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March 30-April 5, 2011–Hope and Modern Medicine

 

 

 

 

Contributed by Jay Gamelin, pastor to Jacob’s Porch, a Lutheran Campus mission to The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

Warm-up Question

What is the sickest you have ever been?  What did it take to get better?  If you are still feeling the effects of illness or injury, what are the steps you are taking to improve your health?

Hope and Modern Medicine

There is a correlation between an optimistic patient and the likelihood of improved health say researchers at Duke University.  Gathering data from several thousand patients undergoing cardiac diagnostic testing, they found that patients with a positive outlook for the coming 15 years were half as likely to die from heart disease as the most pessimistic patients.  Even after removing data from the most affected and depressed patients, a positive outlook still remained as a large factor in the continued health of the patients—for many as much as the medication they took to treat heart disease.

This research suggests that creating hopeful expectations for patients, even what may seem like unrealistic hope, can have a profound impact on the health of patients.  The study highlights the growing understanding of how a person’s health is not simply an equation to solve with medicine and surgery but also something impacted by mysterious forces that stem from emotional and spiritual well-being.

In other words, it takes more than medicine to provide the best care.

Discussion Questions

  • Do you believe the study?  Do you think a positive attitude and hopeful outlook improve health?  Why or why not?  What evidence do you have of this in your own or in another’s life?
  • How do you think a positive outlook affects your everyday life?
  • What would change for you tomorrow if a miraculous event happened in your life?  How might you see the world differently if you had a tremendous amount of hope?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, April 3, 2011 (Fourth Sunday in Lent)

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

The impossible is just that- not possible.  We are taught that there are immutable laws in the universe that define and govern the way we interact.  Following in the steps of Newton, Einstein, and Curie,  scientists are still working hard to discover the rules of the universe so that we can better understand how we interact with the world.

So what do we do when we encounter something that goes against these laws?  In today’s text we see four ways to reflect on outrageous hope.  The man born blind is confronted first by the disciples.  They assume that the man’s condition is a result of sin.  Next, after the man is healed, the neighbors assume that the healed man must not be the man born blind but someone else.  Third, when he is brought to the priests they assume that there is foul play involved and wish to focus on condemning the method by which the man is given vision.  All three of these find some fault, some way to explain the problem so that it makes sense in their understanding of the universe.  For them the man being blind then given vision is a problem not a solution.

Last is the man himself.  When asked he answers with sublime simplicity: “I do not know whether (Jesus) is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”(9:25)   The man does not try to answer why he can see, he simply states the obvious, he can see.

When we encounter the unbelievable hope we have in Jesus it is so easy to try and explain it, to make sense of it, to try and reason why Jesus is or perhaps is not who we say Jesus is.  But one thing is true.  A man was blind.  Many, many women and men witnessed this.  Jesus healed this man and he could see.  Many, many women and men witnessed this and even died defending what they saw.  Even his parents!  This is what we know: it really and truly happened.

Perhaps when we try to explain everything we just make it complicated.  Perhaps living in hope and faith is not knowing and explaining but simply stating “I do not know how.  One thing I do know: He was dead and now he is risen.”

May we have hope.

Quotables

Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible–Stanislaw Lem

Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast– Lewis Carroll

Things are only impossible until they are not–Jean-Luc Picard

Discussion Questions

  • What makes it difficult to believe impossible things?
  • What is the difference between believing and knowing?
  • What is the difference between us and the disciples?  How do we come to trust what others have seen?

Activity Suggestions

Faith Box:  Have a box in the room.  Put something that may seem improbable in the box.  Perhaps have a picture of Mount Rushmore and stick it in.  Or write 10 tons of rocks on a sheet of paper.  Tell the youth that Mount Rushmore or 10 tons of rocks is in the box.

