Blurb
Fear and anxiety. Two very real and very difficult struggles that are plaguing young people today. This month, we are exploring the relationship between fear and anxiety and we are giving students practical tools to experience God’s peace and power in the middle of it all.
Description and Notes
This month, we’re talking about fear and anxiety. This is such an important conversation because teenagers today are more anxious than ever. Our goal is to approach this topic with as much empathy and understanding as possible by making sure we acknowledge the differences between fear and anxiety. Here are our working definitions for this month.
Fear: an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.
Anxiety: an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear. We want our students to know that even though anxiety can be a really complicated topic, God wants them to experience peace, and the things we talk about this month will absolutely be a helpful step toward them finding peace. Their anxiety may not go away overnight, but hopefully we can help them move in the right direction.
In week one, we are mixing it up with SwitchOut. Switch groups will get ready together as a group for SwitchFest and begin the discussion on fear and anxiety that will take place the rest of the month.
During week two we’re diving in to the topic of disappointment. Specifically how disappointment, when reality is worse than our expectations, can lead to fear of future disappointment, that can often lead to anxiety. We are exploring how God not only wants to meet us in our disappointment, but how He can redeem our disappointment and turn it into something greater than we can imagine.
Week three we’re unpacking the idea that anxiety can feel like you’re waging a war with yourself. We’re going to help equip students to win the war with themselves so that they can move past anxiety and experience the peace that God wants for them.
For week four we are going to talk about a power that is available to all of us and can help us find peace in the middle of the fears and anxieties that so often cripple us. We’re talking about how God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us conquer our fears and find relief from anxiety through His peace. Because even though fear and anxiety are real, so is the power that God has given to us.
Finally, we wrap up week five with a much-needed conversation on the role of suffering in our lives and how even though it often leads to anxiety, God gives us a way to find peace through suffering. We are going to help students start asking better questions about suffering so that they can find purpose and peace in spite of the pain they may be experiencing.
