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Sunday, March 12 Discipleship Recap
Adult On Sunday March 12 The Rector's Forum began a new section in its "Living in a Pluralistic Society" series. The scene shifts from the Book of Judges to that of Daniel, which provides perhaps an even more clear parallel to our situation than Judges did as it depicts individual believers in an urban setting having to decide how to approach an extended life period in an unbelieving society under an unbelieving establishment: a pluralistic society that is at best indifferent and at worst actively hostile to faith in the true and only God. We began to see that one can navigate that territory in different ways - with separation and hostility, with separation and hope for a miraculous change, or, while staying distinct in faith, integrating with the city to bless it. Come and see what Daniel's path looks like.
Students In Student Discipleship we covered Galatians 5:16-26 in which Paul describes the battle raging inside each one of us: in one corner is the flesh (our fallen human nature) and in the other corner is the Spirit (the Holy Spirit who dwells within us). These two are opposed to one another. If we are led by the Spirit we will not give into the desires of the flesh.
If you take the works of the flesh together as a whole what you get at the root of it all is the "self". The flesh is all about me, myself, and I. The flesh is self-taking. This is the foundation of all enmity, strife, dissention, outburts of anger, sexual immorality, envy and idolatry, etc. On the flip side if you take the fruit of the Spirit as a whole what you see at the root is "others". The fruit of the Spirit is self-giving. God is in no way opposed to the fruit of the Spirit.
We finished our discussion with some practical application by recognizing works of the flesh in our lives and how we can practice the fruit of the Spirit instead. We prayed that the Spirit would plant God's Word deep in our hearts that it may grow and produce fruit in our lives. Kids In Children's Church, we learned the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness by watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc-x4qKY6Wc. We then talked about what temptation means to us, how we can resist temptation to sin with God's power, and if we do sin after being tempted, what we should do! (repent and ask for forgiveness and do the next right thing!) We also continued to memorize John 3:16 and learned the books of the New Testament from Matthew to Colossians! Each child took home a paper that had the list of all the books of the Bible to continue to memorize at home.
In Discipleship, we learned of the many ways God used a donkey in the Bible. But the story we focused on the most was Balaam's donkey. We had fun doing speaking parts of this story and learned that just like God used the donkey, He can use us!! Then we learned a few interesting facts and learned how to draw a donkey! Next Sunday should be a favorite animal of everyone: lions!
