Conversations on Christian topics. Topics of conversations with priests Interesting topics for Christian youth

Good and very in an effective way evangelization is the so-called Bible circle or, in other words, meetings for those who are interested Christian faith.

In our church we have quite successful experience in conducting such classes. I want to share some of my experiences. So, first you need to decide on a list of questions and tasks that face those who want to start this kind of work.

1. Where to hold meetings.
2. How often to hold meetings.
3. Where, how and who to invite.
4. What topics to choose.
5. How to conduct communication.

Let's look at everything in order.

Where to hold meetings?

There are several options: House of Prayer, the house or apartment of one of the believers, a neutral place - rented premises, a cafe, and so on.

Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages. My personal experience suggests that it is best to hold Bible circle meetings in the House of Prayer. Why? Firstly, it is convenient, since the House of Prayer most often has all the necessary conditions. Secondly, the invited person involuntarily gets acquainted with the House of Prayer and gets used to it. Subsequently, it will be easier for him to come to worship.

A private house or an apartment is a good option, but has a number of significant disadvantages. Starting from the fact that to a stranger it is much more difficult to come to someone's personal home than to public place, which is the House of Prayer, and ending with the fact that the meeting may be unwittingly interfered with by people living in the house or apartment.

The third option is well suited if the House of Prayer is located in an inconvenient place or for some reason it is impossible to gather in it. It's better to rent a room than to gather in private house. But this option is the most expensive of all.

How often to hold meetings.

It’s worth noting right away that frequency is not as important as consistency. It is better to have meetings less frequently than to cancel appointments that have already been scheduled from time to time. Good results are achieved with a weekly regimen. In this case, there is enough time to prepare for the next meeting. In addition, the impressions and memories of the meeting will not yet have time to fade for a person who comes to such a conversation within a week.

Setting the frequency less than twice a month is not recommended. The rarer the frequency of communications, the more difficult it is to create a friendly, trusting atmosphere during them, and it is difficult to instill in those visiting the need for such meetings.

Where, how and who to invite.

Let's consider two different types invitations to such meetings.

1. Personal invitation.

You could ask each church member to make a list of those unbelieving people he knows personally. After this, it is necessary that the one who compiled the list invited everyone on this list to communicate. If the invitee refuses, then it is advisable to ask him if he knows anyone who might be interested in such an invitation.

Our church's experience has shown that the personal invitation method is the most effective.

2. Invitation through invitations, announcements and so on.

In the second case, people are invited to meetings using: invitations and announcements

According to statistics, about 1-2% of total number invited

What topics to choose?

Topics can be very diverse. For example:

Does man need God?
-Can a person have communication with God?
- Why do we trust the Bible?
- What is sin and what are its consequences?
- How to overcome sin?
- What is the Church?
- Does true freedom exist?

I will post some materials for preparing these topics on this site under the heading “conversations on Christian themes".

How to communicate.

We immediately decided that such evenings should take place in a friendly, simple, informal setting. This is not worship, in the usual sense of the word, it is precisely communication. We set up tables, buy cookies and sweets and pour tea. Usually communication begins a little after six in the evening, sometimes even at half past seven. But it's not scary. The time while we are waiting for all latecomers is used for communication between those who arrived. Usually from 5 to 15 people come to us. It is better if there are few church members. The most acceptable would be two or three brothers and a sister who would serve the table and accompany on the piano. If more church members come to the fellowship, people may feel uneasy.

Communication begins with prayer. If I see that there are those who came for the first time, then I explain in detail how and why we pray. In roughly these words:

Dear friends. We have Christian fellowship. And since we are Christians, we always ask our God to bless us. For this we will pray. We usually pray on our knees or standing. Now we will stand up and I will say a prayer. If you agree with the words of the prayer, then at the end you can say the word “amen”, which means “truly so.”

After the prayer, I talk about how the communication will go. It is very important to remind those who come that we have communication, so everyone can ask any question, express their opinion, and if they don’t agree with something, then don’t be shy about saying so.

