Sometimes family worship works well, other times, not so much. The first one or two might work well because of a novelty value. But sooner or later, you’ll have a time of family worship that just falls apart. That’s OK. That’s pretty much the story of family life. But don’t give up on something so precious. Like I said last week, it might take some experimentation to find a way of doing this that works for you as a family, but even when you find a way that works, some days will be bad days...
We tend to mix things up. Sometimes we do something quite formal. over the years we’ve built up a folder with some opening and closing liturgy, some songs and hymns. Sometimes we get those out. Other times, we chat and pray about what been said in the sermons. Some days it flows well, other days it feels like getting blood out of the proverbial stone. Some days it doesn’t quite happen at all... that’s all part of it. The key is to keep going...
So how do we get into II Cor.2? It’s probably the hardest Chapter in the letter (from a Family Worship point of view), so this is a longer offering than usual. I’m just trying to help you get a feel for what’s going on, for how you might reflect on it together as a family, and for some ideas of conversations that might open up things to pray about.
It’s quite a ‘bitty’ chapter, but this might be a helpful question to get the ball rolling:
What does it mean to love someone?
It’s good to have a couple of family stories about this, and to hear what different people in the family think. But at some point you’ll want to introduce the idea that we want to learn from Jesus. What does it mean for Him to love the Church? You might want to camp out in I Cor.13. But it may be more helpful as we go through II Corinthians to look at something Paul tells us in Eph.5, that ‘Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy’ (vv.25-26). When we love someone our desire for them is to be holy (like Jesus), and we’ll do whatever we can to help that happen.
How can we help other people grow to be more like Jesus?
That might be enough of a conversation. Maybe stopping there and praying for people to keep growing to be like Christ would be a great way to bring this week’s worship-time to a close.
I promised another Catechism question.
97. Why is the Church called ‘holy’?
The Church is ‘holy’ because the Holy Spirit dwells in it, and sanctifies its members, setting them apart to God in Christ, and calling them to moral and spiritual holiness of life.
(Ex.19:3-6; Lev.19:1-2; Ps.15; John 17:17-19; Acts 26:16-18; I Cor.3:16-17; Col.3:12-15)
Paul’s love for the Church is what makes sense of the decisions Paul makes. He going to talk later about how his behaviour is ‘compelled’ by the love of Christ (5:14). His decision about whether to visit them or not was shaped by his love for the Corinthian Church... in other words, by what he thought would help them become more like Jesus. That’s why he wrote what he did in First Corinthians (see II Cor.2:4)... And that’s why he is writing what he is now in II Cor.2.
You might feel this gives you enough material to work with... this feeds in to all kinds of conversations about what’s going on in Church and in your own family. There are some great images here that I’m sure you could use as a basis for craft-ideas to help concretise the conversations?
Maybe with older children and y.p. you’ll want to do something that is more engaged with the passage?
Again, the Chapter breaks down into two section (well, it does if you see vv.1-4 as really belonging to what Paul was talking about in Chapter 1). The first section (vv.5-11) is pretty difficult because of what it is dealing with. As (grand-)parents, you’ll have to decide for your own family if you want to tackle it, but if you do it might look a bit like this:
2:5-11
Paul’s Christ-like love for the Church also helps us understand some hard things that happen at Corinth. Can you imagine someone choosing over and over again to not do something Jesus wanted them to do? It’s such a strange idea that you might not be able to, but sometimes it does happen. In fact, something like that was going on in Corinth. And because Paul loved the person involved, he actually thought they shouldn’t be allowed to come to Church anymore! Maybe if they weren’t allowed to be a part of the Church for a while, they’d realise that it was more important to them than they thought? Maybe they’d realise that Jesus was more important to them than they thought? How would you feel if we did something like that at MIE?
You’d really have to love someone if you were prepared to do something like that to help them learn how to love Jesus and to live the way He wants us to.
Well, strange as it may seem to us, it worked at Corinth... But now there was another problem. The Church weren’t sure that he was sorry. And so they kept him out of Church longer than they should have. Paul urges them to ‘reaffirm their love for him’ (2:9), to forgive him and welcome him back...
As a family, you might want to talk about why it is so important to live as Jesus calls us to. And how the Church can help us with this. How does that shape what we want and expect from our Church services and our Church family? ...from our Sunday Groups? ...youth groups? etc.
vv.12-17
Evangelism. Paul uses an image here that again I’m sure lends itself to all kinds of activities. smell. In our Sunday Groups this week, we’ll be thinking about whether we ‘smell’ like Jesus (though it’s likely Paul had in mind the burnt offering [Eph.5:2], so make of that what you will...). But the key thing to understand is that – just as some people became disciples, while others didn’t like Jesus at all in the Gospels, so when we are like Jesus, and talk about Jesus, there will be people who will want to follow Him, and some who won’t. It isn’t our job to work out ahead of time which is which. Like the Sower (Matt.13:1-8), we simply ‘spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere’.
Some ideas for activities?
Memory Passage:
It’s a tricky passage to isolate a helpful verse to memorise, but maybe 2:14? Or perhaps I Cor.13:4-7, if you wanted a bit of a challenge that might last a few weeks. Rewards help! for years I gave our boys little toy knights for memorising a certain number of verses!
· Would it be helpful for us to organise a Pizza and movie night for y.p. to watch American Gospel? Drop me an email if you’d find that helpful?
· for younger kids – can you recognise the smell..? have a variety of strong smelling objects – anything from onions to perfume, from spice to socks!! – can you identify them by smell only?
· during your time of praying together for people you know who aren’t Christians, light an aromatic candle? And then send those you’ve been praying for a card inviting them to Christianity Explored, which starts on 2nd October...
· For older children and y.p. If you’ve looked at vv.5-11, why not take a look at the introduction to Holy Communion in the book of Common Prayer. I’ll be talking about it on Sunday morning:
If a minister be persuaded that anyone of his cure who presents himself to be a partaker of Holy Communion, ought not to be admitted thereunto by reason of malicious and open contention with his neighbours, or other grave and open sin without repentance, he shall give account of the same to the Bishop, and therein obey the Bishop’s order and direction, but so as not to refuse the sacrament to any until in accordance with such order and direction, he shall advertise him that in any wise he should not presume to come to the Lord’s Table: Provided that in the case of grave and immediate scandal to the congregation the minister shall not admit such person, but shall give account of the same to the Bishop within seven days and therein obey the Bishop’s order and direction…
As a family, how might it be helpful for you to prepare together for your next Communion Service?
