Interactive Teaching/Learning Guide s1

INTERACTIVE TEACHING/LEARNING GUIDE

Week 1

session title: “a master-planned community”

FOCAL PASSAGE: (Acts 2:42-47; Eph. 5:21-30)

Central Teaching/Learning Aim: To help the learner understand God’s plan for community and his/her role as a Fully-Developing-Follower of Christ.

I. Creating Interest in the Series (Hook)

A. Ask – How many of you are into “reality TV”? What are some of your favorite shows?

Next – Display logos from popular shows.

Share – the following information:

Reality TV is taking over the airwaves. Millions of people have tuned into the likes of Survivor, Big Brother, Joe Millionaire, The Bachelor, etc.

Ask – Do you think “reality TV” is really real? Of course not. When they are trying to be real, they are really fake.

The masks are on, the games are being played.

In 2000, a Harvard professor, Robert Putman, wrote a book called “Bowling Alone”. The premise of the book is that one of the most endangered resources in our society is social capital. We are spending less and less time with others and more and more time in isolation. People are starving for “real” relationships. Putman sited the following statistics as indicators of the decline in “community life” in America over the past 25 years:

State – In a culture full of declining and false relationships, it is no wonder why reality TV shows are so popular.

Being in a small group at church is “Real Life”. It is about living life together.

In this series “Real Life”, we will discuss how to live in a Biblically functioning community.

II. Creating Interest in the Word (Hook)

A. Read – the following advertisement for a popular master-planned community. (Do not let your class know that it is an ad for a neighborhood.)

“Welcome to a community designed not around a street map, but around your heart. With every special touch, it takes to allow you to live a life of maximum freedom and boundless opportunity. You will meet a staff that has your happiness at heart. And you will experience a level of service that harkens to a time when people really truly cared.”

State – It sounds like a religious experience doesn’t it. It is really an ad for a master-planned community.

Some neighborhood developers are offering every convenience, service and activity to provide a relational community.

It does not matter what conveniences are provided, a neighborhood will not provide community apart from relationships. In Acts 2, we find God’s plan for community.

Read – (Acts 2:42-47) and ask members to listen for the characteristics of a Biblically functioning community.

List of Characteristics:

Continued devotion to teaching

Continued devotion to fellowship

Continued devotion to breaking of bread

Continued devotion to prayer

God was at work

They were unified

They cared for one another’s needs

They met daily

They were glad, joyful

They were sincere “real”

They praised God together

They were looked upon favorably

They were multiplied

State – Today we are going to discuss God’s Master-Planned Community and how each of us must play our part as Fully Developing Followers of Christ.

B. Optional Method – Movie Clip “Antwone Fisher”

Start: 01:45:08

Stop: 01:50:00

Synopsis: Antwone Fisher is the true story of a young man abandoned at birth by an incarcerated woman, who was raised in abusive orphanages, foster homes, and reform schools. After his 18th birthday, he joins the navy where his anger towards life brims to the surface. After several fights, he is ordered to undergo counseling. Psychologist Jerome Davenport (Denzel Washington) encourages Antwone to find his roots to begin healing.

After several phone calls he reaches one aunt and uncle in Cleveland, who escort him to a dilapidated apartment complex where his estranged mother lives. A suspicious and aloof woman answers the door. Upon realizing that Antwone is the child she gave up at birth, she retreats to another room and sits down on a soiled and worn couch and cries silently.

Antwone asks for some explanation as to why she never came to rescue him or why she never sought him out. She cannot answer. She simply stares ahead, not daring to look at him, tears rolling down her expressionless face.

He gently kisses her on the cheek as if to say, "I forgive you," and walks away. His mother remains on the couch and stares at nothing, making no effort to respond. A despondent Fisher leaves the apartment with his questions unanswered and rides back to his aunt's house with his uncle.

As he exits the car, his slow gait betrays the loneliness of a man with no hope of a meaningful connection to anyone. As Antwone enters the front door, however, his world changes. He is met with a chorus of cheers from 50 plus relatives, all waiting to meet Antwone for the first time.

There are children, couples, cousins, uncles, and family friends, all smothering him with hugs, slaps on the back, and beaming smiles. One cousin tells him his name is Edward and says, "I'm named after your dad," and an older aunt squeezes his cheeks. Antwone takes it all in, overwhelmed.

The hallway stairs are filled with kids holding up signs with his name scribbled next to crayola-sketched smiley faces and rainbows. He is then led into the next room where a grand feast is spread across a long table. The table is overflowing with chicken, mashed potatoes, pancakes, fruit salad, and every other possible dish. The room is prepared for a party. For the first time in his life, he is being adored. For the first time, he belongs.

As the clamor quiets, an elderly woman sitting behind the table knocks to get Antwone's attention and then waves for him to come over next to her. With slow, deliberate moves, she raises her arms, grabbing his hands and then caressing his face. A slow tear runs down her cheek, and with a raspy voice that seemed as if it was mustering all the strength it possessed, she whispered the redemptive invitation: "Welcome."

In much the same way, we are welcome in the family of God.

Antwone Fisher (A Mundy Lane/Todd Black Production, 2002), rated PG-13, written by Antwone Fisher

State – This is a picture of a loving community. Acceptance, forgiveness, unconditional love, adoption, etc.

Read – (Acts 2:42-47)

Ask – members to listen for the characteristics of a Biblically-functioning community.

