Fear Busters!
We are in our fourth week of the Fear Busters curriculum in Voltage and the kids are really opening up about some of the fears.
Our main scripture for this month has been Psalm 34:4 I PRAYED TO THE LORD, AND HE ANSWERED ME. HE FREED ME FROM ALL MY FEARS.
Nearly all members of the Voltage Team have the great privilege and responsibility of leading a Connect Group for kids – we call them Kids Discipleship Groups (KDGs) or Tribes. After praise and worship, prayer, the giving message and the word being preached, we split all the kids up into their connect groups by age and discuss what was preached about as well as the theme for the month. There are questions to get us started off but the main thing is for us to personalise our connect group time and prepare during the week for this time.
We started the month talking about the importance of prayer and setting the foundation to show the Voltage kids that they can talk to God about absolutely anything. That week I was amazed to see that the kids really understood that they had access to God at ALL times.
The second week of the programme we spoke about how the Israelite spies in Numbers chapter 13 who gave a bad report and discouraged others because they were afraid of what they saw (all except Caleb and Joshua). We talked a bit about the different things we are/have been afraid of in our lives. You would not be surprised that things like spiders and tarantulas appeared on the list quite a few times! What did surprise me were some of the kids saying things like ‘I’m afraid of letting my parents down by not getting the best grades in my exams’, ‘I’m afraid of earthquakes, ‘I’ve always been afraid of someone breaking into our home’.
These latter examples really shocked me because these are not just fears of things that can physically attack and harm you like snakes or spiders but these are fears that are fuelled by worry and dread. These types of fears involve a seed of doubt taking root and slowly growing until they become a fully blown fear – it is these types of fears that keep some adults awake at night and it really touched me that some of our Voltage kids were dealing with these too.
I saw the opportunity to link this teaching back to our first week when we talked about prayer and how God answers prayer and I encouraged them when they pray to talk about their fears with God and we went through scriptures like Hebrews 13:6 (NIrV) We can say boldly, “The Lord helps me. I will not be afraid. What can a mere man do to me?” and Isaiah 41:10 (NIrV) “So do not be afraid. I am with you. Do not be terrified. I am your God. I will make you strong and help you. My powerful right hand will take good care of you.” I encouraged them to read scriptures on what God says about fear when they are at home and reminded them what a testimony it would be to their friends if they overcame their fears.
One of my High Voltage kids (I also lead a group of kids who serve on Team) mentioned that there are 365 mentions of “fear not” in the Bible – one for every day of the year and this really continued to encourage the kids. We ended our connect group with one of the kids praying that the chains of fear would be broken from each and every one of their lives.
The following week I had each of the kids in my connect group take in turns reading from the story of Esther (the part where she had to go before the king). I asked them how they thought she must have felt and how she surrendered it all to God. We then looked at some more scriptures on fear like Psalm 56:3 (NIRV) “When I’m afraid, I will trust in you” and I asked them at the end of our connect group how they were doing in combating their fears and what helped them. They all mentioned prayer as their main source of comfort but they also started telling me that they were using the scriptures we had been through at home with one saying that she had written Psalm 34:4 visibly in her room for her to remember it!
I am truly enjoying seeing God work through the Voltage kids’ lives and seeing them build a solid foundation so that as they grow they will have some of these things ingrained in them and will not allow anyone speak words of fear over them because they know their God is greater.
We have a one more week of the ‘Fear Busters’ curriculum and I cannot wait to see what God does in the Voltage kids next!