Catch up on our past week...

Thursday Jan 20: Deeper Bible Study
We reviewed the main focus of our week 1 study which defines poverty as the lack of shalom in our relationships: Sin has broken our relationship with God, ourselves, one another, and creation. We are all in a state of poverty and the result of our sin is a world of selfishness and suffering. This is the foundation from which we humbly move forward to look at material poverty.

We traveled to Hope International to go through their Pathways Out of Poverty experience (Click here to learn more). This is a powerful resource that takes you on a journey through the stories of people around our world living in unjust situations. We learned facts and personal connection with suffering and God's call for us to respond. We will be discussing our observations at our upcoming Bible study.

Sunday Jan 23: Encounter
We opened our Acts study up by splitting into groups of 4 to dig into the introduction (Acts 1:1-11) Using a basic study tool (What? So What? Now What?) we spent our morning focusing on understanding what was going on by listing a number of questions about the passage, significant points, and summarizing the verses. I can't tell you how excited I am about the questions students came up with, which we will seek to answer next week as a group. (Scroll down further to read the list of questions)

Sunday 23: Sunday Night Live
Our focus was on relationships, specifically how we speak and treat one another. We split into Jr and Sr High groups and while the one group played volleyball, the other came downstairs to discuss our topic. We watched a very relevant What Would You Do video clip (Search for "Taking on Mean Girls") which staged a scene of three girls bullying another girl in the park. We talked about how prevalent and damaging bullying is and how it's far too common among our own relationships, even in youth group. Most of us admitted that we've bullied other people in the words, names, and jokes we've used...as well as been the victim. Sacrasm, jokes, and unkind words easily fly across our room. But as we read through Ephesians 4:20-5:2 we discovered that how we treat one another is a significant part of following after Christ. We should only use words that build up others and deliver grace to their ears...we should speak the truth, be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving...We are to immitate Christ by walking together in love. Our youth group should be a place where that list is lived out on a regular basis as the power of the Gospel transforms us into a community of love.


Questions from the intro of Acts
What's the former book he's referring to? (v1)
Who is writing this book and why?
Who is Theophilus? (v1)
Why did Jesus spend 40 days appearing to people? Is that number significant? (v3)
Why did Jesus appear/prove Himself to the apostles and not to those who didn't believe Him? (v3)
What/how did Jesus prove Himself to those people over that time? (v3)
What is the "promised gift"? (v4)
Why did Jesus command them to not leave Jerusalem (v4)
What is the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and how is it different than water baptism? (v5)
What is the situation/expectations of the apostles during this time? (v6)
Why can't they know the time/how Jesus will return? (v7)
Who are the robbed men and why did they tell the apostles to stop staring up? (v11)
What is the difference between "our kingdom" (v6) and the "Kingdom of God"(v3)?
Why did Jesus have to leave?
What is the significance of Jesus command to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the world? (v8)