Adam Hamilton - Not a Silent Night Youth Leader Guide: Mary Looks Back to Bethlehem

Not a Silent Night

Mary Looks Back to Bethlehem

Youth Leader Guide

Not a Silent Night

Mary Looks Back to Bethlehem

Book
978-1-426-77184-2
978-1-426-79396-7 eBook
978-1-630-88295-2 Large Print

DVD
978-1-426-77185-9

Leader Guide
978-1-426-77199-6
978-1-630-88035-4 eBook

Youth Study Book
978-1-501-81569-0
978-1-501-81570-6 eBook

Youth Leader Guide
978-1-501-81571-3
978-1-501-81572-0 eBook

For more information, visit www.AdamHamilton.org .

Also by Adam Hamilton

24 Hours That Changed the World

Christianity and World Religions

Christianitys Family Tree

Confronting the Controversies

Enough

Final Words from the Cross

Forgiveness

Leading Beyond the Walls

Love to Stay

Making Sense of the Bible

Revival

Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White

Selling Swimsuits in the Arctic

The Call

The Journey

The Way

Unleashing the Word

When Christians Get It Wrong

Why?

ADAM HAMILTON

MARY LOOKS BACK TO BETHLEHEM

Youth Leader Guide
by Mike Poteet

(Consists of Leader Helps + Youth Study Book)

Copyright 2015 by Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., PO Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228-0988; or e-mailed to .

This book is printed on elemental, chlorine-free paper.

ISBN 978-1-5018-1571-3

Unless noted otherwise, Scripture quotations are taken from the Common English Bible 2011. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com .

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com . The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked REB are from the Revised English Bible, copyright Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Welcome to the Youth Leader Guide for the Not a Silent Night study program.

Adam Hamiltons book Not a Silent Night follows the life of Jesus through the eyes of his mother, Mary. As the introduction to the Youth Study Book emphasizes, Mary was a thoughtful and contemplative person. In keeping with her character, this youth study doesnt contain high-energy icebreakers, games, skits, or challenges. All those elements of youth ministry have their place, but this resource seeks to foster a different kind of experienceone that will encourage youth to treasure and ponder Gods Word in their hearts, as Mary did (see Luke 2:19, 51).

Through Scripture, prayer, the written word, music, visual art, crafts, and even food, this study will help you create time and space for youth to reflect, in the midst of a busy holiday season full of distractions, on Jesus significance for themnot just as the baby of Bethlehem, but as one who grew as they are growing, who lived a fully human life in obedience to God, and who died and was raised in order to give new and everlasting life.

As you may have noticed on the title page and in the contents, this Youth Leader Guide consists of two parts: Leader Helps and Youth Study Book.

This first part of the guide, Leader Helps, gives you as leader the information and support youll need to facilitate a successful study with your group. The second part of the guide, Youth Study Book, reproduces in full the participant book, allowing youliterallyto be on the same page as the group.

In the Leader Helps, youll find descriptions of nine activities, which correspond to the nine activities in each chapter of the Youth Study Book:

Lighting the Advent Candles

Scripture Focus

Mary Ponders

Reading for Reflection

Meditating with Art

Meditating with Music

Lectio Divina

Ponder Giving This Present

This Week, Wonder With God About...

In addition, the Leader Helps include a section of suggested Crafts and Recipes that you can use to extend and enhance your sessions.

Please refer to this format as you read the Leader Helps, so youll have a sense of how you want and need to plan your sessions to best serve the youth with whom you minister. You may or may not want or be able to use all the activities every time. Also, please note that the instructions and tips in the Leader Helps generally apply to all four of the full sessions; however, where appropriate, information specific to certain sessions appears.

In the Youth Study Book, each session begins with a litany or responsive reading, a Christmas carol, and a prayer. Starting each group session with the litany will help establish a contemplative mood for reading, reflection, and prayer. It will also connect your study with the larger churchs observance of the Advent season.

Choose a place in your meeting space to be a worship center. Arrange your Advent candles on the floor or on a small table: four smaller candles surrounding a larger, white candle in the center (symbolizing Christ, the Light of the World). Customary colors for Advent candles are purple (the color of royalty, since we are waiting to celebrate the birth of the King of Kings; also a color of repentance, since we prepare for his coming again as Judge) and blue (adopted more recently in some traditions as a color of hope, and to distinguish Advent from Lent, which also uses purple). Some traditions use a rose or pink candle on the Third Sunday of Advent to represent anticipation of Christmas joy. Follow your churchs customs, and, if meeting in a church building, check with leadership about whether you should use wax or electric candles. (Some church insurance policies restrict the use of open flames.)

You can recruit up to five youth to lead each weeks printed litany as a responsive reading, assigning a different portion of the litany to each: the greeting, the Old Testament text, the words of Jesus, the identification of the candle(s) being lit, and the prayer. Everyone should read together the words in bold, and sing or recite together the carol verses. In a larger group, choose as many different readers over the course of the sessions as possible.