Play

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Scriptures: Matthew 18:2-14

• Summary

  In this sermon on Play, Bobbi emphasizes the importance of play as a spiritual practice that connects us with God and teaches us valuable life lessons through children. She challenges us to rethink ideas of greatness, urging to embrace humility and vulnerability like children do. Bobbi calls us as the community to actively engage with and care for children beyond our own families, highlighting how this involvement can bring healing and deepen faith. She shares personal stories to illustrate how simple acts of kindness and attention to children can reveal God's presence in everyday life. Play and interaction with children are essential ways to live out our faith and build a stronger, more compassionate community.

• Discussion

  Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.

  Summer Discussion Guide 2024

  If your group is meeting this summer and wants to talk about the sermons, here are a few questions that you could use to engage with our teaching.

  - What specific part of the message resonated with you the most? Why do you think that particular part, or idea, or story caught your attention?

  - Did the sermon speak into a particular struggle or question in your life or your faith journey right now?

  - What did the message challenge or encourage you personally?
  And what do you think the application could be for our church community? Was there anything that could strengthen or stretch us as a church?

  - How did the exposition of the scriptures used in the sermon provide you with a new perspective of deeper understanding?

  It is good to remember that the conversation experience in the group is shaped by the personal stories of those who participate in it and how willing the people are to be open and vulnerable in the group.

  So if you’re leading the discussion, feel free to model and encourage person-centred and story-centred sharing by reflecting on how some parts of the sermon resonate with you personally.

  Additionally, what contributes to a more authentic group discussion is when people can share not about the abstract and theoretical applications but one or two practical things they are taking away from either the sermon or the discussion.

  So, you can end your time together with this question: 

  - What is one thing you are taking away from either the sermon or the discussion we’ve just had? 

• Prayer

  Prayer from the sermon:
  God of creation and God of play,
  What a joy it is to have a community full of kids.

  As we sit here together
  We let your spirit call to mind a child
  Who has been showing us something about God

  No matter what is going on in the world
  We can do something to prevent violence and disturbance and abuse By loving the children not just in our own households
  But in the network of relationships we are invited to share in

  Spirit of the living God,
  Enter the places of our own childhood wounds, And heal us of all that harms us
  Through a child’s play
  And through our own.
  Amen.

• Liturgy

  CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 48

  MUSIC Curated by Kevin & Alyssa Borst
  Hillsong Worship - The Passion
  Passion - I've Witnessed It
  Mission House - I Don't Have Much
  Brandon Lake - Gratitude