Winterfest 2015 Devotional Ideas for Friday Night Group Time-2
Friday Night Devotional
Note to group leader: Resist the urge to try to do too much during this devotional session on Friday night. Often times, the travel and the strain and stress of simply getting to the event are enough to wear the teens (and the adults) out. Don’t force it. Pace yourself.
You know your group. You know what they can handle. Ask yourself the question: Are they primed and pumped and ready for more right now? Or, are they too tired to hear more at this moment? You may be pouring good water into a glass that is already full. Or they might be anxious to follow up with more. Either way, determine the status of your group as the devotional begins and give them what they can handle….not too much, not too little.
Following are discussion questions based upon David Skidmore’s Friday night message. These will serve as a good basis for follow-up. You’ll also see three illustrations provided for you that fit the theme of David’s lesson. Use the ones you like the best. Don’t feel like you need to use all of them. All three have been excerpted/adapted from Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks by Wayne Rice.
Discussion Questions
Leaders: Take a moment to think about WATCHES...
1. What was YOUR favorite WATCH as a kid? Why was it so special? Can you remember a
friend who had a watch you really wanted? What was so cool about it?
2. David talked about three versions of the way we WATCH: "GLANCE", "GAZE", and "GET
IT". How are these different from one another? In your youth group, what are 2-3
characteristics of a "GLANCE" Christian? What are 2-3 qualities of someone who is simply
"GAZING"? How can you spot a "GET IT" Christian? If you were honest, which one are you
at the moment?
3. Think about someone you know who really "GETS IT". What about that person do you
admire? What about them do you wish were true of you? What about them would you like to
imitate?
4. Who is the best impersonator you have ever seen? What impression/impersonation of this
person is your favorite?
5. Who is someone famous that you are pretty good at imitating?
6. When you seek to do an actual impression of someone what are 3 things you do in order to
perfect it? How is this similar to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus?
7. What is ONE characteristic of Jesus that you wish were more true of you?
8. John Morgan has made a career out of impersonating someone else. What was something he
shared that you can apply to your desire to BE LIKE CHRIST?
Finally, take a moment to read Ephesians 5:1-20. What characteristics are we called to imitate as we follow Christ? Which ones are we called to avoid?
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Make Me Like Joe
A drunk named Joe was miraculously converted at a mission. Prior to his conversion, Joe had gained the reputation of being a dirty wino for whom there was no hope, only a miserable existence in the ghetto.
But following his conversion to a new life with God, everything changed. Joe became the most caring person that anyone associated with the mission had ever known. Joe spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission doing whatever needed to be done. There was never any task that was too lowly for Joe to take on. There was never anything that he was asked to do that he considered beneath him. Whether it was cleaning up the vomit left by some violently sick alcoholic or scrubbing the toilets after careless men left the bathroom filthy, Joe did what was asked with a soft smile on his face and with a seeming gratitude for the chance to help. He could be counted on to feed feeble men who wandered into the mission off the street, and to undress and tuck into bed men who were too out of it to take care of themselves.
One evening, when the director of the mission was delivering his evening evangelistic message to the usual crowd of still and sullen men with drooped heads, there was one man who looked up, came down the aisle to the altar and knelt to pray, crying out for God to help him to change. The repentant drunk kept shouting, “Oh God, make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe!”
The director of the mission leaned over and said to the man, “Son, I think it would be better if you prayed, ‘Make me like Jesus!’”
The man looked up at the director with a quizzical expression on his face and asked, “Is he like Joe?”
The first real communication of anything spiritual usually comes through people who demonstrate loving humility in the regular turn of daily events and especially in the rough spots of life. When we share the humble spirit of Christ in the workplace, at school, at home, or wherever we are, we do more to point people to Christ than any kind of preaching or evangelistic technique. Our goal is to let people see Jesus in us, to be a reflection of him. Someone has said, “You may be the only Jesus a person ever sees.” What do they see? Let us be an accurate reflection of Jesus, who “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…” (Philippians 2:6-7).
