Senior Camp Quiet Times

Here are some notes for the Quiet Times at this year's camp. I've given you the following:

an indication of the four points I'll make in each after-breakfast talk, which comes before your QT session
the passage for each day (read it in whatever version you prefer - in preparation I've worked mainly with NIV and ESV, but it doesn't matter)
five discussion questions; the first four come from the passage (and I've included a suggested answer in italic after each question), and the fifth is a more general question which I hope will allow the group to reflect more broadly on how all of this stuff applies to them
a suggestion for a little video or song which could be a useful component of the session, if you can play it on somebody's iPhone or tablet; this isn't essential, and for most days I've suggested alternatives that you can pick from if you wish

I hope this will all make sense, but do contact me ([email protected], tel 01392 669391) if you have any questions. Contact me, too, if you'd prefer all of this stuff as a Word document; I can e-mail it to you instead.

Looking forward to working with you all!

Here goes, then...

Monday KNOWING WHO I REALLY AM

What the morning talk will be about...

What is your identity based on? It's a bigger and bigger question these days.

(a) We don't know because we're fallen beings in a sinful world. The Fall has alienated us from our true selves. So becoming a Christian is a journey of discovery - finding out who we really are. The heart is "deceitful and desperately wicked" and it tells us lies.

(b) The devil also wants to tell us that we're worthless. We're losers. We can't be different; we're stuck. But God wants to change us "from one degree of glory into another".

(c) When we find our true identity in Christ, it liberates us from competitiveness, despair, pointlessness and fear. We can just "be ourselves in Jesus" and spend our lives finding out more and more about what he has planned for us.

(d) That also liberates us to serve others, without any need of gain for ourselves, since all of our needs for self-esteem and purpose are already met in Christ. We can give away our lives for the sake of others and of Christ, because we know that our true lives are "hidden with Christ in God".

Quiet time passage: John 4:16-30

Before reading this passage, sketch in the background quickly: Jesus and his disciples are passing through the territory of the Samaritans, a bunch of mongrel half-Jews whom Jewish people looked down on with disdain. Around noon they reach a well outside the city of Sychar; the disciples go off to find food, and Jesus is left alone at the well. A woman comes to draw water; Jesus asks her for a drink; she expresses surprise that a Jew would talk to her. In the ensuing conversation, Jesus says he can give her a kind of water that will quench her thirst permanently, so that she will never thirst again. Now read the passage for what follows...

Discussion questions

1. What can we tell about the woman from the story and from what she says? (Clearly she's a bit of an outcast - she has to come to the well by herself, rather than when all the other women come; she has a chequered marital history, which she doesn't want to own up to. From the way she talks to Jesus, she's used to tough dealings with strange men. Her identity has been bruised and battered, and she keeps herself at a distance from others as a result.)

2. How does she try to fob Jesus off so that he'll go away and stop bothering her? Look back to verses 7-15 too, if you like... (She tries to push him away by saying he shouldn't be talking to her (v 9), she makes a joke to pour scorn on his claims about "living water" (vv 11-12), then another one to express her incredulity about what he's claiming (v 15), she tries to start a theological argument to deflect him from talking about her personal life (vv 19-20). When we're suffering from a bruised sense of identity, we don't want others to get too close to us, in case we get hurt again.)

3. How does Jesus finally convince her that he is exactly what he claims? (He reveals that he knows all about her - and yet he is speaking to her as if she is a worthwhile human being, worthy of respect; he makes sense of the scraps of Bible doctrine she knows, pointing her towards a new hope she's never dared to entertain for herself personally; and (the clinching thing) when his disciples return in v 27, this bunch of serious Jews aren't shocked to find their rabbi talking to a sinful no-good woman; clearly it's the sort of stuff he does all the time. This is so unusual, he has to be the Christ! Nobody else behaves like this!)

4. What is the evidence (vv 28-30) that Jesus has given this woman a new sense of identity, acceptance and purpose in life? (She forgets all about her water jar - she's discovered something more important! - and has the courage to go openly to the townspeople who didn't like her, to share joyfully what she's just discovered. Clearly the change in her is so striking that right away, at the hottest time of the day, they come streaming out of the town to see what she's talking about! And yet: the new confidence Jesus has given her isn't based on a false view of the past - Jesus knows all about her past failures (vv 16-17) but loves her, includes and accepts her just the same.)

5. So what does all of this tell us about how Jesus can help us find a firm, stable, secure sense of identity?

Audio-visual resources

You might want to play one of these video clips after your discussion, and ask: how does this clip help you understand the story better? (Choose whichever clip suits your group better…)

Woman at the well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q49BbfgJbto 2 min 36 sec

The Laundromat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9rKwgesV8o 5 min 24 sec

John 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y9ZcxRkrpg 3 min 08 sec

Tuesday LOOKING LIKE YOUR DAD

What the morning talk will be about...

Brothers and sisters in a family may be very different from one another in their interests, skills, abilities, personality - but they will all reflect the family likeness. The Christian family is no different.

(a) We don't look like our Father from the start. "Progressive sanctification" means that we begin to resemble him more and more as we grow.

(b) It's not a physical resemblance, but one of character. The fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5) sums up the likeness that starts to appear.

(c) We choose how quickly the resemblance grows - and whether it's obscured. The more time we spend with Jesus, and the more we allow the Spirit control of our lives, the more we look like the Father.

(d) Sometimes other people see the family likeness more than we can - so we shouldn't be tempted to despair! When Moses came down from the mountain, he didn't realize his face was shining...

Quiet time passage: 2 Cor 3:7-18

Before reading the passage, remind them of Exodus 34:27-35; in the morning talk I'll already have outlined the story contained there (and they won't understand the 2 Cor reading unless they know that this story is what Paul is referring to!). Explain that the Law Moses received from God on Mount Sinai is what Paul means when he talks about "the ministry that brought death", and the new deal that comes through Jesus is "the ministry that brings righteousness". What happened with Moses back in Exodus 34 was pretty amazing, but the Sinai law only brought death and condemnation to people who couldn't keep it; the "ministry of the Spirit" (v 8) is better because it means that somebody else has paid the penalty for our sins.

Discussion questions

1. When Moses came down from the presence of God, his face was shining with glory. Paul says: well, if the new deal, the "ministry of righteousness", is much better than the old "ministry of death", what should that mean in shiny-face terms (vv 7-11)? (It means there will be even more "glory" than before. Something will shine out of Christians which will be obvious to the whole world. It will be a better, brighter hope, a deeper and more permanent change, than anything Moses and the Israelites knew about!)

2. The Israelites had a problem: they couldn't bear the brightness of Moses' face, and sunglasses hadn't been invented yet! So they had to veil their faces. Paul says that even today, when people read the words of Moses but don't understand about Jesus, "a veil lies over their hearts" (vv 12-15). What do you think this means? (They still think they have to make themselves right with God by keeping lots of laws and doing all the right stuff without ever slipping up. They still feel slightly scared of God, and not close to him at all. They don't really understand how much he really loves them.)

3. What happens to change this when somebody becomes a Christian (vv 16-17)? (There's no veil left - we can see the full glory of God more clearly than ever before, and instead of scaring us, it brings us a new freedom. We know that we belong to him and nothing can separate us from his love. We know that our acceptance doesn't depend on keeping laws, but on the fact that Jesus has died for us. All of this we understand through the Holy Spirit.)

4. When we become Christians and start looking at the new glory, we don't just stay as onlookers (v 18). What else happens to us? And does it happen instantaneously? (We start to reflect that glory for ourselves - it shines out of our own lives, just as the old glory shone from Moses' face! That happens because we're being "transformed" into Jesus' likeness. But it happens bit by bit, day by day - "from one degree of glory to another". You can't become like Jesus in one quick shot!)

5. In what ways might other people see the glory shining out of our Christian lives? Have you ever glimpsed that glory in somebody you know?

Audio-visual resources

You might want to play this song after your discussion. It links together what happened to Moses, with the story of Jesus' transfiguration, and what happens to us as we see Jesus' glory today...

A Face that Shone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3i6t75XBk 3 min 23 sec

Here are the lyrics for reference:

He ate the bread of Heaven, drank water from the rock

And the grumbling children followed like a misbegotten flock.

He climbed upon the mountain they couldn't even touch

Who'd have known that one encounter would have ever meant so much...

And up upon that high place, in a cleft of solid stone

His face was set on fire, as the God of Glory shone

He alone had seen it, and had lived to tell the tale,

But because they feared the fire, he had to hide behind a veil

A Face that shone with the radiance of the Father

Though he had known and endured dark desert days

A face that shone with the Glory of another

Soon the prophet would discover, as the glory was fading away

He was the bread of Heaven, He would be the Smitten Rock

He had 12 confused disciples, they were his bewildered flock

When he climbed up on the Mountain, he took Peter James and John

In the face of pending Glory, they soon began to yawn.

As he prayed while they were sleeping, he was transfigured into light

His face a flash of lightning, and his clothes so burning bright

So Moses finally saw the face, before he'd hidden from

Then came a voice from Heaven, This is my beloved Son

The Face that shone is the glory of the Father

And he had known from the start, that it was so

The face that shone had let the light shine out of darkness

And we're changed into his likeness, as we gaze upon the Son

But you and me we tend to flee from shining faces,

We see the glow and then we know that we are undone

They shine His light into our emptiest of spaces,

And with their bright and shining faces, reflect the radiance of the Son

Alternatively: play a video which catches a little of the practicality of living a life which reflects Jesus. Here are two options:

Inspiring Acts of Everyday Kindness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pYuSSP5Wls 2 min 23 sec

Carry Each Other's Burdens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKGcvhcdRBE 3 min 05 sec

Wednesday THINGS YOU CAN'T DO ON YOUR OWN

What the morning talk will be about...

The previous evening, we'll have looked at the importance of the church; we need other Christians to live for God successfully. So this morning we spell out in more detail just what we get from God's church that we can't experience all by ourselves...

(a) Other Christians encourage us - and that encouragement means a lot more when we're being affirmed by people who know a lot about us, not just random Christians whom we happen to have met

(b) Other Christians teach us - not just in words, but modelling Christlike behaviour in a way we can see and copy; and you can't do that for somebody else without being around together for quite a while

(c) Other Christians challenge, rebuke and correct us - and we are more likely to take notice of it if they have "earned the right" to help us in this way by their continual loving involvement in our lives

(d) Other Christians need us - and those who are with us in regular church fellowship provide opportunities for us to learn about serving, loving and putting up with others... which is why Paul specifies, "Especially those of the household of faith..."

Quiet time passage: Romans 12:3-8

Before reading the passage, say: this is part of a letter from the Apostle Paul to a church in Rome, the centre of the Empire, where he’d never visited but where he knew exciting things were going on. He was also well aware that in a sophisticated city like that, some of the talented, ambitious Roman Christians were likely to try to gain prominence in the church, and push themselves to the top. So here’s his advice for making the church flourish.

Discussion questions

1. What's the guideline for the way you should look at yourself (v 3)? How do people get this wrong in churches nowadays? (We shouldn’t think more highly of ourselves than we deserve, pushing ourselves into roles we don’t have the ability to fulfil properly. Equally, we shouldn’t dismiss ourselves and think we’re a useless waste of space; we need to look at ourselves “with sober judgment”, seeing both where our abilities lie and also where other people have more ability than we do. In churches today, people sometimes demand to be in the spotlight even when they aren’t suited for the responsibility, and others write themselves off, not doing anything very much at all.)

2. How is the church like a human body, but other organizations (e.g. a school, a hospital, or an insurance company) aren’t (v 4)? How would that affect the way we relate to each other? (Your body has lots of “members”, from your ears and nose down to your toes! They all have different functions; and so do the different people who make up the church. Yet they all “belong to all the others”, so you can’t separate them out or the body wouldn’t work properly. They are interdependent and they all work for the same purpose.)

3. Verses 5-8 list some of the gifts Christians have – but not all. (There are three other lists in the New Testament – Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12, and 1 Peter 4 – and they’re all slightly different, which means that they’re all giving examples, not trying to list everything in one place.) What are these gifts? How many others can you think of? What Christians do you know who have some of these gifts? (Prophesying [=receiving messages from God which reflect what he wants us to know right now], serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, leadership, showing mercy [=a special talent for “emergency” help in crises, which goes further than “contributing to the needs of others” or “serving”].)

4. What has your “faith” got to do with it (vv 3, 6)? (You can’t use a gift properly unless you have the faith to believe that God has genuinely given you this ability. Otherwise, you’re just pretending! Some people will have a lot of faith and God will use them in this particular way again and again. Others won’t have so much, but will still be used by God in some situations. For example, a “teacher” could be an international Bible teacher who speaks to thousands every day, or a small group leader who instructs just four or five young people. A “leader” could be the elder of a church, or the executive of a mission organization… or the organizer of the coffee team every Sunday after the service!)

5. What gifts do you think others in the group might have? (If some group members aren’t Christians, remember that often our spiritual gifts are based on our natural abilities, because God knew what he was doing when he created us in a certain way! So the question for them would be: if they became Christians, how could you see God using them? What gifts might you expect them to receive?)

Audio-visual resources

After the discussion, show this video based on a Casting Crowns song, and ask: why, then, aren't some churches the welcoming, nurturing places as they ought to be? What's your own experience of church - what has encouraged you, and what has put you off?

If we are the body https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SExJ9od-0zQ 4 min 13 sec

Thursday THERE'S MORE TO YOU THAN YOU REALIZE

What the morning talk will be about...

We've just looked at the fact that God gives us different roles and varied gifts to use in his service. "There's a work for Jesus none but you can do." This morning we'll look at how that works for a few minute.

(a) You are unique in your background. God can use all of your past experiences, even the hurts and difficulties, to bless others in a way which nobody else can quite match.

(b) You are unique in your gifts. Nobody else has quite the same mix; and even those who have the same gifts may use them in quite a different way (1 Cor 12:4-6).

(c) You are unique in your understanding. Because God's Word is inexhaustible, you will see things in it which others won't - and similarly you need to learn from them! When you do Bible study with others, e.g. in a house group, it's amazing how many different insights different Christians have to contribute.

(d) You are unique in your situation. God has given you a network of friends and contacts which no one else has. You have a financial position and a role in society which he wants to use in a unique way. Nothing in your situation is pure chance or coincidence; God has put you where you are for a purpose.

Quiet time passage: Jeremiah 1:1-12

Before reading the passage, tell them a bit about Jeremiah. He was born into a priestly family, but early in his life was told by God that he was going to be a prophet. And he wasn’t to get married or have children because his country was slipping into crisis, and soon his people would be taken away into captivity. Jeremiah didn’t fancy this at all, and today’s passage describes how God called him, reluctant as he was, into a job he didn’t feel ready for at all.

Discussion questions

(1) Jeremiah was being called into a very long-lasting job indeed. What is there in verses 1-2 that makes this clear? (The fact that he was a prophet during the reigns of five kings. They came and went, but he was still there delivering the word of the Lord! This was a lifetime calling!)

(2) In v 5 God tells Jeremiah he has known him for a long time – why do you think he stresses that? He also tells him that his job will be pretty unusual, and probably more difficult than most prophets’ jobs. What’s unusual about it? (God stresses that he knew all about Jeremiah even before his birth, because he wants to make it clear to Jeremiah that he hasn’t got the wrong man. He understands him through and through, and knows him better than Jeremiah knows himself. So there has been no mistake in this assignment; God has been planning this job for Jeremiah from the time before he was born.)

(3) Jeremiah doesn’t feel he’s equipped to do the job. How does God answer that (vv 6-8)? (Jeremiah is dismissive about himself – “I am only a child” – and God tells him not to speak that way, in other words, not to focus on his own weaknesses and inexperience. He stresses that he will give the orders, and all Jeremiah has to do is to follow them. And he makes a promise: that he will be rescued from any situation of danger, because God will be with him.)

(4) In verses 9-12, God does a couple of unusual things to bring it home to Jeremiah that his mission is going to be both important and worthwhile. And these experiences made Jeremiah able to keep going through many years of discouragement. What does God do? (First, he touches Jeremiah’s mouth, as a sign that what comes out of it in future will be what God has appointed him to say; he’ll be a spokesman for God, not just for himself. Second, he shows Jeremiah an almond branch, because the Hebrew word for “almond tree” sounds like the Hebrew for “watching” – he wants Jeremiah to know that God is not going anywhere, but will be around to watch over Jeremiah’s success.

(5) Jeremiah was a bit of a special case, obviously, and most of us won’t have direct experiences with God like he did! But are there things we can learn, from the way God dealt with Jeremiah, which can help us to be bold and confident in finding our own calling in God’s service? (For example: does he make any of the same promises to us?)

Audio-visual resources

After the discussion, finish with this short video clip, and ask them: what advice does it contain that you thought was most helpful?

Develop Your Gifts and Talents to Glorify God https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj78IKXo-CI 2 min 03 sec

Friday WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PRAY

What the morning talk will be about...

If prayer is the way that we develop a close relationship with our Father, what is it about prayer that makes the relationship grow?

(a) Through prayer we learn to worship. We start to appreciate the wonder of knowing God, sense his greatness and power, and get excited by his love and his purposes for us. When we worship with other people, we find ourselves drawn into closer relationship with them too, through our relationship with Him.

(b) Through prayer we learn to be real and honest with God; to tell him everything; to know the release of sharing exactly what we are and how we feel with someone who understands and loves us

(c) Through prayer we learn to see the world as God does, and to share his concern for the lostness of human beings. We learn to love others as he loves them, and put them in front of ourselves.

(d) Through prayer we learn to make requests of God in faith; to wait patiently for his answers; and to be encouraged as we see him acting in response to our requests

Quiet time passage: Romans 8:26-32

Before reading the passage, explain: this morning we’re back in the letter to the Romans again. This time we’re looking at a passage which explains a bit about how prayer works and why it’s so important. It’s a difficult passage (verses 29-30 bristle with technical theological words!) but even if we don’t make sense of everything in it this morning, we’ll be able to learn some important lessons from it just the same.

(You might find that people will understand the passage better if you use a free translation like The Message. In case you haven’t got this translation, this is how it renders our verses:

26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?

You may want to miss out the phrase “knows our pregnant condition” which won’t make much sense unless they’ve already understood verses 22-25. (And those words aren’t really there in the original Greek anyway!) But apart from that, this version might be a more direct and accessible approach to the passage. You choose!)

Discussion questions

(1) Christians sometimes object that they find it difficult to pray because they don’t know exactly what they should be asking God for. How does the Holy Spirit help with this (vv 26-27)? (When we pray, the Spirit is helping us, taking our requests to God, sorting them out and making them just right for him to hear, and making sense of the things we can’t even put into words. So we aren’t on our own when we pray; we have a “translator” who makes our prayers what they ought to be.)

(2) Why shouldn’t we ever be scared to ask God to do good things for us, according to verse 28? (Because in everything that happens, he is at work for our good. That’s what he wants, all the time. Disconcerting things may happen to us which make us doubt whether he really has our best interests at heart; but we shouldn’t doubt him; he’s always working for our benefit.)

(3) Verses 29-30 are difficult but basically they are describing five stages in what God does with Christians: first, he knows about them before they even respond to him; second, he plans to change them to make their lives look like Jesus; third, he calls them to himself; fourth, he forgives their sins and makes them right with himself again; and fifth, he brings them into his glory. Why do you think Paul bothers to spell all of this out here? What has it got to do with our prayers? (Paul is tracing just how much God has done for us already, and how big his plans for us are, to underline the fact that he’s really, eternally, on our side, and so we can pray with confidence, knowing how much he’s got invested in us.)

(4) Paul asks in verse 31, “What shall we say in response to all this?” Well – if all of this is true – what do you think we should say? (Paul mentions two things we should say, in vv 31-32: first, “No enemy or evil power can stand against us, because nobody’s as powerful as God, and he is utterly committed to us”; and second, “God’s already given us the most incredibly expensive gift he ever could give us – so why should we think that anything in the world is impossible for him to give us as well?” There are more things we could say in verses 33-35 too, if your group wants to look a little further…)

(5) This passage has tackled two common problems with prayer: first, “I don’t really know what I ought to say”; second, “I’m not sure God will answer my prayers if I try”. Can you think of any more common problems people have? Are there answers to those problems too?

Audio-visual resources

You could finish this morning with one of these clips:

Lord's Prayer Drama https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLVzV9n69UY 8 min 51 sec

Really good exploration of what prayer is supposed to be like, but probably too long to use unless you very much want to! (And have a patient group!)

Calling Heaven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IH1sw2oE7o 2 min 15 sec

The opposite extreme – very brief! But quite funny. Good to ask the group beforehand: why is prayer NOT like this? Why is it a good job that it isn’t?

Prayer Skit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zaw-wbmY-I 3 min 53 sec

A group of people with different views about what prayer is. Good to ask: what do they get wrong? Is there any truth in what any of them say?

Why Pray https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFK8Xwrc_fI