SUNDAY MORNING ELECTIVE 

SUNDAY MORNING ELECTIVE @ 9:30AM

Middle & High School Students (5th-12th)

Meets upstairs in The Warehouse 

9/20/26

The last three weeks we have been looking at the letters that Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica that he recently visited in Acts 17. Each time that Paul would have written a letter to one of the churches in the chronological order in Acts, we are looking at that letter.  At the end of Paul's second missionary journey, when he arrives back at Antioch, he writes to the church at Thessalonica in order to see how they are doing after he was abruptly kicked out of the the city and only had the report from Timothy to go by.  

In the 1st letter that Paul wrote to them, there was somewhat of confusion in how Paul talked about the end times.  Some interpreted it that since Jesus was coming back, they didn't need to work as hard or at all, they could be idle. Some interpreted it as that Jesus had already came back and they missed it.  This fueled even more persecution for the Thessalonians.  So, Paul wrote another letter to them.  

This week, we discussed what it means to be busy with nothing.  When are there times that we are busy but busy with the wrong things or with frivelous things?  I think we are all guilty of this at times.  

We read through the last chapter of 2 Thessalonians where Paul specifically discusses that there are some among their group that are idle.  What is interesting about this word is that the greek word here for idle can also be translated as disorder.  So, if an individual among them is idle, their life is also disordered and in somewhat a chaotic state.  How is this possible?  Well, if they are not following the example and teaching of Paul and his team, they are more than likely finding themselves in disarray or as busybodies, being busy with nothing.  

If one were to to be with a brother or sister who is idle, it is important to not treat them like an enemy, but simply not associate with them.  With them not in this community, they miss out on sharing everything with everyone.  Afterwards, they might clean up their life and want to come back to be a part of the community.  

Here is the video we watched in order to grasp many of the concepts in 2 Thessalonians:  

We know that some students learn best when there is a visual attached to the scripture that they study.  We show LUMO Project films as it reads an NIV/ESV version of the bible and shows images related to the moments in scripture. This is what we normally use for the video when we are studying the book of Acts: 

About Sunday Morning Elective

During Sunday Morning Elective, we focus on getting to know our bible. A couple of years ago, we went into the Torah (the first five books of the bible).  We took a year in the Gospel of John.  We studied the Old Testament and are read through Joshua and Judges. Currently, we are reading through Acts and each letter in the New Testament as he is writing them.  It's so important that we see the foundations that are built in the the bible. We start out each Sunday morning with some breakfast, some fellowship, and then move into small groups of  middle school and high school. These small groups allow time to read the scripture and apply it to their individual lives.