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)
Start by asking the group:
- What do you know about the “Undercover Boss” television show?
- How do you feel about the concept of the show and why?
Continue by sharing the “The Untold Truth of Undercover Boss” video clip (You may want to watch the video first and decide whether to end at the 5:58 mark.) and ask:
- What do you think about the show now and why?
- When have you ever seen or heard of a similar situation as this happening outside of a television show?
- To what degree does the chance that you really do not know everything about a situation with another person affect the way you treat them, and why?
Content (From the Mind Session Page)
Read Hebrews 13:1-16, then watch the Bible Background Video.
Then ask questions like these:
- How might it change our attitude to know that we had angels in our home and in what way do the instructions here compare with Jesus instructions to care for the stranger, the hungry, and the poor in Matthew 25:35-40?
- Why does the kind of empathy encouraged by this passage allow us to better care for those in difficulty?
- In what ways are the words on marriage in this passage an extension of the love and care for each other urged in this passage?
- What does the writer say about our relationship to money and material things and in what ways might that relate to our times?
- What does it mean for us to go “outside the camp” in terms of the kinds of places where we (as followers of Jesus) spend our time?
- What forms of sacrifices does the writer describe here, either explicitly or implicitly, and by what means do we incorporate such “sacrifices” in our faith?
- Read Hosea 6:6, Amos 5:21-24, Micah 6:6-8, and James 1:27. In what ways are these passages consistent with this passage from Hebrews?
- To what degree is the testimony of all these passages a part of our “official” religious practice and why?
Closure (from the Media Session page)
Play the “Sacrifice of Praise” and ask:
- What things do you think of when you sing or read the words “sacrifice of praise” and why?
- Given your understanding of faith, and based on your own relationship with God, by what do you think God is “pleased,” and why?
- Why do you think people spend so much time focusing on their own faith relationship with God instead of simply doing as Jesus said and loving God’s people?
- In keeping with these scriptures, what can we do in order to better serve God in our community?
Close in prayer.