  • Do they believe you or not?  If they do, why?  If not, why not?
  • What is one thing you believe but have no proof?  (Life in outer space perhaps?  Or the Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch, whatever)  What causes you to believe this?
  • What we believe is often determined by the trust we put in the person making an impossible claim.  Who told you about this impossible thing?  Do the students trust this teacher?  Why or why not?
  • The thing in the box: do the students believe what you put in there?  Do they trust your witness?
  • What does this say about whether or not we trust the disciples?  What do we trust about the teachings we have learned?  What makes it hard to trust?

(DON’T SHOW THEM WHAT WAS IN THERE.  MAKE THEM LEAVE WITHOUT GETTING THE PROOF THEY DESIRE)

Closing Prayer

Jesus, you really died.  You really rose.  Help us to trust those who have told us this impossible thing.  Amen

March 23-29, 2011–Wedding Hopes

Contributed by Brian Hiortdahl, Resurrection Lutheran Church, Chicago, IL

 

Warm-up Question

What are you looking forward to?

Wedding Hopes

Much of the world buzzes in anticipation of the upcoming wedding of Great Britain’s Prince William to Kate Middleton.  The Internet and international media are saturated with reports, rumors, photographs, debating blogs and detailed background about royal wedding protocol, precedent and etiquette.  What’s the big deal?

An article from the Associated Press  suggests that there is a lot of hope riding on this upcoming marriage.  The royal family and the nation of England hope in varying degrees for a restoration of royal reputation and economic recovery, for new honor and a new heir to the throne, for the glories of the past to be projected forward into a better future.  There is great pressure on Kate and William to make not only their elaborate wedding day but also their marriage a success.  Their personal relationship bears an enormous weight of many political and cultural implications.

 

Discussion Questions

  • How much does this upcoming royal wedding interest you?  Why do you feel about it the way you do?
  • What do you think should be the couple’s first priority in their first year of marriage?
  • What aspects of Prince William and Kate’s relationship are fair game for public knowledge, and what should be private?  Why?
  • In what ways might any one couple’s marriage effect other people?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, March 27, 2011 (Third Sunday in Lent)

 

Exodus 17:1-7

Romans 5:1-11

John 4:5-42

 

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

Some Bible scholars have identified the pattern of a prenuptial story in Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well.  Several important men in Israel’s history, including  Jacob and Moses, met their wives at a well.  The story of Rebekah (read Genesis 24), who married Jacob’s father Isaac, is so strikingly similar to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman that it appears that the 4th chapter of John is at least partly patterned on the 24th chapter of Genesis.

If this is true, the British press would have quite a field day with the woman Jesus has “engaged” in conversation!  She admits to living with a man who is not her husband after five previous husbands.  She comes to the well at noon, during the heat of the day, which may mean either that she has too many mouths to provide for or that she seeks to avoid the other women in the village who come early or late, at cooler times.  She is also intelligent–and presumptuous for a woman in a patriarchal society where women ought not be seen speaking with men in public–and she has no problem expressing an opinion.  John’s story brims with questionable details that would be more than enough to titillate the tabloids and to make a respectable Jewish man–especially a rabbi–steer clear of this particular woman.

The most scandalous detail, however, is that she is a Samaritan.  Samaritans were loathed and avoided by Jews because they were considered unclean, impure, even traitorous.  They were the racially mixed descendants of Jewish parents who disobeyed God’s commands by marrying foreigners.  Many Jews wouldn’t even travel through Samaria in righteous protest.  That Jesus speaks so freely with her, as if they were social equals, is shocking.  That he speaks with her at a well really turns heads.

It would be easy (too easy) for us to speculate here about whether Jesus had romantic intentions, but that would be unfair to our storyteller, John, who has already written a story about a wedding without even mentioning the bride!  (John 2:1-11).  John always writes with multiple deeper meanings in mind.  This encounter at the well is really about the greater romance between God and God’s people, and about Jesus (elsewhere identified in Christian tradition as “the Bridegroom”) as the one in whom God makes an unbreakable, faithful commitment to humanity.  This union of love will be both humanly tested and divinely consummated at the cross, where Jesus “will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32-33).

