TNF - January 26, 2006

Thursday Night Fellowship
January 26, 2006
Study of John


Introductory Questions
1. How many of you told your parents and a friend about Jesus in the last two weeks?
2. Has your mom ever asked you to do something that you didn't want to do?
3. What are some concepts about God that aren't clear to you or difficult to understand?
4. Which of these words describe Jesus?
- Loving, caring, meek, mild, divisive, confrontational, harsh, violent, passionate, purposeful, critical, gentle, name-calling, powerful, handsome, alive, loves to party, had to burp occasionally

Our Purpose for Studying John? To know Jesus better. To move Jesus from the Sunday school two-dimensional flannel graph figure to the God-man who lives and loves people like us.

Let's read our passage of John 2:1-12.

Let's list the main people in this passage:
* Jesus
* Jesus' mother
* Jesus' disciples

Will someone please summarize the story for us?

How does verse 2:4 sound to you? Let's read that in some different versions. To be honest, I have a hard time understanding why Jesus says this. What do you think he does?

Jesus' mother may have been being motherly and telling Jesus what to do. She knew that Jesus could have done something and so she told her son what to do. Well Jesus is more than just the son of Mary, he is the son of God the Father, and Jesus always does the will of the Father. While it was God's will that Jesus turn water into wine, Jesus may have been demonstrating to his mother that he will act according to the Holy Spirit.

The other option may be that Jesus didn't know that he was supposed to turn the water into wine and later the Holy Spirit revealed it to him. The story happens rather quickly in John 2, but it may not have happened that quickly at the celebration. Weddings were long and huge events back then. This is a harder explanation to understand, but at least we can ponder about it.

The focus of our study through John is on the relationships Jesus has with people. We want to look at how Jesus relates to people and how those people relate to Jesus. From these observations we can draw applications as to how Jesus relates to us and how we ought to relate to him.

First we can look at Jesus and his mother.
Mary believed that Jesus could do something about the problem of no wine, so she took the problem to him. In the same way we have problems in our lives that we can take to Jesus. In this passage the “problem” wasn't life-threatening, yet it concerned Mary. Likewise we may have concerns in our lives that aren't “huge” to others, but are still important to us. My pet worm may be sick and you don't care; but if it's important to me, it's important to Jesus, and he can do something about it.

How about how Jesus relates to Mary? It seems a bit harsh; it seems as if Jesus doesn't care. Have you ever had times when you felt like Jesus doesn't care about your concerns. We can see that He really does care, but sometimes our perceptions or motivations are incorrect. We can trust Jesus that He knows what is best and will do it. 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Here's a tough question: Who did Jesus perform this miracle for?
See verse 11. Jesus turned the water into wine primarily for his disciples benefit. Although Jesus did turn water into wine for his mother, the party attendees, the bridegroom, even for Himself, His purpose was to reveal his glory to His disciples. Why did he reveal his glory his glory to his disciples? So that they would believe in Him. Did Jesus accomplish his purpose? Yes. Jesus always accomplishes his purpose.

What's a purpose Jesus has for you? Here's one of my favorites: Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Jesus promised to finished what He started in me. That is, he saved me, he will continue to save me, and he will ultimately save me and bring me to heaven where I will finally be like him.

Jesus reveals himself (his glory) to us so that we may believe in him more. How many of you hear are Jesus' disciples? All of you who put your faith in Jesus are his disciples. He wants you to believe in Him more. How will he do that? He will reveal himself to you through various ways, sometimes even miraculous ways.

Action Point:
* Read John 2:13-25 twice this week.
* Tell one parent and one friend about Jesus this week.

Coming Up Next Week

We will be talking about John 2 this week at youth group. Since we had a fourth week last time, you were graced with two weeks to do your "homework." Have you been able to tell your parent(s) about Jesus? How about a friend? Just tell them something you learned or something you already know about Jesus. Don't forget to read John 2 a couple of times before Thursday night.

P.S. How was last week's fourth week? What did you guys do?

