A selection of appropriate passages from the gospels.
One Bible per participant.
Gentle background music.
Contents/Activities:
1. Prepare the Notes from Jesus in the following fashion:
Find as many different scripture passages as required.
These can be any sayings of Jesus in the gospels. You can find these passages
using the online New
American Bible. You can choose to pick passages on a specific theme
or have a random selection of themes depending on the outcome desired.
Type these passages out so that you can then cut and paste them (manually
or on your word processor).
Print out one of the two templates of "Note
from Jesus". Click here to find these templates.
Photocopy as many of these as required. If you feel comfortable doing
so, you could also simply copy the image of Christ you prefer as many
times as needed onto your word processor and add the texts you have chosen
beside each of them.
Photocopy each of these completed "Notes from Jesus" - as
many copies as required of each.
The notes could be inserted in individual envelopes. Here
is an example of what a completed note could look like:
1. Set the notes attractively
on a small table with an open Bible and possibly a lit candle. If the notes
are not in an envelope, they should be folded so as to hide their content.
2. Remind the students
or the participants that Jesus speaks to us personally through the scriptures.
He has something to tell each of us today.
3. Invite them to pick
one of the notes that you have set on a table.
4. The next step could
take a variety of forms:
Each participant could look up the passage on their note
in their Bible, read the chapter from which it comes so as to understand
the setting of the passage. From there they could quietly reflect on the
meaning of the passage.
If you have selected verses on a common theme, you could
have small groups of participants read each of their passages and have
the group discern what common threads they see between them.
In a large group, you could have the same scripture passage
on 3-4 notes and have the participants with the same note get together
to read the context in the bible, and to discuss the possible meaning
of the scripture passage on their note.
5. Invite the participants
to take a bit of quiet time to "listen" to what Jesus might be saying to them
personaly in the scripture passage they selected. Gentle background music
might help this transition from discussion to quiet reflection/meditation.
6. Invite the participants
to jot down, either below the scripture passage on the note or on the back
of the note, their "response" to what they believe Jesus might be saying to
them.
7. As a closing to this
activity, you could invite the participants to read the scripture passage
they selected and, if they feel comfortable doing so, the "response" they
wrote down as well.