The Samaritan woman both illustrates and discusses with Jesus the extent of his loving, life-giving reach.  Her layered unrighteousness (as a Samaritan and an impertinent woman) is dramatic backdrop for a conversation in which she shines as thoughtful, witty, and well-versed in religious history and theological discourse.  Jesus tells her that “the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem … true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”  Because of Jesus, human access to God will no longer be limited to external factors such as place, time, history, nationality or circumstance; the well is no longer necessary because living water will gush from within us, and our chronic human problem of thirst (not just for water, but for true life) will be solved by this one who will die thirsting on the cross.

On this encounter at Jacob’s well hangs the hope that Samaritans, women, sinners, and all people, especially those pushed to the fringes of the human story, will be restored to their rightful glory and united with God in love forever.  There’s a lot of hope riding on this wedding story!

Discussion Questions

  • Compare Genesis 24 and John 4.  What similarities and differences do you see?  How do you account for the differences?
  • Where do you go to encounter God?  Where has God shown up and surprised you?
  • Whom is Jesus approaching today?  Who has been unfairly judged, rejected and marginalized by present-day religious or cultural authorities?
  • What are the public implications of God’s love for us in Jesus?  How does our union with God in Christ offer hope to the world?

Activity Suggestions

  • Interview a long-married couple in your congregation or community.  Where do they see God’s hand at work in their relationship?  What are the secrets to their successful marriage?  How does their love for each other spill over their little bucket to bless the wider world?
  • Join and support the Lutheran ONE campaign  or another organization which works to dig wells and bring water and tangible hope to the poor and vulnerable, especially in Africa.

Closing Prayer

Loving God, our living water,  find us, fill us to overflowing with your life, and spill out of us as blessing and hope for the world that you so loved that you gave your only Son, Jesus Christ our Savior.  Amen

March 16-22, 2011–Conflict at the Corner of Church and State

Contributed by Jen Krausz, Bethlehem, PA

 

Warm-up Question

Have you ever passed out party invitations at school? What was the reaction?

Conflict at the Corner of Church and State

The Alliance Defense Fund, an organization devoted to promoting religious liberty, has filed a lawsuit against Pocono Mountain School district in Pennsylvania for discriminating against a fifth grade student.

The elementary school girl was told by the district superintendent that she could not hand out invitations for her church’s Christmas party at school, even though school policy permits students to hand out flyers and invitations for non-religious parties and other events.

The suit contends that the school district’s policies prohibit student speech simply because it is religious. According to the suit, the school district permitted other students to distribute fliers for Halloween parties, Valentine’s dances, bowling clubs and sports leagues. The suit states that what the girl, a student at Barrett Elementary Center in Cresco, wanted to hand out was an invitation to a Christmas party at her church that featured face painting, snacks, ping-pong, foosball, and “cup-stacking,”

David Cortman, a  lawyer for the ADF, commented, “It’s another example where schools need to be educated about the first amendment. The policies that are at the heart of this lawsuit are unconstitutional…In this case, because it was [affiliated with a church], it was denied.”
Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/school-districts-ban-on-5th-grader-s-christmas-party-invitation-lands-in-federal-court-1.1115720#ixzz1G75IMAEn

Discussion Questions

  • What does “separation of church and state” mean to you? Do you agree that schools should ban religious “speech”? Why or why not?
  • Why do you think a school might not want students to “promote Christianity” in school?
  • Do you think that inviting friends to a church event is promoting Christianity?
  • If you were judging this lawsuit, how would you rule? Was this student discriminated against because of her religion?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, March 20 (Second Sunday of Lent)

Genesis 12:1-4a

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

John 3:1-17

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

The term “born again” is almost a cliché in today’s society. People who call themselves “born again Christians” are often ridiculed and looked at as simplistic or overly zealous about their faith. Abortion clinic bombers and military funeral protesters sometimes call themselves “born again Christians,” which does not help anyone understand what that term really means.

