LifeMatters Grand Opening
Well, it’s that time of year again. Time to graze with the herds moving from shop to shop and deal to deal. The endless pursuit of material accumulation completely consuming our thoughts. The media tells us which days to shop and even how we should order, (Black Friday, Cyber Monday) and the stores collaborate to offer “deals” on those days. Christmas has become overrun by retail America. I am sure if you ask your class, someone braved the dark and ventured out for midnight openings or waited in line at 4 a.m. to fight a crowd and spend their money. While none of this is necessarily bad - crazy maybe, but not bad - for those that follow Christ, Christmas should be about a whole lot more. What is your Christmas looking like right now? More hustle and bustle than worship and praise? What does it say about us that our celebration of Christmas looks so similar to the world’s celebration? These are all questions for us to ponder together as the Christmas season unfolds.
Our theme for the month of December is to take a look at the story of a man, Jesus, and how life changed forever due to His story. This week we will be looking at how the story of Jesus was foretold. His arrival was predicted and expected. Isaiah tells us very clearly about the Suffering Servant and describes the coming Messiah. This week is about how all the prophecies provide evidence that Jesus is in fact that Messiah.
As you are leading in your class, I want to know how to best minister to you. What types of things would be beneficial to you as you prepare for this week’s lesson? My desire for this blog is simple: to help you, the leader, communicate God’s truth to your class. This week, being your first lesson using LifeMatters and my first LifeMatters blog, I’m going to set up my plan and hope to hear from you so that this blog will be something that benefits you the best way possible. Each week by Wednesday our conversation will begin. I will be offering my additional thoughts to the lesson, points to make sure you communicate, special messages from the authors of the lesson, any news articles that may be useful, as well as any video or audio options you might like. That is what I am planning on doing. I would love for those of you who are teaching to be able to add to the conversation. What are your thoughts concerning the lesson and points of interest that God spoke to you about during your personal study? I truly feel that as we work together, God will be glorified and His Word communicated in life changing ways. I will begin this week by offering some songs that may add to your study. These are simply a few songs I found and enjoyed while working on this study. An official playlist will be coming out soon, but until then, enjoy!
- “Vision of You” by Shane and Shane from the album Pages
- “Ready to Love” by Spur 58 from the album Sleepwalkers
- “Beg” by Shane and Shane from the album Pages
- “Saved” by Warren Barfield from the album Reach
Email me at lifematters@lifeway.com
There have been 3 replies so far
Any critical teaching tips for first week?
1 | Mathatos
Thursday, November 29, 2007, at 4:01pm
Whooo Hooo! Thank you, Chad, for this ministry! I am so excited about Life Matters. I teach an ecclectic group who don’t exactly fit the “Threads” profile, but Life Matters for 30-40 year olds, too! We are hoping this will be a better fit for us.
Here are a couple of tunes that kept running through my head while studying this week:
“Beautiful One” by Tim Hughes “By His Wounds” from the album Glory Revealed
And of course, the author of the commentary refers to “Jesus Paid It All” and “Hallelujah! What a Savior!,” two beautiful hymns worth checking out if you aren’t familiar with them.
Video clips of The Passion of Christ might be an option. Speaking of video…I’m wishing we could get a short video intro for new units. Like a trailer or teaser that we could show in worship service to entice people to join us? What do you think?
Thanks.
2 | Sandy B
Thursday, November 29, 2007, at 7:53pm
Mathatos Critical teaching thoughts for the first week: The main thing I would say here is that Isaiah provides evidence. That is the terminology we used for a purpose. Our faith does not stem for “proving” that Christ is who He said He was, it comes from believing He was who He said He was. So for these lessons we chose to move away from trying to prove Christ is the Messiah, and allow the Bible to point to a wealth of evidence pointing all of history to one man. In sharing our faith with the world around us, too often it seems we try to prove to others who Jesus is. We can’t prove it well enough to make someone believe, but we can point them in the right direction, provide them with biblical and historical evidence, and use our life as a current testimony to provide even more evidence.
Help teach your class this sublte difference and I think it will make a big impact. The way Christ has changed our lives and the words of Isaiah several thousand years ago all point to one amazing truth, Jesus is the Messiah and Savior of the world. I am in hopes that by taking a fresh look at Jesus, our Christmas will have a revitalized meaning.
Sandy Thanks for adding to the conversation, I will definitely be checking out those songs. I love finding new artists. As far as video goes, within the next week I will be posting several links to videos that may help you. These are not videos we have produced, but ones I think can add to your experience. I really like your idea of creating a few teasers for each unit. Your idea of showing it during worship is one I had not thought of. I think that could let people know what your class is doing. We will see what we can do.
I truly believe Proverbs 27:17, that iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. Keep the conversation going!
3 | Chad Jordan
Friday, November 30, 2007, at 8:48am
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