Read an Excerpt
Jesus Prom
Life Gets Fun When you Love People Like God Does
By Jon Weece, DIXON KINSER Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2014 Jon Weece
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-529-11208-8
CHAPTER 1
SESSION ONE
love
love (v.)—a profound affection put into action
introduction
Have you ever had one of those emails sitting in your inbox that you just keep putting off? Do you know the one I mean? Chances are it involves something that makes you tired, addresses a conflict, or is basically just going to drain energy from you. And so you wait. Sometimes for weeks. Because when it comes to engaging with draining and difficult relationships, it is not easy put yourself out there.
However, when you read about the life and ministry of Jesus, a strange pattern emerges. Quite unlike that email in our inbox, Jesus seems to move toward the "unfun" and difficult people. Time and again we see him honing in on and making a beeline for the hardest folks to get along with. These are not only some of the most difficult people of his day, but they also include the very folks who end up putting him to death. Why is this? Is Jesus' intent to set some impossible standard that his followers can never hope to achieve? Not even remotely. Jesus is simply doing what he said he would do: showing us what God is really like.
For almost two thousand years, the witness of the church has been that Jesus is the full, total, and complete image of God. What God is like is what Jesus is like, and what Jesus is like is what God is like. This means that it is in the deepest parts of God's nature to move toward challenging and unlovable people, not away from them. For God, there is never a lingering message in the inbox. He is always ready to reply and hit send.
All this begs the question: What about us? How do we deal with the problematic and unlovable people in our lives? Do we wait for them to come to us to have a relationship, or do we, like our God, go to them? When we love others like this, how might it change them? or how might it change us? Furthermore, who are the hardest people for us to love, and what does it mean that God loves them anyway?
These are the questions that we will address in session 1.
welcome and checking in
Go around the group to introduce yourselves and then complete the following sentences:
One thing you can tell about me from the shoes I'm wearing is __ [Your response]____________________.
If I could describe my expectations for this study in one word, that word would be _[Your response]______.
The reason that word captures my expectations is because __[Your response]________________________ _____________________________________________.
hearing the word
Read John 4:1-30 (see next page) aloud in the group, listening for a fresh insight during the reading.
1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?"
13 Jesus answered, "everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17 "I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21 "Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you—I am he."
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Now turn to the person next to you and take turns sharing:
What was one thing that stood out to you from the reading?
[Your response]
In what way was this a new insight?
[Your response]
What would you say is the point of a story like this?
[Your response]
watch the video
Watch the session 1 video clip, using the space below to take notes. When the video ends, take a moment to reflect and jot down one or two things you learned, disagreed with, or were surprised by.
[Your Notes]
group discussion
1. Before everyone shares in the group, turn to one or two people next to you and finish this sentence: "After watching the video, one question I now have is ..."
[Your response]
2. In the video, Jon emphasizes that Jesus "had to go to Samaria." What does it mean to you that Jesus had to go there?
[Your response]
3. Jon says that the most difficult people to love are often the ones who don't understand love. Do you think this is true? In your opinion, what makes someone truly difficult to love?
[Your response]
4. Jon tells a story about his church serving a buffet lunch to the patrons and dancers of a local strip club. Was this story interesting, challenging, or offensive to you, and why?
[Your response]
5. Do you think that the ministry in the strip club is valuable only if people there come to Jon's church? Why or why not?
[Your response]
6. What does Deanna's story have to say about God's love?
[Your response]
7. How would your church respond if someone like Deanna was part of your community?
[Your response]
being the church
For this activity, each person will need a pen and an index card.
* * *
Write down on the card the name of someone in your life who is or has been difficult to love. It can be a current relationship or from any point in your past. It can even be you! If confidentiality is a concern, just write down the initials of the person or some other symbol to denote who the person is.
After everyone has completed the exercise, reflect together on what makes your difficult persons hard to love.
Finally, reflect together on what this difficulty might say about you and the attitude of your hearts.
closing prayer
Close the meeting by praying silently together for a couple of minutes. First, offer a one-word prayer (just one!) for the individual on your card. Next, pray that the person on your left would be able to give love to all the people in his or her life who are difficult to love. Finally, pray that the person on your right would be able to receive love in healthy ways from God and others.
between-sessions
PERSONA STUDY AND REFLECTION
You are invited to further explore the challenge of Jesus Prom by engaging in any or all of the following between-sessions activities. remember that this part of Jesus Prom is not about following rules or doing your homework—these activities (categorized as "Affection in Action," "Affection in Devotion," and "Affection in Instruction") are simply to give you the opportunity to put this session's verb into practice. Be sure to read the reflection questions after completing an activity and make a few notes in your study guide about the experience. There will be a time to share these reflections at the beginning of the next session.
AFFECTION IN ACTION: clean it up!
During the video this week, Jon compares our hearts to the attic of a house crammed full of stuff. He uses the example of people who compulsively hoard things in their homes and notes that their houses did not become full of junk overnight. It takes years to accumulate that much stuff! In the same way, we pick up little hurts, grievances, and offenses during our lives which—if we do not pay attention—can slowly fill the entirety of our hearts so there is little room left for love.