In these verses, Jesus explains to Nicodemus that everyone who wants to see God’s kingdom has to be born again. The word “again” can also be translated “from above.” This is a spiritual birth, the beginning of a relationship with God through Christ that is meant to develop throughout our lives. It’s not some kind of one-time decision for Christ, after which we can elevate ourselves above all the “non-believers.” Like every label, it’s been twisted, sometimes by the media and sometimes by those who call themselves “born again.”

These verses also contain probably the most familiar Bible verse of all Christianity, John 3:16. This is the gospel message in about 20 words (depending on the version you read). God loved us even though not one of us was worthy of it, and Jesus was sent by God to make things right between us and God, if we will accept the free gift of forgiveness.

Discussion Questions

  • What is your perception of the term “born again”? Did reading these verses help you gain a different understanding of this term? Do you consider yourself “born again”?
  • Are you confident that you have “everlasting life” through faith in Jesus? If so, what makes you confident? If not, what needs to happen for you to have that confidence?
  • Do you think the media unfairly labels “born again Christians” (such as only portraying them as abortion clinic bombers or military funeral protesters)?  If you could have a meeting with reporters and editors, what would you say to them?
  • If you could meet with the superintendent of the Pocono Mountain School District, what would you say?

Activity Suggestions

Create a skit where a meeting such as those described in the above discussion questions takes place. Try to create as convincing a conversation as possible, one that respects the complexity of the issues and involves speaking the truth in love rather than engaging in angry confrontation.  (This could involve many different speakers, rather than simply a one-on-one conversation). If permissible, perform the skit at one of your church services or for the entire youth group during a gathering.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, we know that you did not spread your message with anger and condemnation. Help us to reflect your bold yet gentle spirit and to communicate the gospel message in a world that doesn’t always welcome it. In your holy name, amen.

March 9-15, 2011–Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Contributed by Jack Saarela, Lutheran Campus Ministry, Yale University

Warm-up Question

Look at the picture below.  What would you substitute for “especially bookstores”?

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

In seeking a thought-provoking picture about temptation to kick off this devotion, I noted that they were almost all one of two general types: (a) photos of women being tempted by food, especially chocolate; and (b) seductive, revealing photos of young, buxom female beauties, presumably representing the most common and compelling temptation for men.

But there are temptations other than overindulging in rich food or engaging in illicit, casual, uncommitted sex. I should wear a shirt like the one in this photo. No matter how many unread books are already on my shelf, no matter the state of our family budget, lure me into a bookstore, and you can be sure I won’t walk out without at least one more book to add to my library.  It’s not exactly “shop ‘til you drop”, but more like, “There’s always room for one more on my shelf”, and “I’ll read it later.”

Discussion Questions

  • We pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” What do you think of when you hear that phrase?
  • What are the temptations that follow you around like your shadow which you can only acknowledge to yourself?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, March 13, 201 (First Sunday in Lent)

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

Matthew tells us that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Don’t you think that rather strange? The same Spirit that descended and alighted on him in his baptism just a few verses earlier, now seemingly leading Jesus into temptation? What happened to “Lead us not into temptation”?

It’s interesting that the Greek word used by Matthew can mean either “temptation” or “test”. One commentator remarks, “Apparently, Satan tempts, but God tests.”

About what is Jesus being tested by God? God’s voice had been heard at Jesus’ baptism saying, “This is My Son, the Beloved . . .” In announcing Jesus’ birth, the angel had quoted the prophet who said the name of the young woman would be “Emmanuel, which means God with us.” So, how ready is Jesus to be God’s Beloved, to take on the mission given to him of being the very presence of God in the world? What means would he use to fulfill that mission?

Satan prefaced each temptation with, “If you are the Son of God . . .” How much would Jesus really trust the voice from heaven that proclaimed him the Son? Would he base his life on his God-given identity as the Beloved, or would he try to forge his own identity as a wonder-worker or oriental despot?

Matthew doesn’t describe the struggle that Jesus surely must have experienced in hearing Satan’s temptations. Is something really a temptation if it isn’t somehow within our grasp for the taking, and if it doesn’t involve a sacrifice to deny it?

