Sunday, August 7, 2011

Faithful Families Resources August 7 2011

Weekly Inspiration

If you haven't time to respond to a tug at your pants leg, your schedule is too crowded.  ~Robert Brault

Family Closeness
Game:
Tapping hands
Each person crosses their arms over those of the person next to them and places their hands on the table. One person starts by tapping once and others follow in order of hands in one direction. When someone else taps twice, the direction reverses. If you tap out of turn, the game starts over. How many times can you go around the table?

Sharing:
Would you rather… 
  • How many people from different countries do you know? When might it be difficult to be friendly to someone who is different from you?
  • What is the best thing that happened to you this week? What was the worst?
  • What unexpected thing happened to you this week?
  • What is something new you learnt today or this week?

Story:
With your family read Mathew 15.21-28

Questions for Discussion:
[This can be a hard or confusing reading to hear. Jesus seems not only to ignore this woman from a different religion who needs his help but says some seemingly negative or antagonistic things to her. Is it possible Jesus knew how deep her faith was, that she would not be discouraged, and desired her to demonstrate this? In the end Jesus points out how great her faith is and gives her what she wants. It is interesting that so many of the religious leader rejected Jesus but this foreign woman believe.]
  • Why do you think Jesus ignored the woman at first?
  • What was Jesus saying about why he shouldn’t help her?
  • What do you think Jesus thought the woman’s faith was so great?
  • When have you shown persistence and perseverance in your faith life?

Prayer and Celebration

Actions for a variation of The Lords Prayer

Our Father in heaven, [finger pointing up]
You are a holy God. [open palm pointed high, head dipped reverently]
Come and rule our hearts.[open palm brought down to rest over heart]
Do what’s best on earth [finger pointing down]
as in heaven.[rotate arm to point finger upwards]
Please keep us alive with food.[hand as bowl, other doing a scooping action to mouth]
keep us forgiven with you[closed hand warmly rotating over heart]
and forgiving with others.[same hand, finger pointing to all around in sweeping action]
Keep us holding your hand[one hand into the other hand]
and safe from all wickedness.[two hands up, elbows straight and a firm shielding action.
You’re in charge![strong action, two hands pointing up]
You can do anything you want! [both palms open out, raised]
You are God, for ever and ever. [hands get further apart like measuring something bigger and bigger]
Amen.  [closed fist brought down on an open palm].

Service

Anglican Board of Mission – Australia

One mission organisation in Australia that does fantastic work is ABM-A. Their vision is: ABM wants to see people everywhere experience the wholeness of life God offers in Jesus Christ, and to this end support our Partners as they participate in God's mission.

Their website is worth checking out and in particular under their resources menu is a section called “watch” that has videos of some of the work they do. Some of these videos would be appropriate to show family members around the table.


Bonus Family Activity

No electricity night.

This is a great idea to help your family think about their dependence on electricity and also how they might be able to reduce their energy consumption to help the environment. It also might help you all to think about how many people live throughout the world.

Have a night at home where you cannot use anything that requires electricity. This includes cooking the meal and lights and everything else.


Have a great week. May you help your family to step out and trust Jesus in all you do. God Bless - Stephen.  


(This material is based on and draws from earlier Faithful Families emails by Stephen Harrison & Richard Browning: An Unless Ideas Production.) Unless otherwise noted all material on this blog is copyright Stephen Harrison and Richard Browning

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