Leader Guide

Objective
Students will be encouraged to open their eyes to a renewed imagination of embracing life as a personal mission.

Warm Up
Read Bishop George McKinney’s story about The Funky Ghetto.
http://tiny.cc/funky-ghetto

Transition

• Where are the “Funky Ghettos” in your community?

The Video
Play the “Church House Trap House” music video by 1K Phew.

Transition
1k Phew refers to a trap (drug) house next to a church that the church had no vision for.

• What does that trap house image represent in your experience as a Christian observing the church?
• If you had a message from God to share on Christmas Eve and no gathered congregation to hear it, where would you go to share it?
• What are the connections between the story of the Funky Ghetto and the song you just heard?
• How does the behavior of the church “next to” the trap house compare to the behavior of Bishop McKinney “next to” a sleazy go-go bar?
• What is at the heart of the difference between those two postures?

Bible Study
Read John 1:43-51

• What do we know about Philip and Nathanael?
• What is Philip’s first recorded act after being called by Jesus?
• What is significant about this?
• Are there any principles we can gather from this?
• How does Philip deal with Nathaniel’s question?
• How effective do you think it would have been if Philip had tried to explain why it was OK that Jesus came from Nazareth or that perhaps He was really from Bethlehem and they didn’t know it?
• What can we learn from this?

Any listener steeped in Jewish lore would immediately recognize Jesus’ reference (verses 50-51) to the story of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28.

In the ancient world, whenever divinity showed up, that place of epiphany was sacred. Usually, such places were marked with stones as a holy memorial.
The difference between Jacob’s vision, and Jesus’ appropriation of it to refer to Himself is that in Genesis, the angels are ascending and descending upon a place but in John, the ascending and descending occurs upon a person—a profound difference.

While a place is stationary, Jesus is mobile and thus the holy intersection between Heaven and Earth is in motion. Wherever Jesus goes, that place is holy.

• Since the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of His people, how can each of us, by association with Jesus, also be a mobile intersection between Heaven and Earth?
• Wherever we go as Christians on mission, does that place become holy?

The implications of where grace locates itself through incarnation now becomes staggering. Wherever God walks by the Spirit’s powerful work and indwelling presence, that place is holy!

• Can it be that this includes trap houses next to churches and go-go bars on Christmas Eve?

Wrap Up
John Howard Yoder wrote, “God is working in the world, and it is the task of the Church to know how He is working; that is to say, ‘Behold, here is Christ. This is where God is at work!’”

• What have you learned about seeing God at work in the world?
• Why are we so quick to treat church like a refuge from the world as opposed to a launching pad to transform the world?
• What are the “trap houses” next to your church, your house, your school that you are being challenged to see differently?

Playlist
This song is featured on “The Linc: Evangelism; Urgency” Spotify playlist – which is the perfect way to remind your students what you’ve taught them in this session. To share it with them, click the live link on the web version of this study.