, we sometimes become that label. TRUTH In Mark 5, we see the story of a sick woman who was probably labeled as poor, ill, contagious, and a sinner. But Jesus gave her a new label: daughter. APPLICATION God doesn t see the labels you ve been given. He sees His child. Wrap up the Interactive. Let God have the final word on who you are. See yourself and others as if you re His child. LANDING Jesus wants you to know you matter and so does everyone else. Everything flips when you know you re God s child. QUESTION HOW WOULD MY LIFE CHANGE IF I REALLY BELIEVED THAT I M GOD S CHILD?
TEACHING SCRIPT STUCK BOTTOM LINE EVERYTHING FLIPS WHEN YOU KNOW YOU RE HIS CHILD. INTRODUCTION Today, we re going to talk about something that every single one of us has: a name. Does anyone have a nickname that you just hate? Maybe it s something cheesy that your grandma calls you? Or maybe you have a name that always gets mispronounced? Anyone? [Let a few students respond.] TELL A PERSONAL STORY: Tell a personal story that illustrates the following ideas... Share a silly or annoying nickname that someone gave you. Keep it short and make it funny. The point is to help your students connect with you personally, not to make a point or illustrate a principle. Maybe it s not that big of a deal when people get our names wrong, or call us by names we don t like. But I think it s understandable that being called by the wrong names can sometimes bother us so much. Our names are important, aren t they? Our names have a lot to do with our identities, so it matters to us that people get them right. Sort of like the game we played earlier today, our names tell people who we are. So it makes sense that we don t want to be called by names that we don t like. Maybe you know what it s like to be called by other kinds of names, too. Names that describe you in ways you don t like. A loser. A jerk. A nerd. Annoying. A loner. People like to label each other and, sometimes, those labels can be pretty hurtful. TENSION INTERACTIVE: Stuck On A Label See the Interactive for detailed instructions. It can be tricky when people call us names or give us labels. Over time, if enough people tell us that we re a loser, or a nerd, or a bully, or a jerk, or whatever it is they call us, we start to believe it. When we re given a label, even if that label isn t true, we sometimes become that label. After all, if enough people say it s true, then it must be true right?
TEACHING SCRIPT 2 Some of you know the feeling. You tried out for a team and didn t make it. You were given a nickname that you can t shake. You ve been crushed by someone s joking. You heard an untrue story about you so often that you ve grown to believe it, too. Sometimes we get labels that we don t want, but we don t know how to get rid of them. Resisting an unwanted label can take effort. Sometimes it might feel easier to just accept it. And sometimes we give labels to other people. Labels are a big deal. So what do we do with them? Who has the right to label us? And do we have the right to label other people? 5 MINUTES TRUTH We re in the middle of a series where we re taking a look at three people who met with Jesus and had their lives changed forever. For all three of these people, Jesus flips their thinking upside down, which then flips their lives upside down. Today, we re going to look at the story of someone who was given a painful label. In the town where this story takes place, we find Jesus on a journey. At the time, Jesus had earned a reputation for being able to miraculously heal people. As you can probably imagine, that made Him pretty popular. In fact, when this story begins, Jesus is on his way to heal the daughter of a very rich and important man. But on the way to the house, Jesus meets someone much less dignified. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse (Mark 5:24-26 NIV). We don t know a lot about this woman, but we know she was poor and that she had been labeled because of her illness. People avoided her. They were probably afraid that she was contagious, but there was something else, too. Back then, many people believed that sickness was a punishment from God for your sins. So not only was she probably labeled as poor, sick, and possibly contagious, she was probably labeled as a sinner, too. Those labels became her identity and the whole town kept their distance not for a day, not for a week, but for twelve years. For some of you, 12 years is an entire lifetime. But listen to what happens next. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed (Mark 5:27-28 NIV). She was curious about Jesus and all the things she had heard about Him, so she approached Him. She didn t speak to Him, though. Maybe she was afraid He would reject her. Maybe she didn t think she was worthy of speaking to Him. Instead, she quietly touched the edge of Jesus clothes. That s when her world flipped. Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? (Mark 5:29-30 NIV) Terrified, the woman falls to the ground and admits what she s done. And what happens next is simply amazing. Jesus says to her Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. (Mark 5:34 NIV) Daughter? Jesus called her Daughter! She was someone who had been completely avoided, but then Jesus called her His child. This is the only recorded time in history when Jesus uses that word. In one word, daughter, her identity changed. In fact, everything changed. Jesus said, Go in peace and be freed from your suffering, and she did. She stopped bleeding. She was healed. But I think Jesus was talking about more than physical suffering. He saw the painful names people had given her. She was suffering under the opinions and judgments of other people. Jesus gave her a new name, one that freed her from being a victim of everyone s judgment, and her own, too. She thought she was a nobody. The whole town saw her as a nobody. But Jesus told her she was a somebody. She
