1. The 2012 Christian Study Guide includes six small-group sessions rooted in the content of the 2012 Hunger Report, Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policies. Session 1 sets the context, while the following five sessions develop particular themes emphasized in the Hunger Report. If your group cannot do all the sessions, we recommend that you do Session 1 before any others.
2. We anticipate that each session will have a facilitator, but the leader needs no specific expertise on the report's content to facilitate the session.
3. The study guide is designed for Christians of many theological and political viewpoints. You should feel free to adapt the guide to enhance the experience for your group. The section below, Preparation Notes for Group Leaders, steers your group to websites relating social policies to different Christian traditions.
4. The activities will direct participants to read relevant sections of the report during the sessions. However, Rebalancing Act is filled with detailed analysis, statistics, and stories, so additional reading will enrich your conversation, but it is not required.
5. Each session includes:
• Biblical reflection materials and questions.
• A summary of the theme as presented in the Hunger Report, along with reflection questions.
• Activities to engage group members in analyzing current realities, using content from the Hunger Report and their life experiences.
• An invitation to pray and act in light of the discussion.
6. The sessions as written may take an hour to 90 minutes each, but should be adapted to meet the scheduling needs of the group.
Preparation Notes for Group Leaders
1. At least one Bible is required for each session. Participants could be encouraged to bring additional translations.
2. It will be helpful to have a copy of the session materials for each participant.
3. After you familiarize yourself with the outline of the session, you may adapt the activities to best serve the needs of your group.
4. To learn more about social policy in your own Christian tradition, you should visit the website of your denomination or national group. Sometimes these include a discussion of social policies. You might also visit:
National Association of Evangelicals
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
The National Council of Churches
5. Most sessions include activities using newsprint, a flip-chart, or a white board.
Ideas for Action
Each session of the Study Guide invites participants to consider how they might take action in response to the issues discussed. Here are suggestions for activities to engage your whole group. The size and nature of your group may require you to adapt the activities, but the descriptions below provide a template.
1. Learn from firsthand experience
Find a way for your group to spend time with someone whose life experience has given him or her personal knowledge of hunger, farming, and/or U.S. development assistance.
2. Write about your concerns
a. Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters
Each year, Bread for the World invites churches and campus groups across the country to take up a nationwide Offering of Letters to Congress on an issue that is important to hungry and poor people. The Offering of Letters enables individuals to see their concerns translated into policies that help hungry and poor people improve their lives. To learn more about Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters this year, visit www.bread.org/OL2012
b. Write to your state or local representative
Write letters to your representative in the city council, state assembly, or Congress to share your thoughts and concerns about food and farm policy.
Learn what your denomination or national association is doing related to food and farm policy.
Additional leader notes about specific sessions:
Leader notes about specific sessions
1. Session 5 asks in the second part of the Biblical reflection for participants to name or list several immigrants/foreigners in the Bible. Here is list of immigrants in the Bible for reference.
a. Abraham (originally called Abram), his nephew Lot, and their households [Genesis 12:1, 12:4-9, 12:10-13, 13:1-4, 13:12, 19:30, 20:1-2, 22:19, 23:3]
b. Hagar & Ishmael [Genesis 21:14]
c. Joseph, who started out a slave & became a powerful leader [Genesis 37:26-28, 39:1, 41:41-57, 50:22-26]
d. Joseph’s father, Jacob, & his brother’s families [Genesis 45:16-28, 46:31-47:6, 50:22-26]
e. Shua & Tamar, Canaanite women who married into the clan that was becoming the Israelite nation[Genesis 38]
f. The descendants of Jacob’s sons who became the Israelite people [Exodus 1, Exodus 5]
g. Moses [Exodus 2]
h. Rahab, the prostitute who protected the Israelite spies when they checked out the land of Canaan and who with her family joined the new invading nation [Joshua 2, Joshua 6:22-23]
i. Naomi & her family when they went to Moab [Ruth 1:1-5]
j. Ruth when she left her home in Moab to join her mother-in-law Naomi, when Naomi went back to her own country [Ruth1:6-22]
k. Ittai, the Gittite, who helped King David when David’s son turned against him [2 Samuel 19-22]
l. Elijah, when he went to stay with the widow at Zarephath in the region of Sidon [1 Kings 17]
m. The exiles in Assyria and Babylon, which later became the Persian Empire
- Israel in Assyria [2 Kings 17]
- Judah in Babylon/Persia [2 Kings 25, 2 Chronicles 36:15-23, Jeremiah 29 & 39, Ezra 1 & 2, Esther, Daniel]
Included among the exiles are some who had positions of status, but in some cases still faced discrimination.
- Daniel & his friends [Daniel 1,3, 6]
- Esther [Esther]
- Ezra [Ezra 1 & 2]
- Nehemiah [Nehemiah 1 & 2]
n. Many Heroes of the Faith [Hebrews 11:8-31, especially 11:13-16]
o. Jesus, when as a child was brought to Egypt as Joseph & Mary fled the persecution of King Herod [Matt. 2:13-18].
p. Genealogy of Jesus: Note how many either lived for a time as immigrants before they became the Israelite nation, or were outsiders who joined the Israelites. Several women are specifically mentioned [Matt. 1 – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth]
2. Session 6 mentions ideas regarding similarities and differences between the story of the paralytic in Mark and the version in Luke. In Mark’s version, the group digs through and then removes a roof, which implies a typical Palestinian peasant’s roof of reed and baked mud. Luke’s version describes the man being lowered through ceiling tiles, typical in more expensive homes. Mark clearly says that 4 men carried the paralytic a mat. Luke does not say how many carried the man, but says he was on a bed or a stretcher. Both versions talk about the crowds surrounding Jesus, but Luke makes a note that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law nearby. How might these differences indicate circumstances that would require differing tools and abilities, or require the participants to take different risks and approaches?
Session 6 also refers to charts which are not in the hunger report, but can be found on the hunger report website (www.bread.org/hungerreport). If the group will not have access to the internet when they gather, these charts should be printed in advance for use during session 6.
| Next Article > |
|---|
