Class Lesson April 17, 2011

Hey Gang,

The past two lessons have been on managing our own grief. This week we look for ways to minister to others who are experiencing grief. 

There was a movie that came out in 1991 called "My Girl" and the plot was about a little girl, Vada Sultenfuss who was obsessed with death. Her mother was dead, and her father ran a funeral parlor. She was also in love with her English teacher, and joins a poetry class over the summer just to impress him. Thomas J., her best friend, is "allergic to everything", and sticks with Vada despite her hangups. When Vada's father hires Shelly, a makeup expert, in his funeral parlor, and begins to fall in love with her, Vada is outraged and does everything in her power to split them up. Vada grieves terribly when Thomas J. dies after being stung too many times from a bee hive and everyone tries to comfort her. Watch the trailer below:

My Girl

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Here's a question for you, do you think experience is the best teacher?

1.     When have you found this to be true?

2.    When have you learned without experiencing something personally?

This week's lesson says you can minister to those who grieve because God has comforted you.

SO

I want you to begin thinking of someone who has comforted you when you grieved and someone you know that needs comfort now. Write their initials in the band aide spaces below:

Someone who has comforted you.

Someone who needs comfort now.

Be thinking of these two people as you work through the letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

            I. KNOW THE SOURCE OF COMFORT – 2 CORINTHIANS 1:1-3

Greeting

¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, and Timothy our brother: To God's church at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout Achaia. ² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

   

The God of Comfort

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

Who has been a comfort to you during a time of grief? How and why?

What kinds of comfort does the world offer?

What kinds of comfort does God offer?

            II. BE A CHANNEL OF GOD’S COMFORT – 2 CORINTHIANS 1:4-7

⁴ He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so our comfort overflows through Christ. ⁶ If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.

When helping another grieve, why is it important to hear what the person needs you to do rather than impose your grief plan upon them?

One pressure we place on people is “You’ve got to talk about it.” Where do you suppose that came from? How accurate is it, and how long should someone wait before pushing another to talk?

What People Need

Each type of loss requires ministry in keeping with the needs of that kind of experience. Everyone, however, who has suffered loss of any type, needs attention to these basic needs in order to be comforted:

1.    Need for _____________

2.    Need for _____________

3.    Need for _____________

4.    Need for _____________ assistance

  

            III. OFFER COMFORT THROUGH PRAYER – 2 CORINTHIANS 1:8-11

⁸ For we don't want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in the province of Asia: we were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength —so that we even despaired of life. ⁹ However, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. ¹⁰ He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us; we have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again. ¹¹ And you can join in helping with prayer for us, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift that came to us through [the prayers of] many.

If God knows everything anyway, why do we need to pray or have others pray for us?

Closing Prayer

Loving and ever-present God, we believe that Your grace is sufficient for all things. Comfort us anew by Your presence.  Allow that in our weakness we may be made strong, in our grief, consoled, and in our ignorance, wise.   Protect and guide us that we may know the way to take and that at each crossroad of life we may see the right path to choose. Safeguard us by Your power, uphold us by Your kindness, and warm us by Your love. By Your divine grace help us to do what is right, to act courageously, to love our neighbors, to forgive our enemies. By Your grace, bless us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

I hope you have a blessed rest of the week as we prepare to pick-up in God's Word through 2 Corinthians 1:1-11.

In His Love,

David & Susan