But in the end, Jesus turned Satan down. He would live out his identity as the Beloved and fulfill his mission, not by pulling out the “God card” as Satan counseled. Instead, he would do the opposite. To be God with us, he had to become human before God, just like us. Paul writes to the Philippians that “though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God a something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness.” He wasn’t going to jump from the parapet of the temple, because flesh and blood doesn’t survive such a jump.

Don’t you find hope in Jesus’ victory over temptation and his passing God’s test? Son of God though he was, Jesus was no different in this respect from you and me. Temptation was as strong, as real, for him as for anyone of us. And being in human form, his power to resist was no greater than ours. Temptation strips all, including even Jesus, of any power of our own to save ourselves. Why else would Jesus teach us to pray for God to deliver us from evil?

Jesus relied on his God-given identity as the Beloved, and on all of God’s promises in Scripture, to pass the test and resist Satan’s tempting offers. All alone out there in the wilderness with Satan, that’s all Jesus had to rely on.

When we face our own temptations, whatever they are, that’s all we have to rely on too. But it will be enough.

Discussion Questions

  • High school students interviewed in an episode of Real Faith TV list drinking, drugs, sex before you’re ready, and cheating on test as the Big Four temptations in their lives, and the lives of their peers (http://realfaithtv.com/realfaithtv/09-10_episodes.html) Do you agree?
  • Do you think there’s always something deeper going on when we are tempted? That is, some dissatisfaction with out lives as they are that makes us particularly vulnerable to temptation?
  • Not many of us consider ourselves “rich”. But by the standards of our world, most of us are quite comfortable. I would argue that the greatest temptation for us in our society is to rely on our affluence for our security. See I Timothy 6:6-10.  What do you think?

Activity Suggestions

Watch the “Marshmallow Test” and have a good laugh! See yourself in it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkn4J_l9uU

Participants might also discuss whether they would eat or wait–and why.

Closing Prayer

Loving God, in the desert you called our Lord to the way of trust and service, rather than of presumption and power.  You  promised Him your sustaining presence.  Strengthen us in all our temptations, preserving us most of all from despair.  You, who know our weakness, forgive our failings and renew us daily, that our lives may be signs of your care for all creation.  We make our prayer in the name of Him who has walked the way of temptation before us, Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

March 2-8, 2011–From Mountaintop to Spring Training

Contributed by Aaron Matson, Leganger Lutheran Church, Toronto, SD

Warm-up Question

Have you ever been a part of a great celebration? What were you celebrating? How did feel to be a part of such a celebration?

From Mountaintop to Spring Training

A few short months ago, the San Francisco Giants were on top of the baseball world, celebrating a World Series Championship. Winning the World Series is the dream of any baseball player from the first time he picks up a baseball and bat. It is the pinnacle, the mountain top, of achievement for a baseball player. It is an experience that can never be taken away:  the final out,  the celebration on the field and in the locker room,  the parade in front of the cheering hometown fans.

But right now, the Giants, like every other Major League Baseball team, are going through the daily grind of spring training. Like everybody else, the Giants are taking grounders, running sprints, and practicing bunting and base running. While they are hoping for another championship at the end of the season, they know that the life of a baseball player is not primarily mountaintop celebration, but the daily routine of honing his skills to be the best player he can be. The life of a baseball player is filled with ups and downs, but through the ups and downs, baseball players do what they have been trained and coached to do – play baseball.

Discussion Questions

  • Have you ever had to practice or rehearse for an activity in which you were  involved?
  • Do you ever get tired of practicing or rehearsing? Was the joy of being a part of the activity worth it?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, March 6, 2011 (Transfiguration of our Lord)

Exodus 24:12-18

2 Peter 1:16-21

Matthew 17:1-9

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience? That is, have you ever had an experience where you felt the presence and love of God in a way you never had before? Maybe you felt that way at a week at camp, or at a retreat. Maybe you  had one at a conference or Bible study with a particularly engaging and insightful speaker or teacher.

