EA Essential - engaging young people with biblical truth

Review

Tim Hawkins’ Discipleship Training Series is a five part series that aims to prepare young people for a lifetime of following Jesus. It’s an extremely comprehensive series that covers many essential topics. The series contains five different ‘participant’ books and one leader’s guide that explains the whole series.

The leader's guide contains plenty of useful information and acts as a training manual as it takes you through the sessions. This makes it ideal for leaders who haven’t had much experience - in fact, the learning experience for the leader could almost be as significant as it is for the young people.

The format of the sessions is fairly uniform throughout the five books. Each session works through several Bible verses/passages using well thought-through questions to help young people get to grips with what the Bible is saying. There are also several application questions to ensure that what is read about is put into practice. This is the emphasis of this series – it equips young people to learn from God’s word and live it out. It’s not about the leaders telling the group what the Bible says; instead the series helps leaders teach young people how to read, understand and apply the Bible for themselves.

The format of the sessions is quite ‘formal’ and very different from most resources currently available. It is designed to be used with groups who are eager to study the Bible and learn what being a disciple of Christ is all about. The style of the resources and the language used makes it most suitable for 11-15 year olds.

Contents

Book 1 – My new life: God has called you to an exciting new life following him. This book will show you what God has already done to ensure that you will keep growing as his precious child. Ten studies that cover the fundamentals of being both a disciple and a disciple-maker.

Book 2 – My awesome God: Nine studies exploring the character of this marvellous God who calls us to relate to him. We investigate the enormity of God as Father, Son and Spirit.

Book 3 – My intimate relationship: Ten studies designed to ground the growing disciple in the immense blessings of being immersed in a life of soaking in God’s Word, and in prayer.

Book 4 – My mission from God: These nine studies explore the tasks that God has left for us here on planet earth. We look at being a witness, an ambassador, and a faithful manager of God’s gifts and blessings.

Book 5 – My personal obedience: These eleven studies focus on areas of personal obedience, and challenge disciples to ‘put on’ the new life that is theirs in Christ Jesus.