Schedule for Tonight’s Class: Luke 15, the Prodigal Son
TIME
6:30
(20 mins)
6:50
(30 mins)
7:20
(2 mins)
7:22-7:30
(8 mins)
7:30
(5 mins)
7:35
(5 mins)
ACTIVITY
Introduction:
 Announcements
 Summary from past weeks
 Intro Arthur
Luke 15:
A. Look at the Title
1. Compassion: A Real picture of God from the OT but not
often SEEN by the Jews, is it SEEN by us?
2. The Word compassion helps us think about relationships:
With God, with each other, with ourselves
B. Read Brief Overview
C. Memory Verse: Read
1. Jesus is the Father in the story
2. Jesus seeks out, uses effort, takes the first step
3. Lost, introduce the theme of lostness
D. Luke: written by a historian, he had goals
1. We have a historically reliable faith
2. Jesus was the Savior of the whole world—written to
Gentiles, people who were marginalized
E. Sekedi explains about sinners
1. Talks
2. Shows video clip
3. Helps people fill in Chart from page 6
F. What is a parable?
G. Explain the context, the other parables
Give Assignment for Break:
A. Split into groups and assign them to give titles to the
sections of the outline, only their sections
B. They come back and write their titles on the board
Break
On Board
Chart about
Sinners
Leading
John
Chart about
Sinners
Arthur
Chart
Arthur
Look at Outline Together:
D. Question: What is missing?
Hand out cultural background, and split them into groups, read
over and prepare to share 2 things that give insight to your
section of the story with your partners. Think especially about
shame and lostness.
Outline
Arthur
While they are
in their groups,
write up Three
parts of our
story, shame
and lostness
Arthur
While they are
in groups, write
verses up on the
board
7:35
(25 mins)
8:00
(5 mins)
8:05
(20 mins)
8:25
8:30
(20 mins)
8:50
(15 mins)
9:05
(10 mins)
We come back and dive into the story:
A. Read in Chinese
B. Younger son part 1, people share, bring out the themes of
shame and lostness, how was it shameful for the Son to ask this
question? What about for the Father? Someone writing on the
board in English, someone else sharing in Chinese
C. Younger son part 2
D. Older Son
E. What are some other cultural elements that we can notice?
Comments? Wrap up.
Break into groups and fill out the chart on page 11
We start to do page 12 together
A. What does this passage show us about God?
B. From page 11, what do we see about the sons? Share results
from the chart on page 11
C. What about their relationship to the Father?
D. Go back to what was missing from the outline? What would
this mean to our lives?
SHOW THE REST OF THE VIDEO CLIP
Take a break
A. Come back together and in small groups discuss application:
What does it mean for you to apply love and compassion in
your ministry? Create a role play for your ministry? What is
God doing in your heart as you hear this story, what will it
mean for your ministry?
B. Come back and share some ideas, 1-2-3 for each of three
groups
Kingdom Theme: God’s love, retouch on the idea that the
Father ran to the Son before he showed repentance, what was
the Son’s mindset? To earn back his Father’s love. But God
doesn’t wait for us to reach out to him, he reached out to us.
That’s how powerful his love is, it’s more than we think. What
are some thoughts that have come up for you in this lesson?
Comments? New ideas?
Reading, Reflecting, Responding: ideas
A. Build on the discussion we had earlier
B. Rewrite this story set in China. What are traditions that
communicate shame? What would a Chinese version be like?
Could this be turned into a play? Could it be evangelistic?
Maybe you are artistic, write a play set in China that retells this
story.
Participants
writing on the
board
I prepare on
board the
elements from
page 12 that we
can do as a
large group
We fill in the
spaces together
Arthur
and
others
Arthur
Arthur
Arthur
Arthur
9:15
(10 mins)
9:25
(5 mins)
Next week’s assignment
John
End in Prayer (When God Ran???)
Arthur