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The Cliff
A man named Jack was walking along a steep cliff one day when he accidentally got too close to the edge and fell. On the way down he grabbed a branch, which temporarily stopped his fall. He looked down and to his horror saw that the canyon fell straight down for more than a thousand feet. He couldn’t hang onto the branch forever, and there was no way for him to climb up the steep wall of the cliff.
So Jack began yelling for help, hoping that someone passing by would hear him and lower a rope or something. “Help! Help! Is anyone up there? Help!” He yelled for hours, but no one heard him. He was about to give up when he heard a voice.
“Jack. Jack. Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes! I can hear you. I’m down here!”
“I can see you, Jack. Are you all right?”
“Yes, but...who are you, and where are you?”
“I am the Lord, Jack. I’m everywhere.”
“The Lord? You mean, GOD?”
“That’s me.”
“God, please help me! I promise—if you’ll get me down from here, I’ll stop sinning. I’ll be a really good person. I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.”
“Easy on the promises, Jack. Let’s just get you down from there; then we can talk. Now, here’s what I want you to do. Listen carefully.”
“I’ll do anything, Lord. Just tell me what to do.”
“Okay. Let go of the branch.”
“What?”
“I said, let go of the branch. Just trust me. Let go.”
There was a long silence. Finally Jack yelled, “Help! Help! Is anyone else up there?”
Have you ever felt like Jack? We say that we want to know the will of God, but when we find out what it is, we can’t handle it. It sounds too scary, too difficult. We decide to look elsewhere.
A good part of discipleship is simply trusting God—trusting that he knows what’s best for us. Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29-30). This simply means that God isn’t trying to make life difficult or impossible for us. He will always be there for us. When he says, “Let go of the things that stand between you and me, and trust me with your life,” it sounds pretty scary. But when we let go, we find freedom and safety in his hands.
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On the Right Track
Wilbert Awdry was the son of a poor preacher in Wiltshire, England. As a boy he often accompanied his father on his visiting rounds. Wilbert especially liked riding the train and talking to the railway workers he met along the way.
A poor student, Wilbert barely managed to finish college. He decided to follow in his father’s footsteps because he liked the idea of helping people see God. But Wilbert was not a successful pastor. In fact he was fired by his church and for a while considered leaving the ministry altogether.
But then an event took place that changed his life forever. Wilbert’s first child, Christopher, caught the measles. While Christopher was confined to his bed, Mr. Awdry amused him with a story he’d made up about a little train engine who was sad because he hadn’t been out of his shed for a long time.
The boy wanted to hear the story over and over again. Wilbert finally wrote it down and illustrated it with some crude line drawings of trains with faces on them.
Wilbert’s wife saw more in the little story than family entertainment. She pushed her husband to offer the book to a publisher. Much to Wilbert’s surprise, the publisher liked it.
In 1945, Wilbert Awdry’s first book, The Three Railway Engines, was published.
Book after book followed. All were stories about little train engines with different personalities who interacted in very simple, but very human, dramas. Every story rang with a message of morality, grace, and redemption.
As Awdry himself said of his creation, “The important thing is that the engines are punished and forgiven—but never scrapped!”
Wilbert Awdry wasn’t very successful as a preacher. But he has been extremely successful in sharing the love of God in another setting. Ask any child if they’ve heard of Mr. Awdry’s creation, Thomas the Tank Engine, and you’ll see just how successful he’s been.
When he was asked what he would like to have engraved on his tombstone, he replied, “He helped people see God in the ordinary things of life...and he made children laugh.” Not a bad legacy. Wilbert Awdry went to be with the Lord in March of 1997.
What will your legacy be? Each of us is called by God to serve and glorify him in all we do. That doesn’t mean you have to become a pastor or a missionary or go into full-time Christian service. You can serve God doing whatever you do best.
If you’re an artist, you can create art to the glory of God. If you’re a construction worker, you can build buildings to the glory of God. If you’re a burger flipper, you can flip burgers to the glory of God. And if you do, you can be certain that you’ll leave a legacy.
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).
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