Week 12: Haggai & Zechariah

This was our last week of "Drama & Dedication: The Life of the Prophets."  For our last lesson, we looked at Haggai and Zechariah.  When you are trying to do a job, complete a project or finish out a game, it helps to have someone cheering you on and providing encouragement.  That's what the prophets Haggai and Zechariah were all about!  The past two weeks we talked about the prophet Ezekiel who prophesied to the exiled Jews in Babylon.  Last week we talked about how Ezekiel had to tell them that their hometown of Jerusalem had been destroyed along with the Temple.  Many years later, these exiled people were allowed to return home.  When they did they began to work on rebuilding the Temple.  But, they quickly got tired and quit.  Instead they focused their time on re-building their own houses.  Haggai and Zechariah were called to encourage and motivate the Jewish people to continue rebuilding the Temple!

We split into middle and high school groups and talked about priorities.  The people in Haggai and Zechariah's day were having a hard time prioritizing, and these prophets were trying to get them back on track.  We talked about how sometimes we put God and "being a Christian" on hold while we take care of other things.  How do you set your priorities, and who helps get you back on track when you stray?  Some said parents, friends, mentors, pastors, God.  It was important for us to identify who and what helps us and encourages us to straighten out our priorities and set our faith as number one before other things in our lives.

Then we talked about how today's Temple is the body of Christ.  That God dwells in each of us, and that means we need to care for ourselves as God's creation and dwelling place.  This also means that we are called to love and care for our neighbors as well, since the body of Christ is not just us individually, but a whole community!  So, as a challenge for the week, we wrote down one or two specific ways we could work on "building" or "rebuilding" our Temple this week.  Maybe it is being intentional about praying or reading Scripture every day.  Maybe it is encouraging a friend or helping your parents around the house.  Maybe it is forgiving a friend or sibling or asking them for forgiveness.  Whatever it is, we wrote it down so that we would remember to work on it this week.  Will you join us in our challenge?  What will you do to work on building or rebuilding the Temple this week?  Comment on this post with your responses.

Then we played a few games...one which helped us further understand the role of a prophet.  In this game, one person was blindfolded and had to find a ball that was placed somewhere in the room.  Another person was able to give verbal directions to the blindfolded person but had to keep their back to them at all times.  The rest of the group was to give directions on how to find the ball to the person giving verbal directions, but they were not allowed to talk!  Sometimes directions were confusing and hard to understand, just like the prophets' messages, but if we were patient and listened carefully, we were able to accomplish the task at hand.