Before the Session
Facilitator: In advance of the session
- Have the Bible Background Video ready to view.
- Review today’s scripture text and the session activities to help better facilitate the discussion.
- Encourage your group to listen to the Faithelement podcast ahead of the next session (Share the link via email or social media)
Context (From the Current Session Page)
Share the story of the young boy who looks up to his “Recycle Superhero,” the garbage collector and ask:
- Who is one of your most unlikely heroes, that is who may not be overly successful or powerful but is nevertheless “heroic” to you or someone you know?
- What did you want to be when you were Ethan’s age and why?
- In what way did that younger vision of you affect your path as you grew up and why?
- What might your vision of heroes teach us about the people who model faith in our faith communities?
Content (From the Mind Session Page)
Read Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2, then watch the Bible Background Video
Then ask questions like these:
- What do you remember about the characters discussed in this passage, and in what ways did they exhibit active faith?
- What do you think the writer of Hebrews is saying about faith and what it makes us do?
- When we act on faith, upon what do we affix or avoid affixing our focus, and why?
- The writer mentions a few names in verses 32-34. What do you know about these stories and in what way did they demonstrate faith?
- The writer then moves on to talk about stories contemporary readers would have known, possibly martyrs who died for the Christian or Jewish faith. Take a few moments to discuss these examples in verses 35-38. What did they face, and in what way did they act in faith?
- What rewards did they receive or not receive for their actions?
- What do you think verse 40 means and why?
- Consider the image laid out in 12:1-2, of runners racing in a stadium, with the other finishers cheering on from the stands. In what way does their example urge us on?
Closure (from the Media Session page)
Play the Advice video and ask:
- Do you agree with the speaker’s thoughts on how we must sound sometimes to the great cloud of witnesses?
- Why do you think we get so timid about our faith when the cloud of witnesses is cheering us on?
- In what ways would our prayers change if we fixed our eyes on Jesus?
- What did you think of Andy’s advice to the two different generational groups and why?
- Given that this advice was given to an already invested and relatively conservative group of people, what kind of advice do you think we should offer people who struggle with even the idea of faith much less a distinctly Christian one?
- What might we do to become part of someone else’s “cloud of witnesses?”
Share together the Cloud of Witnesses music video and close in prayer.