Rideau Park United Church

 

Youth Bible Study: Quest

YBS Quest

In the fall of 2004, Rideau Park’s Youth Bible Study (YBS) had its first experience with the Quest program. Quest is designed primarily for young people who have little or no contact with the Church. So the YBS group members invited some of their friends to come and explore spiritual issues from a Christian perspective.

Quest is all about questions. For seven weeks, we watched videos which explored a number of life issues and asked us to consider three different questions in each of the sessions. Some of the questions were just plain fun; some were serious and difficult. All of them made us think.

A Quest session consists of:

• an introductory video segment
• a question (with some answers offered by young people in the video)
• our own discussion of the question in small table groups
• two more video segments and questions
• a wrap-up video segment, including a look ahead to the next session

and, of course, snacks and drinks!

The sessions in the series are:

1. Wake Up and Smell the Concrete: Challenges viewers to think about why they should even bother spending time discussing spiritual issues.
2. Bored at Excite.com: Tackles the massive image problem that faces the church and Christianity today.
3. Superstar: Helps viewers wrestle with the person of Jesus and whether his existence or identity makes any difference to our lives today or not.
4. Here Comes Trouble: Introduces the concept of ultimate right and wrong and examines the possible consequences of our choices. Is it all just a myth and can anyone really know?
5. Something for Nothing: Helps viewers visualize and comprehend the ultimate gift ... could it be for real?
6. Read the Small Print: Focuses on the personal cost of following Jesus and challenges viewers to consider the question ... is it worth it?
7. Truth or Dare: Wraps up the journey and challenges viewers to weigh up what has been discussed and encourages them to continue on their quest for truth.

For more information on Quest, see www.quest-series.com

The “Newbies”

One of the best things about Quest was what came afterward. At the end of the seven weeks, we invited the people who had come as guests of our YBS group to consider continuing their own personal spiritual “quest” with us. And some of them did just that! We formed a new group, called The Newbies, which met on Sunday nights at the same time as YBS. This group did a “crash course” on the Bible (a somewhat compressed version of the Sunday School’s Bible Survey Class), and then joined the YBS group the following September.