Rev. Shane Stanford - What the Prayers of Jesus Tell Us About the Heart of God Leader Guide

Shane Stanford

Leader Guide for Group Study

WHAT THE PRAYERS OF JESUS TELL US
ABOUT THE HEART OF GOD

Copyright 2015 by Shane Stanford

All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested.

ISBN 978-1-5018-1939-1

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com .

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crowns patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

More than any other part of his ministry, Jesus prayers reveal his intentions for how the gospel would change lives and affect the world. As we read and study What the Prayers of Jesus Tell Us About the Heart of God, well revisit moments when Jesus prayed with his disciples or went away to pray alone. Through this reading, we engage both a story and a set of lessons. Jesus didnt just pray as a means to be with the Father; he used prayer as instruction for his disciples then and for us today. Together, well discover Jesus own hopes and desires when he prayed for us to:

Have a relationship with the Father

Be shaped by Gods wisdom and guidance

Be united with one another

Bring glory to God

Have consistency in our spiritual life

By witnessing even the most intimate moments between the Father and the Son, we can learn something about the big plan God has for our lives. Each group member ideally should have a copy of the main book, What the Prayers of Jesus Tell Us About the Heart of God, and read a chapter each week (and for the last week, also the Conclusion). This guide for the leader provides five session outlines for a 45- to 60-minute group format that will help you lead the group through a discussion and response to what they have read.

Youll expand your discussion time together depending on the length of your available class time.

Here is a brief introduction to each segment of the session outline:

Each session begins with additional background teaching that is not in the book itself but is just for you as the group leader. These additional insights may help you as you prepare for group discussion.

Begin each weeks session with time to greet one other, make introductions, and share prayer concerns. Each week youll see a very short prayera portion of the longer closing prayerfor you to use to begin class or to incorporate into your own prayer.

Each week, youll see an overview of the chapter. This is a brief summary of the concept or prayer focus in the chapter and a list of the main teachings or talking points. This section may help you pull your thoughts together or you may also choose to read or summarize it for the group. It will be especially helpful to those who did not quite finish the chapter for the week.

Each session outline in this guide ends with a Class Handout. Make copies if you choose to use this and distribute them during the overview. This will give each person a compact overview of the key scripture, the prayer focus for the week with the main talking points, and the at home activity for the coming week. Youll find that the handouts are often abbreviated slightly from your own leader information.

During this time, youll work through the main points in each chapter with summary statements, discussion questions, scripture passages, and a group activity. Consider having a group member begin your reflection time by reading aloud the key scripture (which is printed in the overview and on the handout). If its a longer section, you might ask two people to split the reading.

You wont have time to choose everything in this section but will be able to see what works best for your group and the time you have.

As you look ahead to the coming week, the ideas for home study will be an invitation to reread key scripture and meditate on a personal question or plan during the week. This reading and reflection is included on the Class Handout.

A prayer is provided to end the session. You might offer this yourself or make a copy and share with a group member who will offer the closing prayer.

As you begin to prepare to lead your group in this transforming exploration of the prayers of Jesus, we hope that you have a rich, personal experience in your own prayer time. As the author writes, Jesus wants us to do more than spend thirty minutes in a good devotional time. He wants our prayers to become the blueprint for the persons we claim to be and want to be. Jesus wants nothing less than for prayer to become our point of reference, our anchor, our guide, and our justification. We hope that for you and for your group, prayer becomes the heartbeat of relationship with God and with one another.

After Jesus death, the disciples made their way back to Jerusalem by way of the Mount of Olives. Just a day or so earlier, they had listened as Jesus shared his final words of encouragement with them. He told them that they would see their lives take different turns and that they would be sent to many places in his name. Their tasks were straightforward and powerful: they would make disciples, teach, and heal, literally becoming the embodiment of Jesus ministry, as he had taught them during his time together with them. They knew that Jesus had been preparing them for this moment throughout his earthly ministry, although many of them could not understand itthen or now.

Memories flooded the disciples minds as they recalled their encounters with the broken, the hopeless, and the marginalized. Jesus had responded to each situation with a sense of confidence and compassion. He was always prepared, always sure of what needed to be done next. The disciples wanted that same strength for themselves, but, especially after the events of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, they had been unsure of where to find it. After the post-Resurrection sightings of the risen Christ, many of them had gone back to their old routines, at least trying to make sense of old encounters and old situations. They wouldnt know until much later that Jesus had been shaping them all along the way during their time together, molding them into all that they would need to be for future situations.