Mango Home Groups – 13th October 09 – meeting from 7.45pm

‘The Lord appointed 72 and sent them two by two ahead…… the 72 returned full of joy’.’

Two weeks ago we studied Luke’s account of when Jesus first called Peter, James and John to follow Him and become ‘fishers of men!’ Today we move on five chapters in the same account and read that Jesus selected a further 72 and sent them out as ‘local mission teams’ in pairs to go ahead of Him. When they returned they spoke with joy of what they had experienced.

Some of us have recently returned from our ’mission’ trip to Emmanuel and already I am hearing good news of things that occurred during Sunday morning – including a group of three that had never set foot in church before joining us just for breakfast and another newcomer staying after breakfast for the whole service. As we continue on our theme of Mission and Vision, let’s explore together what Jesus followers experienced as they were sent out and then let’s see if we can discover parallels that we can draw with our own experiences:

Read through the account from Luke’s Gospel Ch10: 1-9, 17-21 – you could break this into two and just read the first section and then look at these questions:

1. Why do you think Jesus sent folk out in twos?
2. What might Jesus have meant vs 3 when He states that He’s sending them out like lambs amongst wolves? Why would God want to do that?
3. Why were they forbidden to take the usual necessary provisions vs 4?
4. They were given key tasks to undertake – what were these and what exactly did these tasks really require?
5. What tasks do we sense God has given us to undertake as ‘missional people’?

Then look at vs 17-21

6. The disciples returned and were full of joy. Why? And why did Jesus caution them?
7. What do you think Jesus actually mean when He told them they had been given authority to trample on snakes vs 19?
8. What can we gleam from Jesus prayer at the end of this passage vs 21? And how might we draw some sense of comfort from this prayer?
9. In what ways do we feel challenged and/or reticent to pursue God’s mission calling over our lives?

If time allows you might want to spend time talking of experiences that you may have had where you have heard something of ‘God’s call’ in the past. How did it make you feel? What happened? What did you learn from the experience?

Make sure you allow time at the end to pray for one another and also for Si and Lizzie as they set out on their missional journey to the Sudan. Pray too for Emmanuel as we reflect on Sunday’s service and start to plan ahead to next month’s visit. [ps Rob Scott Cook is coming with us next month!]

Cheers

Scott

Mango @ Emmanuel

This Sunday - 11th October 2009 - a team from Mango embarked upon Emmanuel Chapel in Henbury to help to lead the service. Stew headed up a kitchen team that prepared breakfast for the church, 30 bacon butties and 30 croissants served along with fresh coffee, tea and juice. Rachel led worship, Scott spoke from Psalm 103 and Julia led the drinks and cakes after the service had formally closed. At least three newcomers joined the Emmanuel regulars and lots of new friendships were forged - see the Mango pic site for more images - http://www.flickr.com/mangopastorate

This Sunday at Emmanuel Chapel

This Sunday is our first Sunday at Emmanuel Chapel – a great opportunity to ‘make a difference’ with small acts of kindness in love to serve, encourage and support this community.

Four ways to help

1. Worship – Rachel is developing a worship team and if you are interested in exploring worship, do let her know - 'rachelsj@inbox.com '

2. Stewart is hosting a breakfast team that will prepare food for the whole church. This is a new thing and they’re really excited about this. Hopefully if it goes well first time, news will spread and church members will start to think of inviting others to join them for brekkie! If you want to be a part of this team for our first trip out this Sunday, please let Stewart know – he’ll be starting to prep at 8.45 and serving from 9.20. - 'stewart.martin@blueyonder.co.uk '

3. After the service, we are also going to be serving coffee and tea and cakes and generally looking to ‘mingle’ with the congregation – probably even some chances to chat and pray with some – they’re usually a very open community!! If you’d like to help serve coffee and cake then please let me know. IN PARTICULAR, even if you can’t be there but would like to BAKE A CAKE for the church, that’d be great – I think it could make a real difference if we were able to bring our own home produced cakes to give away - 'scott@smart-partners.co.uk'

4. Just be there – service starts at 10am - it’d be great to see you!

Here’s the address and here’s their website too: http://www.emmanuelhenbury.org.uk/

Emmanuel Chapel, Satchfield Crescent, Henbury, Bristol, BS10 7BN

Or you can find them on google maps at: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=bs10+7bn&ie=UTF8&ll=51.504883,-2.620218&spn=0.006638,0.013304&z=16