CONNECT WEEK
HOSPITALITY AND THE CHURCH COMMUNITY
LEADER PREPARATION
Lesson Summary:
Note: These lessons are designed to be 30 minutes long. If your club time is shorter than this, we encourage you to be prayerful about parts of this lesson to put more or less emphasis on. If limited on time, we urge you to prioritize Tool Time and summarize Dig In, as Tool Time is what prepares you for sharing the Gospel. As always, let the Holy Spirit guide your leadership.
Judgment and division within the church is not what God desired for his people. The Church God calls us into should be a place where we can pursue a radical hospitality with everyone.
God’s Church is a place where people can pursue radical, biblical hospitality.
Team Roles
Host: This Student Leader will lead the Start Up section of the lesson, helping create a fun environment, making everyone feel welcome and included.
Speaker: This student leader will guide the group in growing deeper in their faith by reading and reflecting on passages of scripture. They will then connect the content to the group’s daily lives by asking practical questions and leading the conversation.
Other Roles: Promo, Welcome, and Follow Up.
Scripture References
Materials Needed
- Red Sheets of Paper (1 Per Student)
(7 minutes)
Welcome everyone and be sure to get the names of any new friends.
Icebreaker Game: Red Carpet Relay
Supplies Needed: Red Sheets of Paper (1 Per Student)
Game Preparation: Set aside a section of the room for this game. You may need to move chairs or tables around to accommodate. Choose a START and FINISH line. Ask students to find a partner. Once every student paired up, line them up on the START line and give each pair two sheets of red paper. Explain how one of them will be considered the “VIP”, and they will be racing across a moving “red carpet”. The non-VIP will be alternating their red pieces of paper on the ground for the VIP to step on.
Key Rule: The VIP cannot step on the ground without a red piece of paper. The first team to make it to the finish line is the winner. Repeat the game as time allows.
DIG IN
(5 minutes)
Say: In this game, the non-VIP person exerted a lot of effort to provide a red carpet to the VIP. With every piece of red paper, the VIP was able to get further along the path toward the finish line.
While this game was meant to be fun, it also can demonstrate a reality that Jesus proclaims to His Church. As followers of Jesus, we often have to set aside our own comfort and plans to welcome believers and non-believers and to display radical hospitality.
Ask: How have you seen your community of faith reach out and practice radical hospitality towards people who don’t yet know God? (Take a few moments for students to share.)
Say: Have you ever wondered why we are called to practice hospitality? Maybe these words express that true radical hospitality is not something we are naturally good at, but rather something we need to practice.
Just as your muscles are strengthened by your choice to repeatedly push them, your hospitality “muscle” is strengthened by your choice to display hospitality. True hospitality often requires you to sacrifice your own plans, your time, and even your money to serve someone else.
Read Scripture: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Philippians 2:3-4)
Ask: What are some examples of times when someone sacrificed to show you hospitality? How did that make you feel about them, yourself, or even God? (Take a few moments for students to share.)
Say: The early Church was a mixture of cultures and backgrounds. Often the only thing that united them was their decision to follow Jesus, and even that was not enough to keep them from arguing.
In these verses, one of the early Church leaders, Paul, instructs the Church to first set aside their basic nature. Followers of Jesus were to be known for their willingness to set aside their own interests and to value others above themselves.
It is easy to say these words, but you have probably already discovered that to live them out is a battle. No church or community will do it perfectly, but we should always be working to reflect the life of humility that Jesus showed.
TOOL TIME
(18 Minutes)
Ask: So, the big question is SO WHAT? How does having an attitude of humility help me to share God’s love with my family and friends? (Let students think about this for just a moment.)
Say: Biblical hospitality can be shown in millions of different ways. Even in our faith communities we see the need to extend radical hospitality to one another. Just because we claim to love Jesus and display his actions in our lives does not mean that we love one another in the same way in which he taught us. We can learn a lot from how the first Church displayed radical hospitality to one another.
Read Scripture: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:42-45)
Ask: What do you think it means that the believers “were together and had everything in common”? (Take a few moments for students to share.)
Say: After deciding to follow Jesus and to live out His teachings, it is not as though all their differences were erased. People still sat next to those they had considered their enemies. They still worshiped together with people who had done things that seemed unforgivable.
But the Bible says that they were so radically transformed by God that all they cared about was serving one another. The only thing that mattered was that they were each children of God.
They were called to live out God’s ways in all they did. The verses show this when it talks about how they listened to the apostles teaching, spent time together, shared meals with one another, and even took care of each other by providing for their needs.
Even though everyone in our church community has different backgrounds, values, and upbringings, we do still share a common faith and goal to live by as a community. That goal is to serve one another with the love that Jesus displayed to each of us. Radical hospitality calls us to set aside our own emotions and judgment and to decide that we have everything important in common.
Read Scripture: Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)
Say: Because they did not give in to the temptation to walk away even with all their differences, the Bible talks about an incredible result of their obedience. The early Church’s practice of radical hospitality was so intriguing and welcoming that everyday people were deciding to follow Jesus and be saved.
The passion and love they had not only for God, but also for one another, revolutionized not just their lives but the lives of those around them.
Before we close our time in prayer, let us remember our main point for today: God’s Church needs to be a place where people pursue radical, biblical hospitality like that shown by Jesus.
Corporately and individually, we need to show the world biblical hospitality. This week, what is one way that you can help your community of faith be more radically hospitable? What is something you can do to practice hospitality in your own life?
Closing: End your time together with prayer.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
If you don’t have a church home, talk to any one of the Student Leaders or adults here, and we would be more than happy to connect you with one! We will see you next week as we become better equipped to spread the Gospel by looking to God’s Promises.
Note: A great way to make sure students are getting connected is by having students invite their friends or other club members, who may not have a church, to go to church with them. If you have extra time in club, ask a few volunteers to share where they go to church.
Here are a few important things to have them mention:
- Where they go?
- What their youth group or church is like (what is a typical night like at youth group?)
- What time/day? Upcoming special events?
- If the student is able: offer a ride to anyone who needs it.
*If there is someone who wants to visit a youth group but doesn’t have a ride, talk to your Campus Coach to find a solution! They are there to help you!
