Common Small Group Discussions (Teens)
2025
January Teens Camp
- Amongst our dorms small group, we largely discussed the importance of Jesus being the embodiment of God on earth. The significance of Jesus being capable of paying the debt of all our sin/imperfections. As dorm leaders we also encouraged discussions about the age of Jesus when he died (following a question from camper) and what we can learn from his time on Earth.
- Developing in responsibility
- I perceive that my boys were generally more interested in talking about how they could grow to be good men than they were in talking about the love and sacrifice of Jesus. That said, an encouraging number of them were willing to talk about the Father and the Son, but I don’t recall any conversation specifically about the Spirit.
- We talked a bit about God’s peace that surpasses all understanding, and about not fearing the future, but living in the present
2024
July Teens Camp
- Why is God not answering prayers, why takes God so long to restore our broken world.
- The discussions would being with talking about the topic of the study, but would branch off into other areas, such as questions around Adam and Eve, authors of the bible, etc.
- It was hard to discern what the questions and topics surrounding the small groups were, so we had to make up some questions we thought were relevant. Our campers also had no interest in small groups so we had to talk about other topics (games) to keep their attention.
- Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?
- Does God exist?
- Jesus parables and their real life applications / meanings
- Importance of building a life with Christ and who he is?
- Why does God make bad things happen
2023
July Teens Camp
- Why would God care about us? Free will
- Lust
- How God met them where they were at
- Accepting Jesus into our life and having good relationships rather than a good religion
- Having difficulties and why God let them happen, and questions about who God is and how much we believe he is true.
- Baptism
- We all shared our testimonies
- Identity
- SELF WORTH
- Body image
- Families
- Questioning God’s goodness
- HOW GOD IS RELEVANT TODAY
- Topics such as ‘why God would make us if he doesn’t need us’ and how we can show compassion or forgiveness to others when they might not deserve it
- Forgiveness
2019
January Teens Camp
- Choices x2
- Consequences
- Our desires (how we are selfish)
- Our purpose
- Life at home (difference from camp)
- How we live Christian lives
- Loved and heard by God
- Commitments and vows
- How we should act when things don’t go our way
- Does God exist?
- How to deal with emotions
- What makes a good Christian
- How can we make sense of the bible?
- Prayer
- Why is there evil?
2018
July Teens Camp
- Grief and helping those who go through it X 3
- Hurt and brokenness
- Personal Grief x 3
- Understanding we all respond differently to hard situations
- Depression
- Understanding feelings
- Putting ourselves in others shoes
- Hardship x 2
- Suicide
- Anger and emotion control
- Grudges vs forgiveness
- Comfort and how its okay to not know all the answers
2017
January Teens Camp
- Family
- Identity x 2
- Relationships x 2
- Being nice to each other x 2
- Sexual experiences x 2
- Purpose of life
- Sex and porn x 5
- Anger
- Sin
- Life
- God
- Salvation
- If God is good then why…
- Is there a purpose outside of Christianity?
- God being everywhere
- How to keep God at the centre of our life
July Teens Camp
- Truth x 5
- Life x 2
- Who is Jesus
- Why follow Jesus
- What Christians believe
- What is important in life
- Relationship
- Family
- Friendship x 3
- What it actually means to be a Christian x 2
- Following God in all areas of life
- Suicide/Abuse
- Not wasting your life
2016
January Teens Camp
- Relationships
- Boys
- What does God really think of us?
- Internet problems
- Personal issues
- Centering God and decentering “worldly” focuses
- Scripture relevancy
- Perseverance
- Yolking with God
- Being a woman of God
- The ‘Big’ questions
- Boyfriends
- Salvation
- Discussions getting sidetracked and off topic x 2
- Putting God first
- Why suffering doesn’t disprove God’s existence
July Teens Camp
- Tough questions
- Satan x2
- Jesus
- What to do when they get home
- Does God exist?
- Why did Heath Ledger die?
- Condition of our hearts
- What we wanted to grow in
- How to seek a relationship with God
- Very simple gospel
- How Christianity would change their lives
- Having God as your focus
- Relying on God
- Doubts
- God using us
- There only being one way through Jesus
2015
July Teens Camp
- Current issues/struggles
- Pornography, lust
- Sin
- Living a life for God
- How to be saved and what that means x 2
- Is God real?
- The conviction of Sin and the necessity of dealing with it
- What being a Christian really means
- Non-believers/believers