After such an announcement, we invite people to get to know each other. Usually the acquaintance is short. It is suggested to say your name and your relationship to God. It turns out something like this:

My name is Alexey, I am Orthodox, but I don’t go to church.
- My name is Olya, I don’t know what my relationship to God is.
- My name is Mikhail Ivanovich, I think that there is some kind of power in space, but I’m not sure.

Sometimes the introduction can be supplemented with questions. For example:

What do you expect from these communications?
- Tell us about the time when God saved you.
-Have you ever prayed?

After getting acquainted, we propose a topic for discussion.

It is very useful to formulate the topic in the form of a question and ask this question at the very beginning. I usually ask each person who comes in turn. At this stage, you should not discuss the answers; you need to let the person express his opinion. After everyone has spoken, you need to offer your thoughts. But it is important to remember that communication should not turn into a sermon or monologue. It should be remembered that someone may express an opinion that sharply differs from the Christian one. In any case, you need to treat the person with respect and patience.

If someone who came to the conversation had a birthday the other day, then this is a great way to spend the evening: give the birthday person a small gift, buy a cake. The costs are small, and for non-believers this is further proof that the church is truly one family.

You can sing at the middle and end of the conversation. It is imperative to allocate time (at least one third of the total time) for questions. This is the most important part of communication. Sometimes we even devote the entire evening to questions and answers, and leave the topic for next time.

It is useful if the leader of communication gives everyone his phone number, and writes down the numbers of those who came. I usually send everyone a text message reminding them about the next meeting.

In this book you will discover a goldmine of practical youth ministry ideas for Bible study, evangelistic programs, prayer, games, working with large audiences, tips on how to start a discussion and capture the attention of listeners. All these ideas were developed in practice and sent to the very popular Group Magazine column called “Try this!”

When I started the Group in 1974, there was no World Wide Web, an electronic network for youth workers or anyone else. But there was definitely a need to share good ideas among the struggling youth ministries. This became Group Magazine's dream. A section called “Try This!” quickly became a favorite among readers looking for useful, fun, and tried-and-true ideas submitted by other readers of the magazine. In that pre-Internet era of “Try this!” has turned into an off-line forum that does not require any high technology.

And “Try this!” continues to be a favorite column in The Group, which is the most widely read resource for youth ministries worldwide. Some tips have worked and will continue to work. God has certainly blessed many youth ministries through the ideas someone shared in Try This!

In this book, we have collected the best ideas from our column, sent to us over the past few years. Seek, enjoy and apply these ideas in your ministry. They work! And join a long tradition of sharing the best ideas for youth ministry. Send us your best ideas [email protected]

INTRODUCTION
There comes a time in every youth leader's life when he or she is faced with eternal question: “What do we need to do for this?” That's why more than two decades ago we decided to launch the “Try this!” section. with sound ideas that you as practitioners have applied in your student ministry.

The very first book published by the Group was a collection of the best letters from the magazine's "Try This!" section. We haven't published books like this for many years and thought it was time to do it. That's why we opened the repository of the “Try this!” section. and selected the best ideas to create another book for you. As we began to review the letters, we were reminded again of the amazing things you do to build relationships with teenagers.

1) The easiest option is to prepare some a passage of Scripture with several interesting, debatable questions. It happens that while reading Scripture an interesting thought was born, but the material is not enough for a full conversation, then you can use this form. A passage and questions about the passage - that’s the whole recipe for preparing a youth one. The main thing is to choose interesting questions, then such an express analysis will be easy. Although, of course, for the most part, the foundation of any quality analysis is good questions. But I'm not talking about deep theological questions. In principle, you can ask young people to highlight some elements in the text, or vice versa, look for questions in the provided passage.

For example, you can take chapter 23 of Matthew and identify with the youth the characteristic features of Pharisaism, write them down on the board, and then think about how they can manifest themselves in our lives. I got the following features:

• the Pharisees strive to take the place of teachers (verse 2),
• the Pharisees “speak but do not do” (verses 3-4),
• the most important thing for a Pharisee is the approving reaction of people (verse 5),
• the Pharisees strive to measure spiritual characteristics by numerical methods (verse 5b),
• love praise (verses 6-7),
• are an obstacle to others on the path to God (verse 13),
• for them the form of prayer is more important than its sincerity (verse 14),
• spread their pharisaism with enviable tenacity (verse 15),
• for them the form is more important than the content of the Divine Service (verses 16-22),
• change the places of the main and secondary (verses 23-24),
• the outer side of spiritual life is more important than the inner (verses 25-28).

