Fake I.D.

Series Description

It’s an age-old problem—one that begins to plague us around the time adolescence hits and, if we aren’t careful, follows us around the rest of our lives. It is the question of who we are—what makes up our identity, what defines us, what makes us, us. But imagine if, instead of wrestling with these questions in the complexity of adulthood, we started to tackle them in the formative teenage years? What if we took a good, long, hard look at some of the foundational questions during the years that shape us more than any others? Who am I? Where do I belong? What is my purpose? We are going to begin to scratch the surface of identity tackling the difficult to ask—and even more difficult to answer—questions that ultimately end up defining who we are.

Session One: Born Identity
Bottom Line: Who we are is determined by Who created us.
Who am I? Culture has no problem attempting to answer this question for us. Unfortunately, the loudest and most obvious messages aren’t always the most accurate—which is why God made sure that at the very start of Scripture we got the right understanding about who we are. We are made in His image. With intention. With care. With value. And with worth. Resting in the understanding of God’s purposeful creation of us, will steer us in the right direction and allow us to live with more freedom and less insecurity than we may have ever imagined possible.

Session Two: Neighborhood Watch
Bottom Line: It is only in community that we can be made the best version of ourselves—and have a greater understanding of our individual identity.
When it comes to figuring out our identity and what makes us unique, it is tempting to think this question’s answer concerns us—and only us—as individuals. But we would be left with one self-involved person if we only made this quest for self-awareness all about us. Which is why when it comes to forming our identity, we have to involve other people—not to define us, but in order to make us better, and for us to serve and lift up from a stance of humility and modesty. Community, relationships, friendships are where the messy stuff of identity is named and dealt with. If we want to know where we belong—following an understanding of who we are—it is with other people where we can be reminded of where we fit in the grander scheme of things.

Session Three: Imitators
Bottom Line: Discovering and doing our purpose—in light of who we are—completes our identity in a way nothing else can.
These days it is easy to confuse busyness with purpose. Our days feel full, exhausting, and packed. But that doesn’t mean we end the day feeling full in the right sense—with a greater understanding of why we exist on the planet and what our aim in life ought to be. When it comes to our identity, we would fall very short in defining it if we never addressed what life is all about—what our lives are all about as followers of Jesus. What if in figuring out our identity we discovered what it was we were created to do? And what if Scripture tells us exactly what kind of doing will better define our purpose—and in so doing—us as individuals?
The Fake I.D. downloadable podcast provides training for you and your volunteers regarding this series. You can download the podcast and make it available to your small group leaders either via a disc or electronically. Also, the series checklist provides suggestions on how to implement this series in your environment. Both the podcast and checklist are found in the "Getting Started” section of the Fake I.D. series downloads.

Parent Cue: The Parent Cue is designed to cue parents to talk about faith with their child. The “Be a Student of What They are Learning” section provides a way for you to give parents info about this series and how you will unpack it over the course of the three weeks. In addition to the summary of each session, there are questions that both parents and students can use to interact with one another. Also, the Parent Cue provides a “Be a Student of Your Student” section to help parents connect with where their students are developmentally. See the Parent Cue document in your series downloads for more information.
THE XP: The XP for the Fake I.D. series gives students the opportunity to tackle the faith skill of Scripture memorization using specific Bible verses having to do with various areas of identity we talked about.