Spiritual Conversations: Sharing Life, Faith, and Jesus with Friends is a seven-lesson course designed for teachers and youth leaders to help high school-aged students recognize and respond to opportunities to have spiritual conversations.
Combining insights from Barna Group research and LHM’s commitment to equipping people to share the Gospel, this course includes interactive group activities, videos, data to consider, opportunities for discussions on Scripture and faith-sharing conversations, and more. The lessons can be presented daily, weekly, or even monthly, depending on the context and schedule of the group.
The Teacher Guide explains how to implement the course and engage students. Instructors are considered the classroom experts, but being an expert in spiritual conversations isn’t necessary to have a powerful learning experience. Lessons begin with a purpose and learning goals. Kickstarter Questions get students thinking on topic, while videos and group activities create a fun environment for exploring video content and related Scriptures. At each lesson’s conclusion, Exit Tickets give students the chance to share their thoughts, prayer requests, and more, in a confidential manner with their teacher.
The underlying motivator in Spiritual Conversations: Sharing Life, Faith, and Jesus with Friends is the apostle Paul’s exhortation in Colossians 4:5-6 to “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Insights gleaned from LHM’s Spiritual Conversation Curve and LHM Learn’s online suite of Barna-based Outreach Essentials courses have played a key role in building this course.
Ninth through 12th grade students at Orange Lutheran High School in Orange, California, have been using the program in their Missions class this semester. Lisa Baermann, director of missions, found out about the program through a friend who works at LHM. Jessica Heim, the missions class teacher, shared her experience using the program this semester.
“Our students are enjoying how interactive the curriculum is and that they are given the opportunity to observe and evaluate spiritual conversations in many different scenarios and then also get to role-play themselves,” says Heim. “They appreciate that it was made specifically for their age group and that it allows them to think about spiritual conversations in a way they can actually connect with.”
“I just wanted to share how much we are loving the high school curriculum from LHM,” says Baermann. “It literally is an answer to prayers for our semester. We had developed our own curriculum, which I think has good points, but it is just so great to have this resource to guide us through. And then we just have added some of our content and ideas alongside. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.”
Visit lhm.org/schs to find out more and register for Spiritual Conversations: Sharing Life, Faith, and Jesus with Friends.