Week 4 – Train Spiritually
WELCOME
“For the training of the body has limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” – 1 Timothy 4:8
Remember we are learning about building the muscles of our faith. This week we are going to look at how to strengthen them once we are on Team God.
WARM-UP
Play a game of tag.
Well done! Playing tag takes a lot of cardio strength. You have to run a lot so you don’t get tagged.
What would happen if every day you just sat on your couch all day long? Yeah, you would probably get slower, definitely not faster.
In our spiritual life we also have to do some training so we can be the best player on Team God.
WORKOUT
Why do we train in our sport? (take a few answers). Good ideas! Just like there are reasons to train our bodies we also have to train our faith – otherwise we will never grow in our friendship with God.
Here are 3 reasons we want to train our faith:
- It transforms you – growing closer to God makes you into a new person (we learned that last week). It makes us kinder, gentler, more controlled. Being closer to God helps us see others as God sees them.
- How might you treat your teammates if you are on God’s Team? How might you treat them if you are not on God’s Team?
- It motivates you – seeing success in your sport usually spurs you to work harder. The same idea applies to our faith. To be transformed and motivated we have to put in some effort. We need to read and memorize God’s Word, we need to pray and worship God and we need to spend time with other Christians. Ultimately our motivation in spiritual training is to know and love God more.
- What ways can you add worship and prayer to your day?
- What could help you read your Bible more? (hint: additional scriptures with each lesson; memory verse each week)
- It helps you know God – Do any of you sometimes dislike practicing? Why do we have to practice? It does help us know our sport better. Sometimes you aren’t going to feel like reading your bible or praying but when we practice those things we get to know God better and that is the goal: to know and love God!
- How might spending time with other Christians help us when we don’t want to read the Bible, pray or worship?
Additional Scriptures: Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 3:23
WRAP-UP
Coach comes to practice with a plan (if you have it written down, show it to the team). Growing muscles and training does not happen on accident and it does not happen overnight. We have to have a plan. Hand out the sheet below to each player. Put a check under each day you finish the part of the plan.
Spiritual Training Plan | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
Read my Bible | |||||||
Work on memorizing a verse | |||||||
Pray | |||||||
Worship by listening to Christian music | |||||||
Spend time with other Christians | |||||||
Pray and break the Huddle
“Lord, thank You for this time today and that you give us clear instructions on how to be the best teammates on Team God. Give us a desire to grow closer to you and the motivation to work at it even when we don’t feel like it. Amen.”