Life & Hope, Faith & Reality
Normal service has kind of been resumed.
Last week was week 1 of ACC’s Funhouse and I thought I may show you a treat. Here’s one of the intro videos that we made.
Also, for those of you who wonder what exactly is involved in a Sunday morning setup at ACC then check out the video below which was shot by Thai Blogger, ACC member and all round good guy Adrian Oliver.
A couple of weeks ago I co-wrote some teaching notes for Arun Community Church’s Ignite and Fuel. I think now is the right time to post them.
Aim:
To learn about Christians who are persecuted for their faith and understand how God encourages and inspires us in difficult situations.
Activity: Survivor!
Give everyone a pen and paper, then ask them to write down (or draw) their three most important possessions. Once everyone has decided, explain that there has been an huge earthquake and their houses have been destroyed. They have a few minutes to grab ONE of their items to carry with them. Which one would they take and why?
When everyone has shared, tell the group about the underground churches in places like China and North Korea. In these places, God’s word is their most treasured possession with people risking their lives to smuggle Bibles and share the good news with others.
How does this make them feel? Did anyone think of taking their Bible with them?
Background:
Following Peter and John’s healing of the crippled man at the Temple (Acts 3:1-10) they were arrested for preaching about the good news of Jesus. The Jewish leaders believed that the disciples were committing blasphemy (speaking untrue things about God) and they were thrown in prison overnight. Even though the believers were scared of what might happen to them, their numbers grew from 3,000 to around 5,000 men (Acts 4:4)!
Reading: Acts 4
Your group should have read the chapter in advance. Take a few minutes to recap on its content for those who haven’t.
Illustration: Brother Yun
Take a few minutes to look at the life of Brother Yun (author of The Heavenly Man) whose story represents an example of the persecuted Christians in China
Seen as a rebel among some Chinese for not joining the ‘official’ government-controlled Christian organization, Brother Yun was imprisoned and tortured by the government authorities. He was finally arrested and sentenced to many years in prison. However, Yun continued his ministry while in prison, with miraculous results. As a result, many prisoners and even some prison officials became born-again.
Apparently, while he gained increasing favor from some officials, he also became a target of increased persecutions by others. He was repeatedly beaten and became severely malnourished. After many years, he escaped from Zhengzhou Maximum Security prison. He described how he heard the voice of the Hoy Spirit, telling him to simply walk out the heavily guarded prison gate. Risking being shot to death on the spot, he wrote later that he obeyed the voice, and walked straight through several prison doors that were somehow left open in front of many prison guards, across the prison yard and finally out of the main gate. Yun stated that it was as if he had become invisible to the guards who stared straight through him. Although many expressed doubts that such a thing could happen, some prison guards had apparently lost their jobs for this ‘embarrassing mishap.’ It is reported that the official investigation by the Chinese Government concluded that “Yun received no human help in his escape.” It is claimed that these reports have been also confirmed by numerous prisoners who occupied the same prison cell as Yun. Apparently, he remains the only person to have escaped from this notorious maximum security prison!
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Yun
You can watch a 10 minute testimony by Brother Yun on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpDRTvRYZ0
Discussion:
Prayer:
Challenge:
This week, you should try to overcome your own fears and share the good news of Jesus with some friends! Ask God to give you boldness even when people are rude to you because of your faith. Remember, if people laugh at you because of Jesus, you are in great company!
Further Reading: Genesis 39:20-23
Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
As well as being many other things I’m a qualified TEFL (Teach English as a Foriegn Lanugage) teacher and I thought I’d share with you a couple of the lessons that I’ve developed over the two previous years teaching.
The first of these is called Information Leaflets and fits perfectly after doing sessions grammatical sessions on Comparatives & Superlatives and then vocabulary lessons on Holidays and Festivals. It works well as a last lesson of a day, or as a first lesson towards the end of a longer stay when they are tired.
Aims
To create a tourist information leaflet. This puts into practice all the language that has been taught in previous lessons. It works best with a Pre-Intermediate or Intermediate group, though it does work with an Elementary group.
Time Limit
No more than 45 minutes. At it’s worst this activity will eat time. I’ve lots 2 out of 3 lessons before doing this. Be strict.
Instructions
If you haven’t already split the class into groups of 3 to 5 depending on the size of them. The following instructions can either be written up on the board for the class to refer too or printed out and giving to each group. Remember to do a vocabulary check.
Outcomes
Hopefully at the end of the lesson you’ll have a few different leaflets. The class will have had a relaxed lesson but critically will have put into practice what you’ve taught them. If you want to give it a little twist to this make it a contest and offer a prize for the best leaflet
If like me you subscribe to Jon Jolly’s blog then his most recent post (here) would have shown up in your reader. Well speaking as one of his loyal minnions, oops I meant volunteers, I can only say that it was a great evening and at least from my perspective went fantastically well.
I, and I type this nervously, was the leader in charge of the Chalk Drawing. Whilst I had a “edit” some things that were written and drawn some of them were amazing. We had the police scene that Jon mentions (and I have to apologise to whoever the other persons car was). We had footballers. We had people drawing round each other. We had the typical teenager “X loves Y” messages. I had two favourites, well three but Jon’s already mentioned one;
In at number 2 is The Clown, that’s shown below.
And at number 1? Well, it’s the picture at the top of this post. Created by three of the first group who called it “Follow The Yellow Brick Road”
Last Tuesday, April 2, I had some time between dropping Rosie off for work and getting to Wickbourne to setup for Dr. Meric , who had come to speak about the environment, and can be heard if you’re interested on both the “Arun Community Church: Special Events” and also, with permission, here on “AllTheseThingsIveDone.com“. Anyway, I’ve gone off on one.
I chose to sit on the beach for a little while and then to drive to Littlehampton’s swimming centre and walk back to the East Beach Cafe. It was great just being out in the Spring Sun. I slowly wandered between the two taking some pictures and just enjoying the lighter evening.
On the way back I saw a few of the young people from Ignite and to my surprise they recognised me. A say to my surprise as I’m not one of the popular leaders. I’m not like Nick and Jim who constantly amuse the boys. And I’m not like Jon who has enough charisma for two people (probably Americans at that!). Nor am I really like Rosie who will talk with the girls for hours about there problems.
All I do is turn up every week and plod along, occaisionally sharing my passions in the “God Slot”. Maybe this is it: Young People of today want consistency, to know that the same leaders that turned up last week will turn up this week, and next week.
Mr. Jolly has happily been tagging and sharing posts by fellow youth blogger Tim Abbott, which in turn he’s found online and I thought I’d round them up and share them on again.
The first is from this site which shows, again, the visible impact of “photoshopping” and re-touching photos. It’s an amazing use of flash to reveal a disturbing secret.
The second is this article from the Times Online, which reports on “Generation YouTube’s” new sexual freedom. This, as far as I can see, could present a major problem for all youth workers in how we deal with these issues.
H/T Jon Jolly & Tim Abbott
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