TEACHING SCRIPT 3 was His daughter. 10 MINUTES APPLICATION Like the woman in the story, many of you have been given painful labels. You feel trapped by them. You feel like you either need to live up to them or live them down. Some of you come to church, but you feel like you don t fit. Based on your past, or on some decisions you ve made, you ve decided you ll never belong here or even with God. But just like Jesus invited the woman in this story to let Him decide who she was, and to leave the pain of her past, He does the same for you. He doesn t see the labels you ve been given. He sees you. And He invites you to let Him give you a new label: His child. [Add the final label to the board: His Child. ] Things change when you believe that you are God s child. Having that name means you belong and matter to Him. When you let Him redefine you, everything flips. Your life changes. If that s what you want. If you want to trust in God s labels for you, rather than the labels that other people have given you, I think you need to think about two questions. First, who gets to label you? Decide who gets to define you. Decide which labels you ll live up to. Jesus has already called you His. Let that be the label you let define you. He created you. He loves you. Look to Him for who you are. Let Him have the final word on who you are as His child. Next, who gets to label others? When you look at other people, you will be tempted to see them based on the labels they ve been given. You ll see some as unimportant or unlovable. You ll see others as rich, popular, or powerful. Most of the time you won t even notice that you re doing it, but the way you see people usually affects how you treat people. What do you think would happen if you decided to see everyone around you as His, too? I think it would change the way you treat people. Jesus changed a woman s life when He changed her label and gave her a new name. He changed the way people thought about her and the way she thought about herself. And He wants to do the same thing for you, Jesus wants you to know that you matter. Because everything flips when you know you re God s child. LANDING As you head to small group, imagine what it would look like to see only this one label on yourself, and on everyone else, too. Then think about this question. How do our lives change when we believe that we re God s child? 15 MINUTES STOP TRANSITION INTO SMALL GROUPS
INTERACTIVE STUCK ON A LABEL PROP OVERVIEW This Interactive is a prop designed to help you build (and later resolve) the tension of which labels we choose to accept for ourselves and which labels we give to others. THE SET-UP WHAT YOU LL NEED A large board or segment of wall Cardstock or sticky labels, size 8.5 x 11 One sheet of cardstock or paper, size 11 x 17 The graphic files provided in your Interactive folder Double-sided tape (if you re not using sticky labels) THE HOW-TO As you prepare for this session, think about some of the labels (positive, neutral, or negative) that might resonate with your students. Smart. Funny. Sporty. Band geek. Nerd. Loser. Loner. Bully. Popular. Outcast. Using the graphics provided in your Interactive folder, create a label for each of the words you d like to use. Then look at the story of the sick woman and create a label for label word you ll use to describe her. We recommend: Poor. Sick. Contagious. Sinner. Finally, print out the large His Child label provided and trim it to size. Then set up your board or segment of wall where you ll be creating your prop. As you teach, add labels to the board whenever you mention the word written on each label. Begin with using generic labels during the Tension section of your teaching. Then, when you discuss the story of the woman, add the labels that correspond with her story. Let the labels overlap each other and pile up haphazardly. Then, when you reach the Application section of your teaching and are ready to introduce the bottom line, stick the large His Child label on top of all of the others, in the center of your board. See your Teaching Script for more cues and instructions. IF USING THE TEACHING VIDEO... The video for this session will not cover the Interactive for you. If you would like to use this Interactive along with the video, we recommend creating your board of labels (minus the labels from the sick woman s story and the His Child label) as a collaboration with your students. Ask them to suggest labels they ve heard or been given and add them to the board. Then play the video. After the video is over, add the His Child label and close.