Mountaintop experiences are wonderful things. They can renew your spirit, refresh your faith, and inspire you to live a more healthy, faithful life. In the rhythm of the life of the Church, weekly worship services are meant to be mini-mountaintop experiences.  Hopefully you leave worship renewed, refreshed, and inspired—at least some of the time. Ideally, somewhere in the liturgy,  scripture readings, fellowship, hymns, or sermons you hear the Gospel preached and your faith is renewed and refreshed for the next week.

The season of Epiphany is a season of mountain top experiences, and in today’s Gospel lesson, we literally see a mountaintop experience in the transfiguration of Jesus. Six days after he predicts his suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to a high mountain. Jesus is transfigured before them; that is, his appearance and very being are changed.  His clothes are a dazzling white and Moses and Elijah appear with him. A voice from heaven speaks words very similar to those uttered when Jesus was baptized, “This is my Son, the beloved, listen to him!” And then, as suddenly as the experience started, it ends; Jesus is alone again, and he tells them to tell no one what they have seen until he had risen from the dead.

And in the middle of this miraculous event, the disciples are terrified, scared stiff–as  I imagine any of us would be. This is the mountaintop experience to end mountaintop experiences, an Epiphany overload of awe and wonder and revelation. They have an experience where Jesus is revealed to be divine, the Son of God. Shown in the presence of the two biggest names in the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, Jesus is revealed as the completion and perfection of what God had been doing throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and Israel’s collective history.

In the middle of this awesome and amazing event, Peter, not knowing what else to say, proposes building dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. As terrified as he is, he knows what a miraculous event he witnessed and he doesn’t want it to end. In his mind, this is a mountaintop experience that can’t be topped – and won’t be, until he had seen the risen Christ.

But the experience did end; Jesus and the disciples had work to do. Jesus did not come to this world to stay on mountaintops; he came to bring God’s kingdom to earth in his ministry, death, and resurrection. Like Peter, we too want to stay in mountaintop experiences.  That is understandable. Who wouldn’t want to stay in the place where we can see the glory and power of Christ in amazing ways?

But the life of faith is not meant to be spent on mountaintops, it is meant to be spent in active engagement in the life of the world – in getting our hands dirty, in using our voices to speak for the oppressed, in speaking truth to power, and speaking words of compassion and love to our neighbors. Sometimes words of love need to be a kick in the pants so that others straighten up, and sometimes they need to be words of gentle understanding and comfort. But either way, they need to be words of Christ’s love and compassion. Put simply, it is our work to be engaged in the world, proclaiming the Gospel by loving and serving the neighbor.

A boat in a port is safe, but that is not what boats were made for.  Jesus could have stayed on the mountaintop, but that’s not what he was sent for. Life on the mountaintop is safe, but that is not what our Christian vocation is. Our vocation, our calling, is to spread the Gospel of Christ in word and deed, and to be engaged in the world in lives of love and service, so that the light of Christ shines through us.

Discussion Questions

  • Have you ever had a “mountaintop experience” in your faith life? Did you wish you could stay there?
  • Has that experience helped you to live out your faith in the daily grind of life?
  • What are some ways you can live out your faith and be engaged in the world?

Activity Suggestions

  • Review the promises that parents and sponsors make in Baptism and that people make when they affirm their Baptism (pages 228 and 236). Talk about how theses faith practices help sustain and strengthen a Christian’s faith in between mountaintop experiences.
  • Bring newspapers or news stories from the Internet and find stories of people in your community and around the world that need us to be engaged in the world as signs of God’s loving presence. Go to the ELCA Advocacy (http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Justice/Advocacy.aspx) page to find some ways you can be engaged as Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

Closing Prayer

Everlasting God, we thank you for all those mountaintop experiences where we have felt your presence in amazing and incredible ways. Holy Spirit, help us sustain our faith as we come back down from those mountaintops to engage the world. We pray for all those that need the help of your Church and we pray that you awaken the compassion within us so that we may bring your love and healing presence to them. Amen.