Once a week, the school has a cell group for the teachers during a lunchtime. Since most of the teachers at the school aren't Christian, it's actually a really good opportunity to try and introduce them to God and help them to understand the gospel. For various reasons, it seems that of late, the time for cell group has not been used as effectively as it could be for helping those who don't yet know God, to understand God and what he's done for us more. Yesterday there was an opportunity for me to go share in the group, so despite having all of an hour and a half to prepare, i thought i'd take up the challenge. So BIG thanks to
Ignite(the christian film festival that i used to be involved with) for helping get some christians to produce some awesome short films that i could use. i ended up using a film called Adam which was based on the parable of the Lost Son as the basis of the talk. We watched the film and i got them to think about the character of the father and the son and make a list of all their different characteristics on the white board. It was awesome to see them see how the dad was loving, forgiving, merciful etc, and how the son was someone who had rejected the dad, done things to displease him etc. yet, no matter what the son had done, how bad it was, the father still loved the son and was overjoyed when the son returned. Everyone was really into watching the video and discussing it. So it made it easy to tell them that the story was actually based on a story from the bible, which we went on to read ourselves and discuss further. I was then able to share that the father describe in this story is like God, all those characteristics are the characteristics of God. And the son is like us. But even us, who have also rejected God, can turn back to God and he will accept us, and is overjoyed when we do turn back to him. I was just glad to be able to the chance to share with them and help them understand the character of God more, and try and challenge them with whether or not they themselves want to turn back to God. i know there's still a long way to go with many of them, but it was a great opportunity all the same.
For those praying:
- please pray for all the teachers and staff that aren't yet christian to be understanding God more and more, and so be turning their lives back to Him
- please pray for those in charge of orgnising the cell group time, to recognise the importance of teaching about God and the gospel
- thank God for the opportunity to go and share with the group, and that i was able to do it too (ie they could understand me)
the cell group during 'singing time'
writing up the characteristics of God and the Son
me trying to share
