BOTTOM LINE:
God always loves you as you already are.
GOAL OF WIRED:WEIRD:
To encourage youth to love themselves by realizing how much God loves them.

Matthew 22:37-39 New Living Translation (NLT)
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

1 John 3:1 New Living Translation (NLT)
3 See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.

Creator God, thank you for your love. Thank you for creating everything good. Help us to see the good in ourselves. Help us to love our selves because you lavished your love on us. In your name we pray, AMEN.

Use this simple blessing with your family, while you bless one another, mark the cross on the forehead of each member as a reminder of your baptism.

(Name), you are a Child of God.

Share a moment this week where you were looking for God: in something bad, and in something good.
If you had to give up all technology EXCEPT for one thing, what would it be?
What are some circumstances that make you feel disconnected from God?

Genesis 1:1 New Living Translation (NLT)
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:27 New Living Translation (NLT)
27 So God created human beings in God's own image.
 In the image of God God created them; male and female God created them.
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 New Living Translation (NLT)
4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.

What are some things you see in nature that make you feel connected to God?
Talk about a time when you saw the image of God in the actions of someone else.
How are noticing God and loving God connected?
Name at least two places where you can go to notice God more regularly.

Dear God, thank you for your creation. Thank you for those around us who show us your love and your work in the world. Help us this week to be aware of where you are in the world and how you are loving us everyday. In your name we pray, AMEN.

Use this simple blessing with your family, while you bless one another, mark the cross on the forehead of each member as a reminder of your baptism.

(Name), you are a Child of God.

How many hours are you connected to some kind of technology on a normal day? If you were to add up your hours online, your glances at text messages, your streaming music, your perusing social media, your Netflix addiction, how many hours could you count? It’s probably a lot. Our culture is obsessed with technology—and with good reason. Technology keeps us connected to each other and to the world around us. Nearly every device we own transmits signals to something else, somewhere else. Why? Because that’s how they’re wired to function. Our phones, tablets, smart watches, gaming systems—they all are wired to connect to something outside them. And the same is true for us. We are wired for connection. It’s in our design. As we take a closer look at what Jesus called “the greatest commandment”, we discover that we were wired to have three vital relationships: with God, with ourselves, and with others. And when those connections are made, things can begin to function as they were designed.

Your student is changing fast. Chances are this isn’t a surprise. Their classes are changing. Their friends are changing. Their bodies are definitely changing. But one change you may not see as quickly are the changes that are happening in your student’s brain. As our students approach puberty, their brains are being physically rewired to function less like a child and more like an adult. New connections are forming. Old ones are collapsing. Parts of the brain are being reorganized. And with all of that activity, it’s no surprise that they may experience occasional “outages” or glitches in their judgment, their memory, and their emotional control.
That means…
… your straight-A scholar may suddenly forget their homework.
… your sweet, quiet child may now have teenage emotional outbursts.
… your reasonable, responsible student may have a few mindboggling lapses in judgment.
When that happens, our first reaction may be to panic and wonder, what went wrong here? But, most of the time, nothing is really wrong. Our students’ brains are simply under construction.
In their book, Teen Stages, authors Ken and Elizabeth Mellor describe this as a “cognitive rebirth” beginning around age 13 and continues into young adulthood. That means during middle school and high school, your student may show some behaviors reminding you a lot of their toddler and early elementary years. And…it’s perfectly normal.
While no two children are the same, and development is surely going to look different and take different amounts of time for each one, it may be helpful to look at the stages Mellor outlines to see where your student fits and what may be coming next.