Saints Alive! Participant's Journal

By Finney John and Felicity Lawson

Saints Alive! introduces people to faith in God through the power of the Holy Spirit, helping them to be integrated into the life of the church and moving out into ministry in their everyday lives. For use in groups of any size, it does not matter how much or how little people know about the Christian faith all are welcome. Starting with the experiences of those in the group, Saints Alive! takes the leaders and participant s on a voyage of discovery. It begins by considering our relationships, and in particular our need for God in the centre of our lives. Two sessions look at Jesus what He taught and what He did, particularly studying the cross and the empty tomb, and then two sessions focus on the work of the Holy Spirit and His significance for our life today. Session six offers a time of ministry when people can respond to what they have learnt and receive whatever ministry is right for them, before the concluding sessions which explore how we can grow as Christians in fellowship with others in the Church and begin to minister to people you With a leader s manual, optional videos, and a journal for every member with teaching, Bible readings, and space to record their thoughts, Saints Alive! has been used by hundreds of thousands all over the world and with this new edition it will be used more widely still.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David C Cook
• Release date: Dec 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780830782147

Book preview

SAINTS ALIVE! PARTICIPANT’S JOURNAL

Published by David C Cook

4050 Lee Vance Drive

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

Integrity Music Limited, a Division of David C Cook

Brighton, East Sussex BN1 2RE, England

The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked

PHILLIPS

are taken from The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition © 1972 by J. B. Phillips. Copyright renewed © 1986, 1988 by Vera M. Phillips.

ISBN 978-0-8307-8149-2

eISBN 978-0-8307-8214-7

© 2020 John Finney and Felicity Lawson

First edition published by SPCK in 1982 © John Finney and Felicity Lawson, ISBN 978-0-7459-3140-1

The Team: Ian Matthews, Jennie Pollock, Jack Campbell, Susan Murdock

Cover Design: Mark Prentice at beatroot.media

Third Edition 2020

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE BIBLE

PRAYER

Notes about the Group Meetings

SPARKS

SESSION 1—RELATIONSHIPS MATTER

SESSION 2—WHO IS JESUS?

SESSION 3—THE RESURRECTION

SESSION 4—WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

SESSION 5—HARVEST TIME: FRUIT AND GIFTS

SESSION 6—TIME FOR MINISTRY

SESSION 7—GROWING UP

SESSION 8—BEING CHURCH

JOURNALING

APPENDIX

Video Scripts

The Two Sons

The Cottage

The Message of the Cross

Mary in the Garden

The Evidence for the Resurrection

The Gifts of the Spirit

INTRODUCTION

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This Journal is yours. As you are part of the Saints Alive! Course, this Journal will help you get the most out of it.

Saints Alive! is for people who mean business. It is for anyone who wants to find out more about God and his power and love—and who is prepared to do something about it. No Christian knowledge is necessary, just a willingness to look for new treasures.

If You Are by Yourself

This Journal is written for people in a Saints Alive! group. However, it can be used:

as a way of finding out about the Christian faith by yourself. Just ignore all the stuff about groups and carry on!

for those who think their faith has got too complicated and want to go back to basics

to find out how the Christian faith fits in with mindfulness and meditation

You can use it:

as a memo to yourself—to remember what you have done;

as a planner—to make resolutions for the future;

for meditation—to think about who you are and what you do;

or just for making notes.

It does not matter what your Journal looks like. It can look a mess—but it is your mess and nobody is going to look at it and say, ‘Ugh’.

You can stick things in it, like coloured stars and funny illustrations. You can draw pictures and diagrams. You can write down resolutions and prayers and thoughts.

A lot of people find Journals useful to get things organised. They can make you feel better and help you to think about the future. They are also a great aid to memory.

Or you are at liberty to throw it away—after all, it is your Journal and you can do what you like with it! Though be careful—you might want to fish it out of the dustbin later when you’ve thought about it!

WELCOME

Welcome to the Saints Alive! course. It has been used by hundreds of thousands of people of differing denominations and in many countries. It has been used on every continent except Antarctica! It has been used in prisons and in schools, in traditional churches a thousand years old and in fellowships that have just started.

Saints Alive! is renowned for its flexibility. This is your course, and what you think and say (or don’t say) is all-important. You are different from everybody else and your personal needs should be honoured, and your opinions taken into account.

It does not matter how much or how little you know about the Christian faith or the Bible or being a Christian. Some in your group may know absolutely nothing and have been drawn along by vague curiosity while others may just be wanting a ‘refresher’ because they want their faith to be more real to them. Whatever you and the rest know or don’t know is immaterial: God wants to change and help all of you.

HOW TO USE THIS JOURNAL

It is divided into eight sections, which are connected with the first eight sessions of the Saints Alive! course. (The ninth session is a celebration.) There is also an Appendix with various texts, mostly from the video.

Each section has:

Notes about the last session so that you can reflect on what was discussed

A guide to the next bit of Chunk Reading

Some Daily Bible Reading notes

There is plenty of space for you:

To jot down any thoughts or questions you have after your group meeting

To note anything that strikes you as you do the Chunk Reading

To reflect on the questions in the Daily Reading

To keep a record of anything God is saying to you during the course

To write or draw your ideas, dreams, questions or simply put in things that appeal to you

At the end there are copies of scripts from the videos, which might help you remember what was said

What you write down is completely personal and private. You may find it useful to take it to group meetings. However, no one should ask to see it, and you will probably get more from the meeting if you don’t have it open in front of you the whole time.

How do you think?

Getting the most from this Journal can depend on the way you think!

We often assume that everyone thinks in the same way that we do. They don’t.

Research shows that roughly a quarter of people think nearly always in pictures, a quarter think in words and half use a mixture of the two.

Most teachers think in words. Most engineers and architects think in pictures—and so do most inventors. Verbal thinkers think with words—it’s a bit like talking to yourself in your head. Picture thinkers see ‘pictures’ in their heads—as though they were watching a film. Einstein thought in pictures.

In your Journal therefore some of you may find it best to use words to answer questions and to jot down your ideas. But you may be someone who thinks in pictures: you do not have to use words, and you may be at your most creative using pictures. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ is still true. A dense page of statistics can be summed up in a graph. A long description of what to do can be made into a flow-chart. An emotion can be expressed as a colour. Advertisers use far more pictures than words.

There is plenty of plain paper in your Journal to write down your thoughts in words—but also plenty to use for pictures.

Some will find the following options best:

Use sketches—visualise a scene in the Bible. It