Term 3 Training (STUDENTS) - The D Word...

Below is what we went through as a group of students in Lunchtime Groups. If you're in a LG, please have a read and think about for your personal walk with God and also how any of this might relate to your Lunchtime Group.

We read Luke 10:38-42

At the Home of Martha and Mary
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

We took a to reflect on the passage, and then we moved to where we felt that we were. There were three stations set up with bits of paper:

Dishes - Martha being busty
Shoes – Mary at Jesus' feet
Jumper – an outsider, in the cold

As you are reading this, put yourself in one of those categories. Where are you? Take a minute to ask yourself why you chose the category that you did.

Let's look at the passage one more time.

+ What stands out to you?
+ What do you notice?
+ What don't you understand?
+ What do you think Jesus means when he say "Only one thing is needed? What is that?

The one thing that is needed is to spend time at Jesus' feet, to be with him.

Why might that be the only thing that is needed? Don't we need so much more? Aren't our lives more complex than that?


1. Significance

Ask yourself: Who is Jesus?

Read the following quotes about Jesus and see what you think:
"the fascinating, mysterious, uncontainable, uncontrollable, enigmatic, vigorous, surprising, stunning, dazzling, subtle, honest, genuine and explosive personality of Jesus" – Brian McLaren

"Not only is Jesus the mediator between God and humanity, he is the prism through which we can and must understand God" – Alan Hirsch

The infinite creator God stepped into our finite space, changing from that moment onward the reality of life: that we could have life to the full, that we could be part of his work to ultimately restore the world to sheer perfection.

+ How do you respond to these quotes?
+ What do you do with this?
+ Is this something to be taken lightly?
+ Is this something to be half hearted about?

No, in fact, what this means is that our life's work must be devoted to becoming like him, following him, becoming "little Jesuses" – that is what we mean by discipleship.

Does that seem scary – our whole life?

I think it should, but I don't think we should be surprised. Because following Jesus, the one we've just heard described, deserves no less than our whole lives.

There is a responsibility that you have to take on. You and only you can devote your life to this. No one can do it for you.

We need to get serious and understand the significance of following Jesus.

This is what our Mustard groups should be all about, working out together what this means in our lives. They should be places where we can all grapple with the significance of following Jesus.

2. Spend time with Jesus

We need to be careful that we live in the tension of God's grace. We have to recognise the significance of who Jesus is and the call that he has on our lives, but we have to be careful that we don't become like Martha, trying her hardest to DO things all of the time.

Yes, this is a little bit ambiguous. That is OK – that is what it means to live in this life.

What we see from the Martha and Mary story is that the one thing that is needed is to sit at the feet of Jesus. To spend time with him.

To be immersed in his amazing love and life.



Ask yourself:
+ How do you spend time with Jesus

The difficulty is that we don’t have Jesus in physical form to go and sit at his feet (that would be great), and so spending time with Jesus involves a spiritual dimension (which may be scary for some of you). This is difficult in a world where we're so dependent on the material.

So below, I want to propose some options for you that I've tried, or thought about in how to spend time with Jesus.

But I want to reiterate what I said earlier about our Mustard Groups. They are places to grapple with the significance of following Jesus, and they are places where we can spend time with Jesus. And so what I'm going to say are merely suggestions for you to jump off – launching pads. Feel free to jump in, and think about how these things might work in your group. Feel free to share your ideas here so that everyone can benefit.

The other thing is that you guys as students are in charge of all of this in your groups. Mustard groups are designed for students to take ownership of them. The leader that comes into your group (if you have one) should merely be helping you guys with ideas on how to do this. I would encourage you to step up and have your say about how you think things should be done.

Here are 3 Principles for us to use as a "Framework" as we think about how to spend time with God.

1. PARTNERSHIP

Spending time with Jesus, although often done personally (that is, by yourselves) is really great when done in partnership with others. For example, if you are going to start reading the bible, get a couple of friends and commit to doing it together. You don't actually have to do it at the same time as each other, you can do it in your own time, but schedule some time to meet together and discuss what you've found. Same with prayer, fasting, other ways of spending time with Jesus.

We should grapple with following Jesus together, and this is not only confined to your Mustard groups, or your church, your youth group, or your bedroom. As you spend time with him, bring it into your everyday conversations, especially with those that you partner with.

Mustard Lunchtime Groups are great places to be in partnership with other students in your school.

2. SUSTAINABILITY

We need to think about how we might be able to constantly be spending time with Jesus, and so we need to think sustainably. Don't get too crazy (like I do and try to do everything at once) and also, feel free to change things regularly. By constantly doing the same thing in the same way you start to suck the "magic" out it. Perhaps think about things in defined lengths of time (like 40 days, or a week etc.)

Sustainability isn't designed to reduce the amount of time that you spend with Jesus, it's about increasing it. Work with small, manageable chunks of time, and as you involve that in your daily life, start to grow it.

3. CREATIVITY

People get scared by creativity, but it's not that hard. It's basically about thinking differently about things, approaching things in new ways, so that Jesus can unveil new possibilities to us.

For example, in the group that I am a part of at Camberwell Grammar, we were grappling with the Lord's Prayer, and I knew that a few of the boys liked basketball. So we went to the school's basketball courts and I printed off each of the 6 lines of the prayer and placed them around the 3-point line. Each of us got a ball and after we discussed what the line meant, we shot the basket while saying the line.

How can you spend time with Jesus in different ways so that they resonate with you. Because we are all different and we should have the freedom to explore the creativity of the wonderful God that we follow.


So that was a framework to approach the different ways of spending time with Jesus. Below are some specific ways of doing this. These are called the "disciplines" - notice how it's very close to the word Disciple? Being a disciple involves the disciplines. It's like gymnastics - there are different disciplines in the world of gymnastics, some are great at all of them, some are very good at only one. I urge you to look through this list and see which one God is pointing you to and give it a go.

1. Bible Study:
The Bible is God's word and one of the tangible ways that we can spend time with Jesus. We need to rediscover God's word, rediscover it's power and it's ability to change our life.

IDEAS:
+ Lectio Divina ('Divine reading" - read over the passage three times asking God to reveal specific words from the passage to you. Don't try to look for the meaning, just repeat these words over in your mind and allow God to speak to you through them)
+ Read a Gospel
+ Reading the bible in chronological order of when it was set/written

2. Journalling:
This is a little bit more of a private one, but you could expand it to your group setting (as well as using it personally). Writing things down is really important because it helps us to formulate our thoughts and it also shows us where we've been as we look back and see what God has done in our life.

IDEAS:
+ Get a prayer box for your group and write down prayer
+ Set up a graffiti prayer wall

3. Silence:
I have found this to be really powerful in the last year – simply spending time in God's presence silencing your own thoughts, anxieties and worries. A great way to start this is first to praise God for how good he is. Also get a list where you can write down the distracting thoughts for you to deal with later (I call this the later party!)

4. Fasting:
Fasting is about giving something up in order to focus on God more. It can be food, Facebook, TV... whatever you spend a significant amount of time doing. By removing this thing for a period of time, you can use that time to focus on Jesus. I'd encourage you to do it with others and to feast at the end of the time of fasting.

They are some quick ideas, and they aren't comprehensive. It would be cool to hear all of your different ideas and what you did with them.