Bible Study

September 2006

Faith to Follow
Bible study by Ann Farley-Parker
Video by Jason Cancel

Ask students to brainstorm the ways life would be different without the following amenities (write thoughts on a whiteboard or overhead projector):

• cable/Dish TV
• text messaging
• newspapers
• cell phones
• Blackberries
• telephones
• television
• email and Internet access
• public transportation
• running water and indoor plumbing
• lights

Ask students:

1. What amenity would you have the most difficult time giving up?
2. What things would you be willing to trade in order to keep that amenity?
3. What if you had to trade something intangible to keep that amenity—your health, relationship with your parents or friends, your grades, your reputation? Would it still seem as valuable to you?

SAY: For some people, the scariest thing about missions is what they might have to give up in order to do missions. Let’s meet someone who made the decision to make a pretty big sacrifice of “creature comforts” in order to follow Christ.

Show the video segment “Faith to Follow.”

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After the segment is finished, stop the video. Discuss these questions as a large group:

1. What did Nate give up in order to minister to the Tuareg people?
2. Does Nate believe that serving God in this way is worth the sacrifices he is making? Why?

SAY: Paul struggled with some similar issues.

Read aloud Philippians 1:12-14, 19-21. Ask students to reflect on the following questions:

1. What does Paul see as the benefit to the struggles he has faced?
2. How were other Christians encouraged by Paul’s perseverance?
3. In what ways are we encouraged when we see another Christian persevere through difficult circumstances? (You may want to remind students of the many Christians who face persecution for Christ around the world.)
4. To what does Paul attribute his ability to endure these hardships?
5. What does Paul mean when he says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”?

SAY: Like Paul, Nate believes that what he is giving up in order to serve Christ is SMALL compared to what he is gaining by (1) being obedient to Christ and (2) sharing God’s love and message with the Tuareg people. His love for the Tuareg compels him to want to make these sacrifices in order to live and share with them. Nate prayed very specifically for God to lay a people group on his heart. When he first thought about becoming a Journeyman he prayed:
“God, I don’t want to go somewhere for an adventure. I don’t want to go somewhere for a job. If I’m going to do this, I want You to lay a people on my heart and burden me for them so that I’ll know that I’m not there for myself, so that I’m there for the benefit of someone else.”

Divide the students into eight small groups or pairs, assigning one “Unreached People Group” to each small group. (If your students are unfamiliar with the term “Unreached People Group,” summarize “What Is A People Group?” for your students, available at:
http://www.imb.org/globalresearch/peoplegroups.asp.) Give each student a copy of a description of an Unreached People Group. Ask each group to read through its description and pray for its People Group generally and in the following specific ways:

1. Pray for a spirit of openness among the people to the Gospel.
2. Pray that God would begin preparing the hearts of the people for Christian missionaries. (John 6:44)
3. Pray for God to send laborers to share Christ to share Christ with this people group – and for Christians to answer the call. (Matt. 9:37-38)
4. Pray for the wisdom of strategy coordinators who seek to find the best approaches to ministering to these people (i.e., English teachers, doctors, tourism, agriculture, business opportunities). (I Thess. 2:8)

UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUPS

Conclude by challenging students to include prayer for their people groups in their daily prayer time. Encourage students to do further research on the Internet to learn more about these people and ways that they can pray more specifically for them.

Pray:

1. That God will show you things that you need to sacrifice in order to share Christ with others—habits, friends, attitudes, fears.
2. That God will give you confidence as you experience times of uncertainty and fear in your life.
3. That God will give you opportunities to share His love with others.
4. For Christians to answer God’s call to serve as short- and long-term missionaries to unreached people groups.
5. That God will remind you to pray faithfully for your unreached people group.

“Surmountable Fear”

Set up a mock “Fear Factor” food event, call “Fear Factor Food.”

• Find foods that students are not accustomed to eating (though not dangerous to consume). If possible, go to an Asian or African grocery store to purchase items. If not, look for items in a local grocery store like sardines, clam juice, bamboo shoots, coconut milk, spicy tomato juice, barley or wheat germ, tofu, and baby food (particularly meat or vegetables).
• Select an outdoor location or one which can be cleaned afterward for this opening activity.
• Set out a small bowl of each food for each team on a table.
• Divide students into teams of 4 or 5.
• As a relay race, one student from each team must run to the table and consume one bowl of food and return to tag the next teammate, until all the team’s food has been eaten.
• When giving the game’s directions, remind the players that nothing on the table will harm them.
• The winning team is the one which completes its food first.
• (You may want to provide water for students after they have run their leg of the relay.)
• (If you have particularly squeamish students, you may want to do this game as a race only with volunteers. The first one to each all the food items wins.)

Ask students to reflect on the “Fear Factor Food” race:

1. What was hard about this game?
2. Did it give you any comfort to know that nothing on the table would harm you? Why or why not?
3. What if you had not known that all these foods were safe to eat? Would that have made this more difficult? Why?
4. Would you have eaten this food if it were on a buffet instead of part of a game? Why or why not?
5. Would you have eaten this food if you were served it at someone’s home? Why or why not? What if it were someone with whom you were trying to share Christ?

Show the video segment “Fear Factor Food.”
Ask students to divide into small groups and create a Top Ten list of reasons students are afraid of missions (either short-term trips or career missions). (You may want to save the “Top Ten” lists students create for the “Overcoming Fear” segment Bible Study.)

Next, show the video segment “Surmountable Fear.”

After the segment is finished, stop the video. Discuss these questions as a large group:

1. What fears did the student on the video have about missions?
2. How do these fears compare with the ones on your Top Ten list? Are they the same? Are they different?
3. In your opinion, are these fears valid?
4. Why do you think the students chose to go on this mission trip if they had so many fears?
5. How do you think they got over their fears?
6. How does faith help us conquer fear?
Divide the students into four small groups, assigning one passage to each group.

a. Acts 4:1-26 (Peter and John)
b. Acts 5:12-42 (Peter and John)
c. Acts 16:16-40 (Paul and Silas)
d. Acts 18:1-17 (Paul)

Ask each small group to answer these questions for their passage:

2. Describe the “fearful situation.”
3. How did that person respond to it?
4. What did God do for that person?
5. What does this teach us about how God wants us to respond when we are afraid?

Have students share with the group a summary of their character’s experience and what they learned from searching Scripture.

Ask students to look at how each of these passages guides us as we face fear:

1. Acts 18:9-10
2. Romans 8:15-18
3. 2 Corinthians 12:9
4. 1 Peter 3:13-17

Pray:

1. That you will not allow fear—of others, of things that might happen, or of the unknown—to control your life.
2. Asking God areas in which you need to overcome fear.
3. That you will be obedient even when you are afraid.
4. That you will have courage as you face difficult situations.
5. That God’s peace will control you as share Christ with others.