MARCH 2012
celloutlines | overview
Boundless easter! This month we are looking at the subject of Boundless Easter. We will follow Jesus, and also the followers who lived and journeyed with him, as he took on the most decisive and influential event in the story of everything that has ever been, or ever will be! We cannot put enough emphasis on the boundless nature of this, the climax of God’s story. Through an analysis of Easter, we are brought closer to the very nature of our creator, and whilst we will only barely scratch the surface of the story over this coming month, we are invited to look upon the face of a God who loved the world enough to give his son for it. Easter combines all the ingredients of a great story: love, fear, relationships, life, death, life again… and there is the added impact of the fact that this story is true, with more books dedicated to its telling than any other, and with millions upon millions of people claiming to be in love with the author. More importantly, the author first loved his followers, and that’s why we needed the story! So as we have highlighted the importance of the story – we are going to spend a fair bit of time reading this month! It’s a story month! It would be great to get your group to commit to reading the gospel of Luke, as the Easter part of Jesus’ story does not make sense unless you first take the time to read about Jesus time spent growing up; his family, his followers and his ministry. We will be exploring the fact the Jesus was the Messiah, but also (and equally) a prophet, a Jewish Rabbi (teacher), a son and friend, and many other things that all come together in his death and resurrection. Ask your group about how they are going to be able to fit in reading a whole book of the bible over a month. Think through good strategies to make this work – i.e. breaking it up through the day, dedicating one evening to giving a few hours of reading armed with a notebook and pencil.
celloutlines
Luke is 24 chapters long, so if you think that realistically there is no way your group will read it, then consider other formats where Jesus story is told. There are many movies, musicals, youtube clips etc that pick out key milestones of Jesus life. The reason we have chosen this gospel is that Luke structures his themes in a brilliant way. It is thought that he was a doctor, and he wrote the book of Acts as well as this intelligent gospel. Disclaimer: Sometimes we gloss over the fact that Jesus was killed in an incredibly gruesome and inhuman way. As group leaders, it is vital that you choose how to talk about this, and present any written or film material in an appropriate manner that considers the age of your cell group members and their emotional capacity. There may be individuals who would be upset if content is not presented in the right way. Please talk to your officers, youth leaders and/or parents of your young people about what material is appropriate to use. If at all possible, it is helpful to find a good explanation of what is going on in the biblical text, and the best example of this we can recommend is ‘Luke for Everyone’, by Tom Wright. Tom is an Anglican Bishop and leading New Testament scholar who writes in an accessible way. There are lots of passages in Luke including Jesus’ parables that were designed to tell us what God’s kingdom is like, and what he was setting about doing on the cross. These passages have been interpreted in many ways both helpfully and unhelpfully from then to now, and so we will take the time to apply the ALOVE Shelf Life App’s (Pray, Read, Explore, Question, Dig, Live) to the story, and try to understand a bit more of what God has done, and what that means for our lives. For week 1: Read Luke 1-7. Write down the bits that you think are most important. Also, write down any bits that you do not understand. By Week 2, read Luke 19 - 20 continued over >>>
www.salvationarmy.org.uk/alove