Youth Group Session: Building a Rule of Life

Covid-19Resources
Written By Rob Fraser-Binns

This session has been brought together to help you facilitate a space for your youth group to begin to discover and create a personal Rule of Life. In it you’ll spend time with your young people helping them to see the relevance and usefulness of this ancient practice!

Introduction

RULE OF WHAT?

So, you may or may not have heard about the idea of following Jesus with a ‘Rule of Life’. It may sound a bit posh and formal, but hopefully by the end of this session you and your young people will be raring to go with building a Rule of Life into your everyday routine. 

Ask your group to explain in their own words what a rule is and why we have them? Listen to each answer,  affirming and promoting where needed. 

Explore that a rule is a schedule or set of practices,  something you follow and that the idea of a Rule of Life comes from monastic orders (think monks, nuns and all living together) who chose to commit their lives to living by a certain set of rules that would point them to following Jesus closely. 

Explain that the aim of this was to be able to focus all parts of their lives on their relationship with Jesus, something that we are still trying to work out how we do today. 

Explore

The language of ‘rule’ and ‘life’ may seem strict or eternally binding, so at this point we are going to unpack each word. 

Ask each other to write down and share what the main areas in your lives are (e.g. school, work, sport, music, friends etc) and how much time we spend thinking about how much our faith impacts these areas. Make sure that you share too – we would recommend you go first to ‘set the tone’, being honest and open. This is the opportunity to show how much you want your young people to take this seriously. 

This is base camp, the position in which you can start building a rule of life, but before we dive too deep into this, let’s see where the idea comes from. 

Study

While the idea of a Rule of Life comes from the monastic communities but we need to understand that it is also rooted in Jesus’ teaching. Ask each person to look up John 15:1–8 in their Bible. 

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

 ‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.  If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.’ (John 15:1–8, NIV)

 Explain that the word ‘rule’ in Latin is where we get the word for ‘trellis’ (you could bring a piece of trellis to the session to show your young people!). 

Lead a conversation focusing on the Jesus command in this passage to ‘remain’ or ‘abide’ in me, as I also remain/abide in you, highlighting the picture here is one of supporting the growth of branches (followers of Jesus) to see them bearing fruit (kingdom work) and that a trellis (rule of life) aids this to allow for growth.

Explain that a rule of life is simply a tool to help us to grow closer in our relationship with Jesus so that we can lead lives that us bring influence into all of the areas that we find ourselves in. 

Apply

NOW WHAT? DEVELOPING A PERSONAL RULE OF LIFE

A Rule of Life is definitely not to be seen as a one-size-fits-all list of rules to follow, so this is where it becomes personal. In your groups, spend some time alone, praying and asking God to show an area of our lives to begin with. Using the list from the beginning of our session, maybe starting with what areas bring you most joy and life? 

The following questions may be useful:

  • What do you currently do? Do you sense that you should be doing more or less?

  • How do you think you could ‘produce’ that? 

  • What do you need to add/change to make that happen?

Here are a couple of examples:

Area: Growing a regular time in my day to read the Bible.

  • I currently read the Bible sporadically, when I remember. I would like to read it more regularly.

  • Set a time, and space in my day to read the Bible and commit to this. 

  • Set my morning alarm 10 minutes earlier, so that before I leave the house I can spend time reading.

Area: At the end of the day. I wanted to reflect and see where God has been at work in my day. 

  • I spend my last moments before sleep on social media. I need to do less of this and spend more time reflecting. 

  • Commit to spending this time with God and not being distracted by my phone.

  • Choose a place for my phone to be, not distracting me from time I want to spend seeking God. 

Challenge

Depending on the time you have available, you may get one idea down or a couple. Whichever it is, as a way of bringing everyone back together ask each person to share some of their thinking and also one idea that they want to commit to in this next season. What is the one change from this session that they are going to commit to? Take a note of these and when you next meet, begin by sharing how it’s been going: this isn’t to praise those who have succeeded, it’s to give a space for each person to share honestly how their journey with Jesus is going. 

If this group will meet again soon, encourage everyone to be accountable and also check in to see how people are getting on. 

To finish off remind everyone that a Rule of Life isn’t set, will change and needs to developed over time, and thats okay! Here are some other top tips to encourage you all on your journey:

  • It’s said that it can take thousands of hours to create new habits, so start with the small and unseen, adding things in as you go on. 

  • There will be times when it’s not easy – that’s okay! You’re making changes about how to live.

  • Success and failure isn’t language that you use with a rule of life, its about giving your ‘yes’ to Jesus by saying that you want to have him involved in every area of your life. 

  • Make it easy for yourself – if you said ‘I want to read my Bible first thing in the morning’, make sure your Bible is next to your bed the night before! 

  • Remember your not in this alone - you are doing this journey with both you friends, name those people and also all the Holy Spirt to lead you.

Prayer for each other to end the session, asking the Holy Spirit to remind us what has been highlighted to us. 

Resources

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Rob Fraser-Binns
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