TNF - January 12, 2006

Thursday Night Fellowship
January 12, 2006
Study of John

Order
1.Food and Fellowship
2.Games
3.Announcements
4.Lesson
5.Prayer

Announcements:
Youth Group Game Night
Blog www.freewebs.com/wpcayouth

Introduction
Play clip from Hell's Best Kept Secret (see http://www.livingwaters.com/learn/hellsbestkeptsecret.htm)

Lesson
We are resuming our study of the gospel of John. We are focusing on Jesus and how he relates to people he encounters.

Let's read our passage for tonight: John 1:35-51.

List all of the people mentioned in this passage:
Jesus
John the Baptist
Andrew
the other disciple (possibly John himself)
Peter
Philip
Nathanael
God
Joseph
God the Father

Now let's list all of the titles given to Jesus in this passage. This will show us more about who Jesus is.
Lamb of God – Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, the final Passover Lamb
Rabbi – means teacher
Messiah/Christ - “promised one” - think King
Son of Joseph (Perhaps Andrew didn't have all his facts straight.)
Son of God – has same status as God the Father
King of Israel – the promised King from the line of David
Son of Man - (Daniel 7:13-14)

Now let's look how the people in this story respond to Jesus.
First we have John the Baptist. He points to Jesus and tells his disciples that this is Jesus the Lamb of God. What is the result? Two of his disciples leave John the Baptist and follow Jesus. These two men must have been following John the Baptist for awhile and learning from him about this coming Messiah. He presented the truth to his disciples and then pointed them to Jesus. Their response was to follow Jesus and become his disciples.

Andrew is one of the guys who now becomes Jesus' disciple. According to this passage what was the first thing he did? He went and told his brother Simon about Jesus. Simon then listens to his brother and then comes to follow Jesus.

The next day Jesus and his three disciples go to Bethsaida. There Jesus finds Philip and tells him to follow him. Philip must have known who Jesus was to simply follow Jesus. If a man came up to me on a street and told me to leave my family, job, and home to follow him around, I wouldn't do it.

What does Philip do? He goes to find his friend Nathanael and tells him about Jesus. Nathanael is a bit skeptical of Philip's testimony of who Jesus is, but he comes anyway. Jesus already knows who Nathanael is. In fact he knew right where Nathanael was when Philip found him. This amazing sign is enough to prove to Nathanael that Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel.

What application(s) can we draw from this passage from the things we just covered? We have John the Baptist telling his two disciples about Jesus and they follow Jesus. We have Andrew telling Simon about Jesus and Simon follows Jesus. We have Philip telling Nathanael about Jesus and Nathanael believes and follows Jesus.

We need to be telling people about Jesus. Sometimes it takes a few words like Andrew with Simon. Sometimes it takes a bit more “convincing” or dialoguing like it did with Philip and Nathanael. Sometimes it takes a daily relationship with people telling them more and more about who Jesus is so that they will follow him. The point for us is that we need to be telling people about Jesus. Here's a question for thought: who was the last person you you talked with about Jesus? How long ago was that?

What is it that I am talking about? Evangelism. Someone please give us a simple definition of evangelism? Telling others about Jesus, specifically unbelievers. What's another word for it that Christians sometimes use? Witnessing.

It's not just unbelievers though. If we were to compare the people with what we experience, Nathanael would be an “unbeliever” but a truth-seeker. Simon could be compared to an unbeliever. However Andrew and the other disciple were already believers. They were just waiting for Jesus to come along. We could compare them to church people. The point is that we need to be telling people about Jesus, believers and unbelievers. Often times we are scared to talk to unbelievers about Jesus and how they need him. Often times we don't even know how. I have found that as a Christian I have a hard time telling other Christians about Jesus. It's uncomfortable. I wonder what they will think of me.

How can we tell others about Jesus? Here's an easy way: just tell them what Jesus has done for you and what he's been doing for you lately. Of course this assumes that we know who Jesus is in the first place. Hopefully through this study we will know more and more about who Jesus is, not merely what he did for us.

