Community

Eric Tomeo

CPMT • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

0 ratings

· 11 views

Notes

Transcript

Handout

Game Time

Something fun (eg. Game, video, etc.). It is not necessary for this to have a tie in to the lesson, but it can.

Game 1. Throw Throw Burrito (15 Min)

Game 2. Taco Shell Duels (15 Min)

Game 3. Tacos v. Burritos Screen Game (15 Min)

Introductions

This is culture

Basic Opening Statement: Thanks for coming tonight. Here in just a few minutes we will head downstairs and enjoy some time together eating some good food and having a conversation. But before we do that, I just want to take a minute to pause and consider somethings from the BIble. At bcsm and we talk a lot about community, purpose, mission and truth. We want you to know that this is a safe space to process your faith and ideas, to ask questions we are better off with you than without you. We want to prepare you to tell your friends that a relationship with God is possible.

You have community. You have purpose. You have a mission. You have truth.

And over the next few weeks we are going to be exploring those things a little more in depth. Today we are talking about COmmunity.

Now before we get started, let me pray.”

*Pray for God to use what you have to say to move someone further along in their journey towards Jesus.*

Story Time

Tell a quick story that introduces the message

“It was only a dollar!” This is the kind of thing Tiffany will say to me, right before she tells me about the 1000 pound thing that she just bought and wants me to help carry into our house. On this particular occasion it was a piano.

Have you guys ever tried to lift a piano? Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.

She was at the thrift store and she saw a piano and it was only a dollar. So she bought it. She called her sister and her husband, who had a truck to meet us at the thrift store.

So the four of us were trying to get this thing off the ground, to no avail. A couple other people jumped in and finally we got it up onto the truck. WE drove it home and had a couple other friends meet us there to pull it off the truck.

So now we have a piano. It only cost a dollar.

But if it had not been for the other people who helped us, we would have spent a dollar on nothing.

We need other people surrounding us, helping us lift the things we can not lift on our own. And they need us to help them as well.

Scripture

Read or summarize main Scripture with a little surrounding context. Ask a couple of questions to about the text.

In Jn 17:11, Jesus was talking about the church when he prayed Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

Paul says in Eph 4:4–6 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

And then in 1 Corinthians 12:12–14 (ESV)

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

Tension/ Main Point

What is the rub? Create some questions and feeling in the minds of your students around the main point of the lesson.

So here’s what I am getting at. As the church we should be one. We should have a community , unity. But that unity needs to be built up, not because we are all robots that conform to some weird sameness, our unity comes through diversity.

Paul uses a body as an example.

Maybe a better example, for what I am talking about is a taco. A taco is made up of many ingredients. But if you put out a bunch of ingredients on the counter, that is not a taco. You need a tortilla. In Paul’s analogy, Jesus is the head. In mine, Jesus is the tortilla.

So we put in some ground beef, but just ground beef in a tortilla aint a taco. You need the taco spices, right? And you need lettuce, salsa, cheese, sour cream. One taco. Many ingredients in a Jesus tortilla.

Now you might be a spicy jalepeno pepper. And you look in the Jesus tortilla and you don’t see a spicy jalepeno pepper in there yet. And so maybe you don’t think you would belong in the taco. But here’s the thing, this taco needs you to provide the heat. If you are ground beef and you see the jalepeno peaking around the outside of the tortilla, you need to call out and encourage the pepper to jump in.

Alright, I think the taco analogy is stretching beyond its limit.

But the point is this. You may not think the same way that I do. You may feel like you have a hard time fitting in here. If that is you, we need you more than you know.

Maybe you feel really comfortable here. If that is you, you need to look around for those people that don’t and find ways to include them, pull them in.

Response

We respond every week with an invitation to baptism and communion.

Starting on the morning of Sunday August 8th, bcsm is going to be launching something new. It is something we have been building towards for a very long time and I am really excited about the things that are going to come out of that launch. We are changing something foundational about bcsm, but we are not changing the things bcsm is all about. Community, Purpose, Mission, Truth.

We believe that the church should be full of these things. This group of young people should be all about these things. These are not going away. We need to continue pursuing these things.

So the question is, are we one taco in a Jesus tortilla? Or are we random ingredients thrown on the counter? When the heavy lifting that comes with following Jesus becomes too much for each one of us to do on our own, can we rely on the people in this room to talk with us, have our backs, etc? If not, the question you need to ask is not how do I get them to be like that for me, but rather, what can I do to become that for the other people in this group?

Song

Pick a song that centers around the main theme of the lesson.

SONG

Discussion

Ice Breakers

WYR: Would you rather be the worst player on a team that always wins or the best player on a team that always loses?

Agree or Disagree? Purple is the best popsicle flavor.

What are your top three hobbies?

Pray together

Take a few minutes of your time together to listen to what God is doing in one another’s lives and pray for any specific needs people in your group may have.

Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-14

In what way are Christians like a human body? (12:12-13) Why should outward appearances or status not matter to us? (12:13) What unifies all Christians? (12:13) What makes Christians unified and dependent on one another?

Which did you like more, the taco analogy or the body analogy? What does each offer that the other leaves out?

What is one way you can show concern and love for another member of your church?

Closing Thought

A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What do you think about that quote? What does it mean? Do you agree?

Related Media

Related Sermons