If you also ask the youth to choose an example from Scripture for each characteristic, I think that the usual two hours of youth training will not be enough for you.

2) Another version of express parsing could be this option: divide the youth into groups and give assignments based on the text. For example: John 2:1-11 This text describes a miracle that occurred. Each group of youth must highlight in the text the necessary conditions for the fulfillment of this miracle; find an example of a miracle from the Old and New Testaments and check whether the highlighted conditions are met. I got the following conditions: Jesus must be called, must have faith, must come right time, there must be obedience to the words of God.

Another example: Proverbs 2:1-5 The path to the Fear of God and the knowledge of God. Give the groups a task - to highlight the steps proposed by Solomon on the path to the Fear of God, to select examples from life.

3) In general, group work is very effective and always resonates with young people. Feel free to divide groups, if you don’t have time to prepare, there will be more opportunities to conduct an interesting youth activity. The main thing is not to get carried away too much by the form, and choose quality content. Another option for express analysis: select paired texts, divide youth into two groups. Give the first group one of the texts and ask them to use it to create as many questions as possible for the second group. The second group is given another text and asked to make up as many questions about it as possible for the first. You can even arrange a kind of competition, and award points to a group for each question that the other group could not answer.

4) Another option for working in groups is group topic analysis. It’s just important not to choose a topic that is too broad, but to narrow it down as much as possible. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to lead the discussion when summing up. As you know, a topic can be explored “horizontally” and “vertically”. That is, either talk about various aspects topics, or deepen the content of the topic.

For example, examining the topic of meekness in Everyday life, you can give a task to groups: the first group to find in Scripture how meekness should be manifested at home, in the family. The second group - how meekness should be manifested in the church in communion with the saints. The third group, how meekness should be manifested in the world. This is a horizontal disclosure of the topic. For many topics, the formula can be applied: home/church/world.

Also an example of a horizontal disclosure of the topic of prayer: personal prayer, public prayer, prayer of repentance, intercessory prayer. Assign each group of youth a subtopic and give them a task - select scriptures and give examples from life.

Vertical disclosure of the topic implies deepening into the subject of study. If we are talking about some characteristic of a believer, or about some commandment, then we can differentiate the topic as follows: the first group explains the basic concepts, the essence of the phenomenon on the basis of Scripture. The second group, based on Scripture, finds out how it is practically expressed in life. The third group examines what the Bible says about the blessings of a given quality or commandment. The fourth group examines the issue of punishment or consequences for failure to keep a commandment.

This requires some preparation, but it won’t take much time if the topic is clear to you and has been thought through before. Or, for example, have you recently discussed this topic? good book read it - you can also safely discuss the topic with young people. What to spend time on when preparing youth in this form? We need to prepare tips. It will be difficult for young people to immediately orient themselves correctly in the topic, and you must be ready to tell them where to “dig”.

When working in groups, the leader himself should not be involved in direct discussion. The task of a leader, as we know, is to lead. He must move from group to group and listen carefully to the discussion. If necessary, help organize the discussion with correctly posed questions. If things are really bad, give some advice unobtrusively. When dividing young people into groups, try to do this so that the groups are more or less equal in quality of composition. So that each group has active and sociable youth members, so that communication in the group does not stop. It is imperative to organize the atmosphere correctly - arrange the chairs in such a way that everyone in the group can see and listen to each other. Groups should not be larger than 12-15 people, because it is difficult to organize reasoning in large groups. When working in groups, be sure to discuss the conclusions reached by each group at the end of the meeting. It is necessary to allow time for this, because during the discussion there may also be a small debate, especially if the conclusions on the same issues differ among different groups. In any case, the leader must put an end to the discussion. Summarize - in a clear and unambiguous formulation.