How does Jesus relate to the people in this passage?
He welcomes Andrew and the other disciple to follow him. He does not test them or initiate them. He simply welcomes them to follow him and even to stay with him.
What does that mean for me? He welcomes me when I choose to follow him. He allows me to be his friend.

Jesus speaks words of encouragement to Simon and renames him Cephas or Peter which means rock. Simon Peter was at times very wishy-washy. For Jesus to rename him Rock must have really meant a lot to Peter. Jesus knew what Peter was really like and that he would struggle in many ways, but Jesus also knew what was in his heart and what he would become.

What does this mean for me? Jesus speaks words of encouragement to me through his Holy Spirit, through the Word. He knows what's in my heart and sees what I will become someday. He has great plans for me.

Jesus dealt with each of these disciples uniquely. In particularly with Nathanael, he knew that Nathanael was a truth-seeker. He didn't understand everything, but he was willing to trust and to understand. So Jesus meets his need for a sign by telling Nathanael that he knew exactly where he was.

Jesus deals with me uniquely as well. He knows my heart. He knows that sometimes I doubt and need grace to believe and to follow Jesus. He knows and meets my individual needs.

Summary
We saw how Jesus related to these disciples in this passage on an individual basis meeting them right where they were to bring them where they needed to be. In turn these men told others about Jesus so that they can meet him and follow him as well. Let's make it our goal this week to know Jesus more by spending time with him and telling others about him.

Action Point
Read John chapter 2 three times this week.
Tell one parent about Jesus tonight.*
Tell one friend about Jesus this week.*

* This could be something you learned tonight or just something you know about Jesus.

Telling People about Jesus

Tonight we read through John 1:35-51 and discussed how John the Baptist, Andrew, and Philip told people they knew about Jesus. One of our goals this week is to read John chapter 2 three times this week (to get to know Jesus better). We also set a goal to tell one parent about Jesus tonight (Thursday) and to tell one friend about Jesus this week.

How did it go? Leave a comment on the blog and share with us how it went.

Youth Group Game Night...Revised

Updated:

The youth group game night will be combined at the Wasser's house tomorrow. Same time. If you need directions give us a call.

Youth Group Game Night

We're having a youth group game night this Friday, January 13, from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM.

The guys will be meeting at the Wassers' house and the ladies will be meeting at the Dyers' house.

Bring a snack.

For more information send us an email.

TNF Lesson Notes - January 5th, 2005

Thursday Night Fellowship
January 5, 2005

Introduction
So let's talk about everyone's Christmas. How was it?

Let's do this differently. We're going to communicate differently tonight. It has become apparent to the youth leaders that we aren't communicating well as a youth group. So our “activity” tonight will be to talk together about our Christmas in a more purposeful way.

I'll start us off by asking one specific person to tell us one aspect about their Christmas. This person will share about a special gift they received, a special gift they gave, or some other Christmas memory. When that person is done they will ask someone else to tell us about their Christmas. Here's how we are going to do it. When I ask someone, I want to communicate to that person that I am listening and care about what they say. So I will look them in the eyes, listen attentively, show interest with my eyes and by nodding my head. I will not interrupt, but will wait until they finish if I have a question. When it is your turn to ask, you should do the same.

When it is your turn to answer the question be courteous to those of us who are listening. Don't go on and on embellishing your story unnecessarily. We want to hear what you have to say, but it's not all about you.

The Forums and Communication

Often times when we talk to people we are too concerned with what we will say next than what the other person is saying. Or we try to draw attention to ourselves by what we say or the way we say it. This isn't how we ought to be. These types of attitudes stem from our proud hearts that say, “Look at me, I'm important.” “What I have to say is more important than me listening to you.” When I wrote this last night I thought about how we would handle our “activity” tonight and if we would be able to actually listen to one another. I even wondered if I would be able to do it. Sometimes I more concerned about saying something funny instead of really listening to what you have to say.

As most of you know we have youth group online forums where we can discuss things online. As most of you also know we shut down the forums today. We have shut down the forums for a number of reasons, and so we'd like to talk about those reasons tonight.

