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 with the group the video on Targeting Civilians from the Human Rights Watch website for South Sudan and ask:
- What about this video do you find most shocking, and why?
- How much of this information did you already know, and how did you find out about it?
- Given as how this conflict has been going on for a very long time, why do you think the rest of the world has failed to help bring an end to it?
- How do you think that the average person living in that area of the world feels about their life and why?
- In what ways do you think that being forced to live under such circumstances might affect you and why?
Content (From the Mind Session Page)
Read Psalm 46, then watch the Bible Background Video.
Then ask questions like these:
- Which part of this passage, if any, is most familiar to you and why?
- What do you think it meant, in the time when this psalm was written, to look on God as a “refuge and strength” and in what ways might that perspective have changed over time?
- What images and metaphors do you see in this passage and with what images might we evoke similar feelings to contemporary hearers?
- Which of the two proffered ways of reading this psalm most appeals to you and why?
- In what ways have you encountered each of those interpretations?
Closure (from the Media Session page)
Continue by asking:
- In what ways is God calling people to “be still” in your city?
- What happens in our daily life that fight against our ability to be still?
- What is it about God’s purposes that make finding God easy or difficult to see?
- What kinds of things can we do in order to remember this holiday season that God is the God of this city and all cities?
- As people of faith, we understand that God is in control of our universe, but what might we do to help others see that, and what might change if we did?
Play the God of this city music video and close with a prayer.