Avoiding Abusive Lifestyles

Avoiding Abusive Lifestyles is designed to allow teens to look at their own lives, the choices they make, and their relationships with God, with the hope that doing so will help them avoid abusive lifestyles.

Lesson 1: Looking for the Real Thing--This lesson uses biblical and experiential wisdom to show students that abusing alcohol and drugs destroys healthy relationships with God and with other people, and those substances will never meet their needs for acceptance, maturity, comfort, or joy. (Romans 6:11-14; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:5, 9-10; 7:1).

Lesson 2: What's Eating You?--This lesson examines the ways that eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and obesity affect teenagers' lives. It shows students that their self-concepts should not be based on their external and ever-changing appearances, but on who they are in Christ. (Genesis 1:27; Psalm 8:4-8; Romans 7:15-25; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; Ephesians 2:10).

Lesson 3: Throwing out the Garbage--This lesson asks questions about what pornography is and how it creeps into teenagers' lives. Students will learn that pornography should be avoided because it distorts God's gift of sexuality and would pervert their attitudes toward sexual intimacy in marriage. (Proverbs 6:25-26; 7:21-27; Matthew 5:27-30; Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 13; Philippians 4:8).

Lesson 4: When Love Hurts--This lesson carefully discusses different kinds of relational abuse: verbal, physical, sexual, and visual. Students will learn that it is God's desire for all of their relationships to be built on genuine love and mutual respect so that they can live free from abuse, as neither victim nor abuser. (Exodus 21:12-15; Judges 19:16-29; 2 Samuel 13:1-22; Psalm 55; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a; Colossians 3:1-15).