Reasons to take down the forum:
1. The forum is a privilege and has not been used responsibly, therefore we have decided to shut it down.
2. The overarching tone of the forum has been “look at me.”
3. Idle talk, harsh criticism of others
4. Anyone is allowed to post a topic & there are too many topics to be thoroughly monitored.

The forums were originally setup to allow us to communicate as a youth group outside of youth group nights and activities. At first it was slow and we didn't have that many people. We were able to get to know each other better. Then we began to have more people coming online and soon we had many topics with lots of activity. It was really exciting to have everyone jumping in. Unfortunately it seems that it soon became a lot of posts, almost too many. I couldn't keep up with them anymore, nor did I want to. There were too many people writing too many things. We soon needed to intervene with certain posts that were harsh or hurtful. We feel that the forums have gotten out of hand, and we admit that we are also at fault. We have not thought through all the implications of having an online discussion forum with the youth group. In addition we did not invest the time to ensure that the youth of the youth group knew how to communicate with one another in a public setting.

We have seen a lot of things that concern us such as idle talk, harsh criticism, spiteful words, and much of the posts are centered around a “look at me” attitude. People's talk, signatures, and avatars have been more designed around bringing attention to ourselves.

Another problem with the forums is that anyone is allowed to post a topic which has lead us down paths that we didn't intend to go. There are topics and issues that aren't to be dealt with on a public forum. It is inappropriate. There are other venues with which to talk about such issues. Apparently we don't all have that wisdom to discern what is appropriate and what is not.

What are the most common topics? What does this say about who we are?

The Purpose of Music topic under the debate section has 62 posts & 400 views
There are 16 “What are your favorite...” topics.

If an outsider looked at the forum, would he or she know we were Christians? maybe
What's different about this forum than a secular forum? Is there a strong difference. We may have a prayer request forum, but where are we focused according to the numbers? We are focused on general discussion.

Are all of these topics bad? No
Are all of the posts on the forum negative? No
But, there is an over-arching tone of “look at me”, “look what I have”, “look at what I can do”, “I can do ____ better than you”....

There have been good posts that have provided opportunity to discuss certain issues. There have been people who have shared Scripture, the Gospel, wisdom, and encouragement. We appreciate those of you who have done that. People have offered to pray for others & shared the desire to follow the Lord.



Let's look at some verses together about communication and about the heart.

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Luke 12:34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

You know where a person's heart is by what they treasure.

Matthew 12:33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

Luke 6:45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

We talk about what's most dear to our hearts. Jesus is warning us about our hearts and how they can be filled with things that aren't worthwhile. We can be so concerned about trivial things like movies, video games, entertainment, celebrities, ourselves, that we talk idly about them. Jesus reminds us that we will be judged for every word we speak.

Here are some more verses:
James 1:19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

James 3:13-18
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Proverbs 12:18 There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 14:23 In hard work there is always something gained, but idle talk leads only to poverty.

These verses from James and Proverbs remind us how important it is for us to communicate properly with one another. God has called us to be his holy people and that includes how we talk with one another.

I just think the forums represent that we all have a lot to learn about godly communication. We are far too concerned with our image and about the things of this world that are passing away. These things aren't evil necessarily, but I think our focus is off of what it needs to be.

Where do we go from here?
We have closed the forums, but not the blog. As I have said before I post my lesson notes on the blog every week. The blog as the capability for you to leave comments. If you have a thought or a question then you can post a comment on the blog. This form of communication will be more directed. You can respond to what is written on the blog. Unrelated comments will be deleted. It is our goal that this will help us talk about things that are deeper and more related to our faith and our youth group.

Our goal as a youth group is to grow up in Christ. We as leaders desire to train you and disciple you to be more like Christ. This goes well beyond the study of the word and prayer to our practical daily lives. We live day by day, and it is how we live that glorifies Christ and speaks truth to a needy world. Let's pray.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Years as well. I wonder what 2006 will have in store for us as a youth group and as Westminster Presbyterian Church. I wonder if we'll have our own church building before the end of the year, and maybe even our own youth room. Wouldn't that be nice?

What do you think we should put in our youth room if we have one in our new church building?