Identity: The Office, Lady Gaga and Jesus

Thought I’d send out a quick note about our current Sunday night lesson series called “The Gospel According to The Office”.

We’ve covered a lot of ground and a ton of topics.  Basically, our format has been like this:

1. Last week’s theme was “conviction” and we asked the kids to be on the look out for incidents in the show that people either were convicted of the wrong that they had done, or tried to convict others.
2. We watched an episode called “The Chump” in which Michael realized that he was dating a married woman and did not care.  The people in the office spent the episode trying to get him to see that he was wrong using a variety of methods.
3. We talked about conviction as found in the Bible, using Genesis 3:1-12, Exodus 13:20 and Deuteronomy 17 and 1 Samuel 8 as examples of God’s conviction and leading.
4. We also read Romans 1 and talked about how God is evident but people ignore what He’s done because of their own wickedness.
5. We ended with a challenge to hear God’s conviction and in small groups we had some further discussion and prayer time.
   

I’m sending this to you because this week, we are talking about the theme of “Identity”.  We’ll be using the Office episode entitled “The Fire” as well as Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and finally a video I made called “I am new”.  Each of these videos deals with the theme of “who we are” in a different way.  Our point is that “Who We Are” in Christ is our most important identity. Some may be hesitant for us to use Gaga’s video, and while I understand that, please know a few things about this song:

• the first week that this song was released, it was downloaded 1.2 million times on iTunes, the fastest ever
• if your student has an iPod, they most likely have Lady Gaga on it, probably, this song is there
• we are determined to help our students discern, understand and see culture in the light of the Gospel of Jesus
  

I’d encourage you to take a look at what other Christians have said about this song, video, and it’s importance in our ministries to students.

http://learningmylines.blogspot.com/2011/02/lady-gaga-born-this-way-voice-of.html
http://www.pluggedin.com/music/tracks/2011/ladygaga-bornthisway.aspx
http://networkedblogs.com/ejjta