Love One Another

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SCRIPTURE Foundation “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

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John 13:34

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FOCUS OF TODAY: Who’s at your table? Just as Michael Phelps has a community of teammates, trainers, coaches, support, and friends, we too need to surround ourselves with people that encourage us and make us into who God is calling us to be.

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Bring to Together: a Journeyer (12th grader) will led this. Betsy has asked and trained the youth leader. GAME: Play is an essential way to connect with each other and to build community. Each session will begin with a game or activity. Connect to Faith Tradition & Today ‘Behind the wall’ and

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‘on the wall’ conversations. Who can you trust to talk about those things that are on your mind and in your heart? How do those conversations strengthen us still today just liket hey did for the Hebrew people? Connect to our own Lives: A discussion about who is at our table— Connect to the WORLD: Close with Prayer

MIDDLE SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Remind the confirmation class that registration should be finished and if they have not chosen a mentor to PLEASE choose one and contact them.

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CROP WALK is next week. If you have a group that would like to participate, please let Lindsay know.

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EYC is every Wednesday night! 5:30 – 7PM

BRING TOGETHER: Announcements, Attendance GAME TO BEGIN: A Game of Pairs: You will need sticky notes to play this game most effectively. You will write one half of each pair on each sticky note. So, peanut butter on one note, jelly on another. Explain to your students that the game will have two parts. They will first ask questions of other students to determine who they are. Examples are questions like: Am I a food? Am I a famous person? Am I a cartoon character? Am I a man or woman? It is up to you to give guidelines for the questions. You can require that students strictly stick to yes/no questions or allow them to ask things like am I a man or a woman? The only question off limits is, who am I? That is up to the student to discover. Once they have an idea of who (or what) they might be they can ask the teacher, Am I peanut butter? etc. When the rules have been explained have the students line up shoulder to shoulder (if space permits) and place a sticky note on the back of each student. Try not to place paired sticky notes on students who are side by side. When everyone has a sticky note, the questioning begins. It may be a good idea to place a time limit, as well as explain an acceptable noise level for the activity before beginning. When the majority of the students have determined who or what they are they then can use their communication skills to find their Famous Pair. Peanut butter must find jelly, Romeo must find Juliet, until all pairs are matched up. When a pair thinks they are correct they can come to the teacher to be checked. This is a great game to get the students up and moving and thinking creatively as they try to come up with questions to determine their identity. Famous Pairs Peanut butter and Jelly / Romeo and Juliet / Peas and Carrots/ Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie / Adam and Eve / Abercrombie and Fitch / Jacob and Esau / Barbie and Ken / Bacon and Eggs / Dorothy and Toto / Jack and Jill / Kermit and Miss Piggy

SAY:

Walter Brueggmann offers 2 Kings 18 – 19 as a model of community that is able to live within the broader culture, but not give in to its demands. Here’s the story: the Assyrians have surrounded Jerusalem, now all attention is on the wall that stands between the Jews and the culture that seems destined to overwhelm them. The Assyrian negotiator stands at the wall, taunting Yaweh, and shouting for the Jewish community to surrender. Israel responds with a tactical move of its own. While negations on the wall were being conducted in Aramaic, Israel’s leaders were immersed in behindthe-wall conversations in Hebrew. The behind-the-wall conversations turned out to be pivotal. Within their own community, the people are able to grieve openly in Hebrew, and express themselves in their intimate language of friendship, and worship, and prayer. Speaking in Hebrew behind-the-wall, they are able to recount God’s faithfulness and promises to them. They are able to be reminded to have hope and be blessings to each other. They were able to have the conversations “on the wall” with the Assyrians with a confidence and trust in something larger than themselves. As Christians, we must be bilingual, able to live in the world, but not be of the world. Be a part of connecting with all kinds of people around the world while remembering what we believe. We do this by telling stories and wonders and hopes to those we love and

trust. FOCUS OF TODAY: Who is a part of your ‘behind the wall’ conversations What questions come to mind when we think about living as Christians in a culture that does not always believe in or live by the things that Jesus taught?

When we played our “pairs game” did you think about finding who you were a match with first or who you were first? If you had to say three things that Jesus wants us to do everyday, what would they be?

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And our tribe, this Christian Community, will try to be more like Jesus every day: To surround ourselves with people who can help us hear the gospel and become closer to who God is calling us to be. Who’s At Your Table? Supplies Needed: Who’s at Your Table handout, pens or pencils Directions: 1. Begin with a brief discussion about how we all need good role models/mentors. Discuss how just as an organization has a Board of Directors to help lead and guide it, athletes have coaches, managers, and mentors --- so too do we all need to surround ourselves with people who can help us on our leadership journey.(Our “behind the wall people”) 2. Ask participants to use the diagram to create their own Board or Directors or their table of mentors/role models. These may be people living or dead (or even non-humans—one young man had his dog at his table because from the dog he learned unconditional love). They may be people the participant knows personally or just looks up to, people in history, etc. LEARN: Who is the best teacher you have ever had, seen or heard? What made him or her so good? What is it that makes Jesus a compelling teacher? What questions does the story of 2 Kings raise for you about who / what we talk about with our closest friends and families and what things do we take into the world? How do you reflect Christ in places that are far away from church? In other words, how are you ‘being the church in the world’?

End with Prayer, Hope and Wonders

Give this time in your group some thought before you begin your time together. How might you like to end your time together. How might you close with prayer?

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