(See Option A)

State – Today we are going to discuss God’s Master-Planned Community and how each of us must play our part as Fully Developing Followers of Christ.

III. Getting Into the Word (Book)

A. Utilize - the “Discussion Guide” to examine the Scripture passage.

IV. Getting the Word Into Life (Look)

A. Distribute – the handout “My Place in Community” and guide members to complete it.

V. Conclusion (Took)

A. Movie Clip – “Ice Age”

Start: 53:29

Stop: 55:29

Synopsis: In the animated movie Ice Age, when saber-tooth tigers attack a tribe of nomads, a mother and her baby attempt to outrun the man-eating beasts but are cornered at a raging waterfall. With no other option available, the mother jumps, securely cradling her baby. She is mortally injured in the fall but survives long enough to deposit her newborn on the riverbank. The little boy is discovered by a wooly mammoth named Manfred, a sloth name Sid, and a saber-tooth tiger named Diego. These three unlikely companions unite on a common mission to return the baby to his father.

As the trio treks through a mountainous terrain of ice and snow carrying the baby, at one point the mammoth, sloth, and tiger realize they're on an erupting volcano. The heat of the lava melts the glacier bridges atop the ice fields, separating Diego from the others. Isolated on a quickly melting island of ice, Diego jumps to reach the others, but falls short. Dangling from the edge of the ice field, his grip falters, and he falls. Manfred, unwilling to let Diego perish, leaps into a chasm after him and tosses the tiger upwards to safety. Diego, realizing the danger involved in the rescue, is moved by Manfred's compassion, courage, and sacrifice.

"Why did you do that?" he asks. "You could have died trying to save me."

Humbly, the mammoth responds, "That's what you do when you're part of a herd. You look after each other."

Amazed at the convergence of circumstances that has brought these three together, Sid muses aloud. "I don't know about you guys, but we are one strange herd.”

Ice Age (Twentieth-Century Fox, 2002), rated PG, written by Peter Ackerman

State – We are a strange herd. All of us have different gifts, talents, desires, and needs. It takes all of us functioning as Fully-Developing-Follwers of Christ to be a healthy community of faith. Let’s commit to growing in Christ in 2004, contributing in a greater way to the cause of Christ.

B. Optional Method

Share – the following story:

Richard Kidd, staff pastor at Kempsville Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, tells this story:

When I was in college, a group of us met together regularly to pray in our dorm room. We bonded. We knew everything about each other. And so, when we came back to school after spring break, we were shocked to find out that John, my roommate, had had a terrible skiing accident and was in a coma in Maine.

We began to pray. We prayed with all of our might, and we received a call from his neurologist. He said, "We feel like John's brain stem injury, which has caused this coma, may be helped if he could hear some of the sounds he ordinarily hears. Could you put together a tape of all of John's favorite sounds?"

So we gathered together and put John's favorite music together. We told all of the bad jokes we ordinarily told, and we did all the crazy things college guys do together. We put it all on the tape. And at the end, we prayed and we wept.

When they played that tape for John on the sixth day of his coma, while people were praying across the state and across the nation, John came out of his coma.

And though the doctor said he would never walk correctly or go back to school, John Swanson proved him wrong. He even began to run again. He ran 60 miles a week. He graduated from William and Mary and became a personal research assistant for Al Greenspan.

We were in community, and community did John's body good.

Richard Kidd, staff pastor, Kempsville Presbyterian Church, Virginia Beach, Virginia, from sermon, "Community—It Does a Body Good" (9-17-00)

State – Community does do a body good.

Next – display the following quote:

“We can never be completely whole in and of ourselves. We are inevitably social creatures who desperately need each other not merely for company, but for any meaning to our lives whatsoever.

--Scott Peck

State – This is what being in a small group is all about. It completes us and adds meaning to our lives as we invest in others. Let’s make a new commitment in 2004 to give our all for the Body of Christ.

DISCUSSION GUIDE

(Teacher’s Copy)

1. List the characteristics of a Biblically functioning community as outlined in (Acts 2:42-47).

Characteristic’s of Community

(v. 42) / (v. 43) / (vs. 44-45) / (v. 46) / (v. 47)
Continually / Sense of awe / All things in common / Daily meeting / Praise
Devoted to / Miracles / Sharing property / In the temple / Acceptance
Teaching / From house to house / Daily converts
Fellowship / Happiness
Eating together / Authenticity
Prayer

2. How well is your ABF doing living out these characteristics?

3. Where is improvement needed?

4. Being in fellowship, means “close association involving mutual involvement and relationships.” Are you experiencing “true fellowship” with other believers?

If not, how can you improve?

5. Why is mutual submission so important in a marriage and in a church? (Eph. 5:21-24)

Each partner should look out for one another’s needs. In a community of faith, members must be submitted to Christ and the result is caring for one another’s needs.

6. What did Christ do for the church? (v. 25)

He gave Himself up for the church.

7. Why did Christ give Himself for the church? (v. 27)

So that the church could be presented holy and blameless.

8. How well are most churches living up to the standard of being holy and blameless?

9. If Christ nourishes and cherishes the church, then how should believers treat the church? (vs. 29-30)

10. How well are you doing functioning as a part of the body? Are you fulfilling your roll or is the body, hampered by your inactivity and commitment level?

11. How can you improve as a Fully-Developing-Follower of Christ, impacting your community of believers?