Live Wire This Week

YCG 10/11 – Sept 21st

September 21, 2010 at 6:00 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

1. Announcements

Upcoming events:  Men’s Curry Night – lads welcome;  Team Building with RPBC Youth Sun a.m – meet at the Vicarage 10am as usual; Anyone interested in Confirmation, see Verity;  Youth Matters “Saving Sierra Leone” service this Sunday starts with a Social in the Small Hall from 7pm to 7.30 pm.

2. Book of Acts Overview.

The Book of Acts – the fifth book in the New Testament (right after the Gospels) takes the story of Jesus’s followers on after his death and resurrection. At a moment when the whole thing might have a ground to a halt after Jesus’s departure, the disciples are empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and begin to preach boldly. The Book of Acts tells of how their message spread, first in a church of many thousands of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, then amongst Jews in the surrounding area, then wider still as Gentiles began to find faith in Jesus.

The missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul and his companions take the message north to Greece, and ultimately to the heart of the super-power of the day: Rome. It is a story of amazing faith and courage as the believers persevere to share their faith despite great obstacles, and a story of great love and devotion as the church builds itself up as the family of God as the Gospel brings down the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, unschooled and educated.

It’s well worth having a simple map of  the world around the Mediterranean in mind as you read Acts:

Click on the map to read more.

3. 10 Women of the Bible

Last week we worked on fitting 10 men of the Bible against the Biblical Eras (Creation, Patriarchs, Exodus etc.)

Can you do the same with these 10 women?

Bathsheba, Priscilla, Esther, Eve, Deborah, Miriam, Mary, Hagar, Rahab, Sarah

Have a go, then check your ideas here. There are several ways to build up an overview of how the “big story” of the bible works, and one is to get familiar with sequence of some of the main characters. So, it’s worth knowing this stuff!

4. The Early Church – Devotion to prayer

Last week we read how the early church in Jerusalem lived, after 3000 were baptised in one day! Can you remember any specific things they did? Have another look at Acts 2:37-47.

Today we’re going to focus on how they were devoted to prayer.

Brainstorm questions:

• When and where do you pray? (e.g. early, late, any time, all the time, in bed, outside…)
• How do you pray? (e.g. out loud, in my head, thoughts not words, write it down…)
• What does it mean to be devoted to prayer? (e.g. regular, daily, throughout the day, prayer journal…)
• Why was the early church devoted to prayer? (e.g. grateful, worried about enemies, guidance, the lost…)

The early church was led by men who had spent years learning from Jesus. They taught the church what they had learned from Him. Read the following pasages and think about these questions for each one:

• What do we learn about how Jesus prayed, and
• How can we imitate Him.

Luke 5:15-16 “…news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

Notes: “Often”. Why “lonely places?” Elsewhere Jesus says “pray in your room”. Is he contradicting himself?

Luke 6:12-13 “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:

Notes; What was he praying about all night? Do you pray more when there are big decisions to make? All night?!

Luke 18: 1-8 “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ “

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Notes: Why do we feel like giving up praying? Are you constantly bugging God  ? When Jesus comes back, will we have given up praying?

Is there  something you need to pray about with perseverance? Take some time to pray about that thing now, and ask God to help you be devoted in prayer.