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All You Ever Do Is Change The Old For New

A session looking at how God wants to change us and how we can change for Him. Based on the Delirious? song

Suitable For Ages 11 upwards

Required: candles, matches, cd player, song: My glorious by Delirious?, A means of playing a video clip

Extra Files Needed (i.e. worksheets etc): Honda Advert Video (YouTube Link)

Session Plan

Change – ‘All you ever do is change the old for new’

Start: Start by bringing the group up to date with what’s been looked at so far on the weekend (this session assumes you have previously done the ‘Difference, Changes and Fear session, although you can run this without having done it), see what they can remember.

Game: Split the group into teams and explain that they’re going to play a quiz game. Ask the groups to think of a buzzer noise and buzz in when they know the answer

Questions
1.What animal enters a cocoon and comes out looking totally different? (Caterpillar)
2.Which well-known Apostle did God change the name of on the Damascus road? (Paul)
3.In winter what does water become when it freezes? (Ice)
4.What changed Pharaoh’s mind about letting the people of Israel go? (Plagues, bonus points for naming them)
5.What causes the tides to change? (the moon)
6.In cooking, what liquid is butter made from? (milk)
7.In the Old Testament, God changes Abram’s name to what? (Abraham)

Explain: All these questions relate to someone or something experiencing a change into something new, the track is about God making us into new people.

Play A Song: Delirious – My Glorious (This is found on their album Glo, alternatively just buy the song on itunes)

Questions

The song says ‘all you ever do is change the old for new’, God keeps changing elements of our lives for new ones. Do you ever feel like you’ve messed up once too often?

What does it mean in your life that ‘God is bigger than the air I breathe?’ What situations do you need God to show you that he is bigger than at the moment?

The song refers to clouds breaking and a down-pouring of heaven on earth. Where do you see evidence of that in your life and around you?

Video: Honda – ‘Hate something, Change something, make something better’ Advert (Available from youtube and our video section)

Explain: We live in a world that is pretty rubbish sometimes, when we read papers we seem to read of death and destruction. Around us friends can let us down, boyfriends and girlfriends can break up yet throughout all these changes God remains the same, and God is faithful. He is always there for us and never lets us down and that advert ‘Hate something, change something’ make something better’ is our challenge as Christians, not only to examine ourselves for places where we need God to change us but to examine the world around us for ways God can help us change it, we need to be in the world but not of it.

Bible Verses:

Matthew 5: 14-16,
Romans 12: 1-2

Explain:
We need to be out there but out there showing God’s glory, Jesus says we need to shine like lights, Paul tells us that we need to fix our eyes on God in order to be changed to become more like Christ. When we offer our lives to God as a living sacrifice (as Paul says) it means we allow God to change us, it means we acknowledge that God is bigger than the air we breathe and that we need him to change the ‘old for new’. Jesus says this in Luke 9: (read Luke 9: 23-27)

Response:
Tonight I just want us to spend the last few minutes listening to the Delirious song again and thinking about two things.

First – Think about how God wants you to change
Second – Think about the world around you, do you feel God showing you something he wants you to change in the world?

(you could invite the young people to light candles as a response or have some leaders prepared to pray with young people)
Finish the session how you feel appropriate, I’ve found that a general prayer works nicely!