5) An interesting option for holding a youth event without preparation could be discussion forms of work. I will write about them in more detail, I will not repeat myself.

6) Don’t neglect game forms of work. Of course, you can’t abuse them, but sometimes you can use them. Games are especially good because they can be prepared in advance and used at any convenient time. Whether the youth gathered spontaneously after a meeting, or at someone's house... instead of allowing the youth to make jokes and talk about "nothing", it is better to encourage the youth to play some kind of spiritual game. Some of the leaders manage to Board games use, giving them a spiritual meaning, or replacing questions from quizzes with Biblical ones.

I hope these ideas will help you and inspire you to come up with something of your own, even more interesting, exciting and useful. Of course, the methods that are proposed here are just some options that a leader should have “up his sleeve.” Nothing can replace a well-prepared and conducted analysis. In any case, the situation when there is no time to prepare is abnormal, and we should not justify ourselves in this. Youth is a purposeful meeting, working with a target group in the church. We have a responsibility to prepare quality spiritual food.

In the next letter I will try to talk about other non-standard forms of holding youth events, but which require quite diligent preparation and time.

With the blessing of His Grace Innocent, Bishop of Nizhny Tagil and Serov, Skorbyashchensky female On November 8, 2015, the monastery opened a new spiritual and educational project"Pastoral conversations c parishionersByquestions of faith.12 conversations with priests."

Objective of the project: to encourage listeners to genuine community life in the fullness of the truth of Christ, to expand Christian worldview, to give Christians answers to their questions about Orthodoxy.

The conversations are intended for a wide range of listeners.Venue: library of the Sorrow Monastery.

Due to the fact that the topic " Religious and moral state modern society and the way of salvation in it" Bishop Innokenty reserves the right (the date of the conversation is not yet known) and with possible changes in the dates of subsequent conversations, we report only on the nearest meetings with priests.

Keep an eye out for announcements and announcements in the city's churches.

About a month ago, the series “Molodezhka” started on CTC Love from the very first season, and on this occasion the channel, together with Men's Health magazine decided to arrange a photo shoot with the girls of the Moscow Student Hockey League.

The beauties were dressed in the hockey uniform of the "Hares" team, created in the image and likeness of the HC "Bears" uniform, they had a hot photo shoot and were asked a few questions.

So, here it is, the most beautiful side of the Moscow Student Hockey League. In a photo shoot Men's Health took part: Valeria Pidko, Valeria Novikova, Svetlana Komkova and Ilnara Yarmieva.

Valeria Pidko

I'm studying at Moscow Aviation, as a programmer-economist

Love for hockey I started with the series “Molodezhka”, no matter how banal it may sound.

To get to know me, you need to be creative and in love with cars, that's enough to get started.

My dream- to be absolutely happy in all areas of my life and successful in all endeavors.

Svetlana Komkova

I'm studying at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, specialty - management.

My team- “FinUniver”, in which I am in the role of Miss.

Hockey I came completely by accident, but I am very glad that fate brought me together with him.

My dream- spontaneously fly with a young man to Barcelona, ​​walk all night and watch the sunrise together.

Novikova Valeria

I'm studying at the Moscow State Academy physical culture(MSAFK), specialization – sports training in rhythmic and aesthetic gymnastics

My team– HC MGAFK, I am the Miss of our team and its press attache.

Despite cold scenery, hockey for me is the hottest sport. Music lovers know that there is nothing more impressive than attending a live performance. It’s the same with hockey: I can’t imagine that anyone could remain indifferent after attending a match or stepping on the ice. First of all, I love it for its speed, dynamics and unpredictability of the result.

Good idea for meeting me: “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.”

My ideal romantic date : a long walk in an unknown direction. If we get lost, it will be together.

My status: in space

Ilnara Yarmieva

I'm studying at the Moscow Aviation Institute as a programmer.

My team– “Aviators-2010”

My role: generate memes and amuse the guys.

I got into hockey, having watched enough of the series “Molodezhka”.

To get to know me Any adequate spontaneous idea is good.

Perfect date- on the roof of a house under the moon.

Watch the series “Molodezhka” from Monday to Thursday at 16:00 on CTC Love!