Based on this observation, this week find one project, room, or space in your house that you've been putting off organizing. It could be as small as a bookshelf or as large as your whole garage. As an act of active prayer, clean out that space; and as you are cleaning, meditate on the clutter you may have collected in your heart. What would it look like for God to begin to clean it out? How can you cooperate with him?
Mull this over across the entirety of the project and write down any observations in the journal space below to share next time.
[Your Notes]
Pray. Clean. God is near.
AFFECTION IN DEVOTION: be perfect?
For this week's "Affection in Devotion," read Matthew 5:43-48. This passage is from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus describes what love looks like when it's lived out God's way.
43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Ironically, from this passage we see that Jesus had to spend some of his time clearing up misunderstandings, especially among his own people. The phrase, "You have heard it said ... but I say," indicates just one of these moral course corrections. In the case above, however, Jesus was not reorienting the way people act, but reorienting the way they love.
Jesus started the teaching by invoking one of the more famous sections of the old Testament law. In Leviticus 19:18, God instructed his people to love their neighbors as themselves, and while this seems fairly straightforward, by Jesus' day it was not. over time, the many debates over who exactly counted as a "neighbor" had made the definition of this term grow smaller and smaller. Sure, a neighbor certainly included those who were part of God's people. But what about Israel's enemies? What about the Samaritans, whom they believed were mocking God's laws? Did God really require them to love those people?
That is where the people drew the line. There was an in-group and an out-group, and their enemies fell into the out-group. Their love could stop here. This is what makes Jesus' redirect of conventional wisdom so radical. He challenged the people to expand their definition of "neighbor" to include even their enemies. In instructing the people to love their enemies and pray for those who persecuted them, he called his followers to be ... well, like God. God, as Jesus explains, shows favor to everyone regardless of their standing with him. The righteous and the wicked alike get rain and sun from God, not because they deserve it but because God loves them. God's love shows no partiality, so neither should they. For Jesus, love never drew the line.
• If you could describe your reaction to Jesus' teaching in one word, what would that word be? __[Your response]________________
• Do you love as God does? Why or why not?
[Your response]
• Whom is it easy to love without conditions? Why?
[Your response]
• Whom is it hard to love without conditions? Why?
[Your response]
• Do you ever put conditions on the way you receive love? If so, what conditions?
[Your response]
• What is one concrete thing you could do this week to expand the boundaries of how you love?
[Your response]
AFFECTION IN INSTRUCTION: jump
Read chapters 1 and 2 of the book Jesus Prom, and then answer the following questions.
• Do you find risk to be something exciting or threatening? explain.
[Your response]
• In chapter 1, Jon offers a list of verbs to bring into your life: love, be, see, talk, rest, turn, dance, give, go, remember, receive, die, and suffer. Which of these verbs seems the most appealing to add to your life? Which seems the most challenging? Why did you answer as you did?
[Your response]
• Jon states, "It may seem safe to stand on the deck with the rest of the people. But standing on decks is not safe. It's boring. So go for it. Jump. Set down whatever you are holding onto or whatever has a hold of you and jump." What keeps you from jumping? Is it something you are holding onto or something that's holding you down? How can you get free?
[Your response]
Use the space below to write any key points or questions you want to bring to the next group meeting.
[Your response]
CHAPTER 2
SESSION TWO
be
be (v.)—to have identity; to equal in meaning
introduction
Have you ever heard someone describe himself or herself as a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person? It's shorthand for a person's attitude toward his or her circumstances. Are things generally positive (half full) or negative (half empty)?
This same metric is in play with how we view ourselves. If things are going well, our lives feel half full. Conversely, when times are tough and we have experienced failure or loss, it can be easy to see ourselves as half empty. However, this is not how God sees things at all. Sure, we are all broken people in need of a Savior, and in that sense you might say we are all half empty. But when God looks at us, he doesn't focus on our sin and shame. Instead, he sees us as we were meant to be. God sees us as half full.
All of this begs the question of how you see yourself. When you look at your life, are you distracted and overwhelmed by your mistakes and regrets? If so, there's good news for you. This is not how God sees you at all—and furthermore, this is not how God wants you to see yourself. God doesn't first see what's lacking; he sees what he loves. The invitation in this session is to do the same. It is an invitation to see your neighbors and yourself as God does: half full.
Will you take him up on this invitation?
checking in
Go around the group and answer the following question:
Do you tend to drive a clean car or dirty car? (Use a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "spotless" and 10 being "a disaster," to rank your vehicle's cleanness. If you do not have a car, use your room, purse, workspace, or locker at school.)
[Your response]
Last week, you were invited to act in the "Between-Sessions Personal Study and reflection" section. Discuss the following:
• Did you do at least one of the activities? If so, which one? If not, why not?
• What are some of the things you wrote down in reflection?
• What did you learn by engaging in these activities?
• What did you learn about yourself this week? About God?
hearing the word
Read John 3:1-17 aloud in the group, listening for a fresh insight during the reading. Then together discuss the questions that follow.
1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, "rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him."
3 Jesus replied, "very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."
4 "How can someone be born when they are old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Jesus Prom by Jon Weece, DIXON KINSER. Copyright © 2014 Jon Weece. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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