Take a look around you. What do you see? What sounds do you hear? How does the space feel to you? Your environment helps inform and store all of the information you take in about a place. It’s why a doctor’s office feels different than a concert venue — one feels clean and bright while the other feels dark and full of energy.
This isn’t just true for our favorite (or least favorite) places on earth, but it’s also true for our ministry spaces. On Sundays, we might think learning starts with the sermon, but, in reality, the process of learning begins the moment teenagers walk through our doors. So it’s probably time to be strategic about building the right environment.
In every series of Grow, we’ve crafted an engaging theme for each teaching series that complements what we’re teaching. Then, we created an environment around it. This helps tie together all of the teaching, activities, visuals and experiences your teenagers will experience, and it complements all of the Bible stories you’re sharing.
Here’s every theme you’ll find in Grow Students Volume 7 and how it connects with the series!
GOING PLACES
In August, when we’re talking about friendships in our series Going Places, we’ll base our theme on something that’s always better with friends: a good road trip!
BEYOND BELIEF
When we talk about doubt and questions in the September series Beyond Belief, we really want students to visualize themselves in the Exodus story. So all of our visuals for this series are centered on the compelling and memorable visuals we get from that story.
MOST LIKELY TO …
Then in October, when we talk about leadership, we’re going to use a theme that helps teenagers think about some of the ways they and their peers are already leading — at school! That’s why Most Likely To … has a really fun school spirit theme.
OVER THE TOP
For our series called Over the Top, we’ll use the theme of extreme stunts to help us think about the ways we can be “extremely” generous — but not just for show.
GRATEFUL
In December, for our Christmas series called Grateful, we’re keeping it pretty simple! The theme is Christmas gifts — but the focus, of course, isn’t on all the stuff we get. It’s about gifts that are so much better than that.
BENEATH THE SURFACE
Our identity series called Beneath the Surface has a deep sea theme. That’s because the ocean metaphor helps us explore the wonder, mystery, and sometimes fear that we experience when trying to figure out who we are and what God has for our futures.
RHYTHM
Next up is our series on spiritual growth called Rhythm. Of course, this series uses a music theme as we focus on building strong rhythms in our spiritual habits.
JUSTIFIED
In Justified, we’ll use a superheroes theme to help us process our anger in a God-honoring way — it’s full of stories of superheroes wrestling with their anger, sometimes in ways that caused harm and sometimes in ways that led to something really good.
GLOW
Our Easter series Glow uses a theme of light and darkness as we tell the story of Jesus’ death (that’s the dark part) and his resurrection (that’s the light, of course!).
ENOUGH
And since our series called Enough focuses on families, we’re using the theme of family board games to help us talk about the ups, downs, tensions, and joys that our relationships with our families can contain.
I AM
The series I Am is all about Jesus telling us who he is, in his own words. With that in mind, we’ll use a theme of sounds and sound waves to help bring that idea to life.
WORTH SHARING
Worth Sharing uses a social media theme to talk about how there are experiences and stories we’ll share with the people who mean so much to us.
NOT OKAY
Then, we wrap things up with Not Okay, which uses a puzzles and brainteasers theme, as we talk about all the problems in life that cause us stress and anxiety, and that sometimes feel impossible to solve.
That’s the plan for Volume 7 of Grow Students! No matter your curriculum, you need a strategy for your weekly environments. A great way to make your weekly environment strategic is to give it a theme that complements what you’re teaching.
If you’re using Grow Students Curriculum, we’ve already done this work for you. For every month of curriculum, we provide a monthly theme that complements the teaching content and includes everything you need to theme your program in our Environment Guides — decor ideas, editable graphics, music suggestions, games, and more!
In this post, here’s what we’ll cover: