2/21 Sunday School "Ethos-Knowing Your Audience"

Senior High- Lindsay Graves, Junior High-Jared Graves

Introduction

Form teams of 3-4 people. They are to draw a “product” and an “audience” from a hat. They have 5 minutes to collaborate on how they are going to pitch the product to their given audience. They must then give a minute infomercial on that product for that audience.

How hard was it for your team to reach out to the given audience?

If you have a satellite television, or you travel much, you get the opportunity to see how advertisers reach out to people, selling the same product, but in very different ways. People know that based on different areas of the country, economic statuses, and backgrounds they have to appeal to different types of people. Last week we talked about the need to be credible when we are evangelizing. This week we are going to talk about the importance of knowing our audience.

Lesson

Everyone turn to Acts 3. We will be reading verses 11-26. Let’s give some background before we start. What we are reading today is after Pentecost, and is following Peter healing someone

Read Acts 3:11-12

What does the term, “Men of Israel” mean? (They are Jews)

Read Acts 3:13-15

He acknowledges that they worship the same god (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)

Read Acts 3:16-17

Peter isn’t being too kind to the people right now. He puts the blame on them for Jesus’ death, and then said it happened due to their ignorance. How is he getting away with this?

Read Acts 3:18

Why did he bring up the prophets? (They are Jews and looked for the prophets to tell them what to look for in the Messiah)

Read Acts 3:19-23

He asks them to repent, but then throws in the Moses reference to make sure that they see the connection.

Read Acts 3:24-26

How do you think this would have been received?

Application

By looking at Peter’s speech, how do we know that he knew his audience well?

What did Peter say that would speak to the Jews listening?

What are the different audiences that we face while trying to spread our message?

How can we say the same message in different ways?

Weekly Update 2/8/10

Wednesday, February 10
We will be having our first "A 10th for the Lord". We have decided that we are going to give the tenth of every month to God by worshipping Him and serving His people. This week, we are going to help around the church by cleaning up our adopted part of the campus, as well as start to prepare the church to get painted. We hope you will join us from 4-6 on Wednesday (or whenever you can get there) and help us out. Also, we hope that you will stick around for WNL this week with your family.

Friday, February 12- Saturday, February 13
This Friday we are going to leave for CIY:Believe by 2:00pm. We will be returning Saturday night. Please refresh yourself with the hand out and all you need to bring (and not bring!) this weekend. We look forward to seeing you all!

Sunday, February 14
Sunday morning we will continue our study of evangelism. We will continue looking at Acts and what it shows us about the importance of evangelism, and how we go about being good evangelist.

Sunday night we will begin a new series called "Clue". We are going to look, over the next three weeks about the evidence we have for a Creator. What does the universe show us? What does nature show us? And lastly, what do we show? We hope you will join us!

2/8 Senior & Junior High Sunday School- "Ethos"

Evangelism 101: Ethos-Know Your Facts

February 7, 2010

Introduction

Have the students draw a subject out of a hat. They must then proceed to tell us about it for two minutes, even if they have no clue what the subject is, or they are not an expert in the field. At the end of everyone’s turn, see who was the most believable of all the presenters.

Aristotle believed that there were three ways of persuasion, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Logos was the words that were said, a logical appeal. Pathos was how it was presented, an emotional appeal. But Aristotle believed that Ethos was the most important. It was the credibility of the speaker. When we played the game, many of you didn’t know what in the world you were talking about. It’s like going to ask someone about a product only to hear that they’ve “never used it, but heard it was great.” We would rather hear from experience.

I think one of the biggest problems in the world today, when it comes to evangelism, is the fact that very few of us have good Ethos. Over the next four weeks, we are going to take a look at the ethos of evangelism, and how it should influence how we go about spreading the Good News of Jesus.

The first key ingredient of having good Ethos is knowing your facts. Newspapers have to send out corrections rather frequently because they do not do adequate research and give a false story. Once someone is caught in a false story enough times, they become ignored. Think about the boy who cried wolf!

Lesson

Everyone turn to Acts chapter 2.  Here’s the background: This is right after the Holy Spirit ascended down. Those who were looking on asked if these people were drunk!

Read v. 14-16

Peter wants to make sure what is going on doesn’t get passed over as drunkenness. He wants them to know that they know what is going on, and it is important. Have you ever been around someone who converted to Christianity? Most of the time they act like a new person. Yet, when other people see them, they believe something is wrong with them. They think it is just an act. We must make sure that our faith and joyful living is not mistaken for a show. We must make sure that everyone knows the reason we act like we do.

Read v. 17-21

He explains the phenomenon that is happening at the present time. These are religious people, they would understand the Scriptures and for many, it would make sense to them. Peter’s smart. He realized he has all their attentions, and now he is appealing to their intellect.

Read v. 22-24

This would have been still fresh on the minds of all who were gathered here. While there was no National Enquirer, TMZ, or anything like that. But you who go to school know that rumors spread all over the school very quickly. Jews were very close-knit people, word would have gotten around. These people were in the very city that Jesus was crucified in. This would have been a big deal.

Read v. 25-28

Why is it important that Peter brought up David? (If you were going to get anything spiritual across to Jews, it starts with God, but David is like 1a. He must be mentioned and discussed in all things that have to do with religion).  

Read v. 29-36

Peter uses Scripture to back up his claim that Jesus was the Messiah. He wants them to know that he is fully coherent and knows what he is talking about. If he had made wild claims but had no spiritual backing, he would have gotten shot down very quickly. But he knew Scripture, and his argument is grounded in it.

Application

Some questions for us today:

· How well do you know the message that you are supposed to be spreading? 

· Can you get the facts straight so that no one can find any faults in your statements?

The first step to evangelism is to know the message and the significance of the message that you are spreading. If we cannot get this part right, there is no point in going on to any other step in evangelism. Tonight is the Super Bowl. There are going to be plenty of people who know ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING about football who will turn into football fanatics tonight. They are going to be made fun of (maybe even to their face) and ridiculed. I dare say we have a lot of people in our faith who are Super Bowl Christians. They talk big game, only when the show is on. But the rest of the year they do not act like Christ, read about Christ, or firm up their foundation in Christ. Let’s not be one of those people. Let’s make sure we know the facts about Christ. Only then can we hope to reach out and change the world

9/21 Ignite-All Greek to Me: Euaggelion (Good News)

Devotion- Jared Graves

It’s important to note that the word for Gospel “euaggelion” isn’t used much in anything in the ancient text, except for the New Testament. Why?

Uses of the word “euaggelion” (per William Barclay)

• Summation of the entire Christian message. The word occurs 72 times in the NT and of these 72, 54 are in Paul’s letters.
• The “euaggelion”’ of God. It showed men a God whose heart was love & it was the Good News sent by God
• The “Euaggelion” of Jesus. Jesus brought it to men & Jesus ‘embodied’ it to men
• ‘My’ "euaggelion". It comes from God, through and in Jesus, but man must speak it to other people.
• The euaggelion is for all men.Jews believed that they were the favored nation of God, but we see that all peoples are favored by God and are meant to hear this message.

Closing

• I think last week and this week go hand in hand. We love people, and that is why we are meant to spread the greatest news ever, the “euaggelion” to the world. It is out of our love for people, and our love for God that we do this.

M&M Discussion

So we know what the premise of “euaggelion” is. We have heard the word “Gospel” or “Good news” our entire lives. But what truly does it mean?

Everyone get one of the slips of paper and a writing utensil. Write down what you think the “Gospel is”.

After they have written down their answers: As we go through these descriptions of what “euaggelion” is, see if your definition and your view of the Gospel matches up.

The euaggelion is, ‘the good news of truth"

• Read Galatians 2:5

The euaggelion is, ‘the good news of hope’

• Read Colossians 2:23
• John Buchan defined an atheist as “a man with no invisible means of support.’ When a man realizes what the good news means, he is filled with hope for himself and for the world.

The euaggelion is ‘the good news of peace’

• Read Ephesians 6:15

The euaggelion is ‘the good news of God’s promise’

• Read Ephesians 3:6
• William Barclay- “Jesus brought the good news which told not of the God of the threat, but the God of the promise”

The Euaggelion is, ‘the good news of immortality'

• Read 2 Timothy 1:10
• The good news is that death is not the end, but the beginning of life!

The euaggelion is, ‘good news of the risen Christ'

• Read 2 Timothy 2:8
• Barclay: “Our faith is not a faith in a figure in a book who lived and ddied, but in one who rose from death and who is alive forever more”

The euaggelion is ‘good news of salvation’

• Read Ephesians 1:13

Discuss their previous definitions and anything that they would change, or that they never thought of.

Together, come up with a definition of “Gospel”

9/13 Road Blocks- Intellect, 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16

Intro:

• What are some intellectual arguments against the existence of God?
• What are some intellectual arguments against Jesus as Savior?
• I want you to sit here and think about God. Do you think you could possibly think your way out of faith?

Lesson

• Read 1 Corinthians 1:18. Paul is contrasting worldly wisdom with the message of the cross.
• Read 1 Corinthians 1:19. God has a great sense of humor here. Let’s think about all the scholars and people on television who say there is no God. These brainy people believe that they are so smart and they believe that there is no way a God could exist. God is saying if you try to find laws of motion, or physics or anything else that proves that I am here, you won’t find it. I made those laws, and am above those laws!
• Read 1 Corinthians 1:20-24. Why is the cross a stumbling block to Jews? It causes them to say their whole faith was fulfilled by the death of a carpenter. Why is the cross foolishness to Gentiles? Their attitude goes along the lines of: live like you want, earn the most you can, get rich and popular. That sounds a whole lot different than the life of Jesus, and the life that He calls His followers to live.
• Read 1 Corinthians 1:25-31. What aspects of the Christian life does not make sense to people?
• Read 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. Paul knew his audience when he came to Corinth to preach the Gospel. Do you know your audience when you are evangelizing?
• Read 1 Corinthians 2:6-16. Does this make sense why people cannot understand or fathom God? I don’t know what Oprah is thinking right now because I’m not a mind reader and my spirit/thoughts are not her thoughts. This is why people do not understand God. They rely on their intellect and try to see things, but they cannot understand God because God’s thoughts, His Spirit is not in them.

Road Blocks:

• What questions do you have about God? What answers do you need to know? What is in your mind that prevents you from truly trusting in God or accepting Him as real and true? Today, write your questions down, and earnestly seek God’s spirit, the one that lives in you, and have the Spirit fill your mind with knowledge. Will it make sense to your mind? Probably not, but it is the answer.

8/23 Ignite: Good Hygiene- Clean Hands

After a hard fought four games of Capture the Flag, we came indoors for a discussion for our Good Hygiene series.

Luke 10:25-32

• Why didn’t the priest or Levite stop? A:They would have been deemed unclean.
• Some people disagree that we should have broken people in church. The fact is we are all broken and in need of saving. We need kids in here who don’t have it all figured out, who didn’t grow up in families like you did

Luke 10:33-37

• Why is this guy being a Samaritan a big deal? Samaritans and Jews hated each other. They would get in fights, kill one another, and teach future generations not to have anything to do with each other. Yet a Samaritan is the one who goes to help the beat up Jew, not even fellow Jews did that.
• He didn’t just call an ambulance, he healed his wounds, fixed him up, found a place for him to stay and paid it.

Jared's Challenge

• For Mess Fest, we wanted 150 people and got 40. I’m not being mad at you or criticizing you. Honestly, I don’t think you all have been taught how to evangelize. I think we’ve either been sheltered or never fully taught how to spread the gospel.
• Around you are shirts that should have been worn by students. The question is tonight, are we going to waste food at Mess Fest, or are we going to make it worth it? We do not respond in anger or in spite, we respond in action, and the only way that Mess Fest is going to be a success is if we bring others to know Jesus. People who are messy, downtrodden and out of it.
• Next week we are going to present the very basics of the Gospel. We are going to have an evangelistic service. We want souls saved next week. So I’m begging you to make a difference. To reach the unreachable. To get your hands dirty. To find some messed up people, and bring them in. We don’t want to steal sheep, we want to find lost ones. We want these shirts to go out. Grab one of these shirts and take it to someone who is messed up, someone who is lost and in need of saving, and to bring them next Sunday. We will have loud music, we will be going all out. Let’s not worry about clean or unclean, just the person who is beat up on the side of the road of life.

Due to running out of time, we didn't get to our M&M time. Here are the questions, that we would have discussed:

Introduction

• What is the grossest thing you have ever done?
• What is the grossest thing you have ever touched?
• While there probably are some people out there who we would be afraid to touch, we don’t generally go around thinking that we would get some disease for touching someone else. In Biblical times, that was exactly the case. That’s why the story of the Good Samaritan happens. The Jewish folk don’t touch him because they don’t want to get ‘unclean’. Sadly, even after hanging out with Jesus for three years, Peter was the same way.

Bible Reading-Read Romans 10:9-21

• Who is Cornelius? A centurion. A Roman. Someone considered to be unclean because he did not follow the dietary guidelines of the Jews, among other things.
• We find that Peter ends up and goes to Cornelius and spreads the good news.

Application

• Is there someone, or some type of person that you feel uncomfortable around? Is there someone that you don’t feel is ‘worthy’ enough to talk to you?
• Is there someone that you know right now who does not know Jesus as their Savior? As a passer-by in the road called life, we are called to pick up those who cannot walk on their own, or who are lost.