STUCK FLIPPED: SESSION TWO BOTTOM LINE EVERYTHING FLIPS WHEN YOU KNOW YOU RE HIS CHILD. SCRIPTURE: A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak... MARK 5:24-34 (NIV) GOAL OF SMALL GROUP: To help students see that Jesus knows them better than they know themselves and how their whole life changes when they believe His label for them is My child. To do this, create meaningful conversation. This guide is a suggestion, not a formula. Adjust the questions and activities as needed, and don t feel like you need to do, or ask, everything you see here. THINK ABOUT THIS SAY THIS Today, we heard about a woman who probably would have loved to invent a new identity for herself. Can someone recap what we talked about today? Last week we said that there are three things we d love every middle schooler to say about their own faith by the time they leave eighth grade. Here s the second one: I will follow Jesus because He knows me better than I know myself. Of course, there are plenty of reasons to follow Jesus, but this is a big one for a middle schooler. As they are struggling to form and discover their own identity (and wrestling with the labels they ve been given), we get to remind them that God can tell us who we are because He made us. Go ahead and repeat that phrase often to your middle schoolers. It matters! JUST FOR FUN If you could invent a brand new identity for yourself, who would you be? DISCUSSION QUESTIONS What s a one-word label you d love to have? Talk about a time when a label affected the way you saw yourself. Why do you think labels are so powerful? Think about the things you say to people in a given day even when you re joking. How do you think your words are affecting people? What if they believed everything you said? If God were labeling you right now, what do you think He would say about you? What s one way someone s life might change when they start believing that God s labels for them are more important than anyone else s? How would you treat others differently if you saw them the way God sees them? On scraps of paper, ask your few to write down one label they are going to stop believing about themselves. Then TRY THIS ask them to give you those scraps of paper and, instead, to choose a new label they re going to believe instead (like Loved, Daughter, Son, Child of God). Have them write that new label somewhere another scrap of paper, inside their Bibles, or maybe on their hand. Keep their original labels and pray for each of them during the week.
SGL EMAIL FLIPPED: SESSION TWO Remember to email your leaders every week with the small group questions attached. This will allow your leaders to review the material before they sit down to lead discussion. Be mindful to encourage your leaders, celebrate their successes, and thank them for being committed. Copy and paste the following into an email to your small group leaders... Hi Leaders We re in week two of Flipped. Last week we focused on how much God loves us. This week, we re going to talk about identity and how the most important label we have is the label of God s child. It s a simple message, but one everyone needs to hear. See you soon! SERIES PREVIEW https://vimeo.com/xp3ms/flipped SESSION 2 SUMMARY: Stuck [Insert Date] We ve all been given a nickname at some point in our lives. Maybe your nickname is a name your parents gave you when you were little. Or maybe it s just a shortened version of your real name. Or maybe your nickname has to do with something else maybe, for good or bad, it has to do with what you look like, what you sound like, or something you once did. Some nicknames can be endearing, but others can be downright embarrassing. That s because the things people call us are important to us, aren t they? So what do we do when we find ourselves stuck with a name, reputation, or label that we d like to get rid of? Who has the right to label us? And do we have the right to label other people? This week we ll talk about a woman who was given a painful label and what Jesus did about it. As we do, we might just discover that, just like that woman, the way that God labels us has the power to change everything. BOTTOM LINE Everything flips when you know you re His child. THE GOAL OF SMALL GROUP To help students see that Jesus knows them better than they know themselves and how their whole life changes when they believe His label for them is My child. STORIES Anytime you have a win with your small group, not only would we love to hear it, but you can also share it with an online community of small group leaders leaders who do what you do every week at leadsmall.org. Just click here: http://leadsmall.org/submit/?age_group=56 Be sure to include important ministry dates, announcements, and events. And don t forget to attach your Small Group Guide for this session.