Rhythm: The Third Week in January

Rhythm Booklet

What is Rhythm? Rhythm is a weekly lectionary reflection guide designed with students in mind! Each week you'll find lectionary readings from the Old Testament, Psalms, New Testament, and Gospels, along with different types of questions and readings to reflect on. Rhythm will help students connect with God and each week’s readings in various ways, challenging students to put what they’re hearing into practice throughout the week. 

Rhythm is broken up into five sections, each with a unique purpose. In We Read, students are guided in reflecting on an initial reading of the week’s passages. In We Think… students are encouraged to engage scripture on a deeper level by asking questions about the text. We Feel invites students to engage their emotions, bringing their feelings into conversation with God’s word.  In We Believe, students are invited to connect what they’ve read in scripture to the larger Wesleyan theological heritage. Finally, We Practice guides students in discovering the practices they might use to help develop a rhythm of life shaped by scripture and the community of faith to which they belong.  

Rhythm: A Weekly Reflection Guide for Students can be used in a small group setting, as a guide for youth group time, or even with adults! We hope you find Rhythm as something that leads you and your students into a deeper faith.

1 Samuel 3:1-20

1 Now the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under Eli. The Lord’s word was rare at that time, and visions weren’t widely known. 2 One day Eli, whose eyes had grown so weak he was unable to see, was lying down in his room. 3 God’s lamp hadn’t gone out yet, and Samuel was lying down in the Lord’s temple, where God’s chest was. 4 The Lord called to Samuel. “I’m here,” he said. 5 Samuel hurried to Eli and said, “I’m here. You called me?” “I didn’t call you,” Eli replied. “Go lie down.” So he did. 6 Again the Lord called Samuel, so Samuel got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?” “I didn’t call, my son,” Eli replied. “Go and lie down.” 7 (Now Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord, and the Lord’s word hadn’t yet been revealed to him.) 8 A third time the Lord called Samuel. He got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?” Then Eli realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy. 9 So Eli said to Samuel, “Go and lie down. If he calls you say, ‘Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down where he’d been. 10 Then the Lord came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.” 11 The Lord said to Samuel, “I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of all who hear it tingle! 12 On that day, I will bring to pass against Eli everything I said about his household—every last bit of it!13 I told him that I would punish his family forever because of the wrongdoing he knew about—how his sons were cursing God, but he wouldn’t stop them. 14 Because of that I swore about Eli’s household that his family’s wrongdoing will never be reconciled by sacrifice or by offering.” 15 Samuel lay there until morning, then opened the doors of the Lord’s house. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. 16 But Eli called Samuel, saying: “Samuel, my son!” “I’m here,” Samuel said. 17 “What did he say to you?” Eli asked. “Don’t hide anything from me. May God deal harshly with you and worse still if you hide from me a single word from everything he said to you.” 18 So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. “He is the Lord,” Eli said. “He will do as he pleases.” 19 So Samuel grew up, and the Lord was with him, not allowing any of his words to fail. 20 All Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was trustworthy as the Lord’s prophet.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 

1 Lord, you have examined me. You know me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I stand up. Even from far away, you comprehend my plans. 3 You study my traveling and resting. You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways. 4 There isn’t a word on my tongue, Lord, that you don’t already know completely. 5 You surround me—front and back. You put your hand on me. 6 That kind of knowledge is too much for me; it’s so high above me that I can’t reach it.

13 You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb. 14 I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart. Your works are wonderful— I know that very well. 15 My bones weren’t hidden from you when I was being put together in a secret place, when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written what was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened. 17 God, your plans are incomprehensible to me! Their total number is countless! 18 If I tried to count them— they outnumber grains of sand! If I came to the very end— I’d still be with you.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

12 I have the freedom to do anything, but not everything is helpful. I have the freedom to do anything, but I won’t be controlled by anything. 13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, and yet God will do away with both. The body isn’t for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 God has raised the Lord and will raise us through his power. 15 Don’t you know that your bodies are parts of Christ? So then, should I take parts of Christ and make them a part of someone who is sleeping around? No way! 16 Don’t you know that anyone who is joined to someone who is sleeping around is one body with that person? The scripture says, The two will become one flesh.17 The one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Avoid sexual immorality! Every sin that a person can do is committed outside the body, except those who engage in sexual immorality commit sin against their own bodies. 19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Don’t you know that you have the Holy Spirit from God, and you don’t belong to yourselves? 20 You have been bought and paid for, so honor God with your body.

John 1:43-51

43 The next day Jesus wanted to go into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets: Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.” 46 Nathanael responded, “Can anything from Nazareth be good?” Philip said, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here is a genuine Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” 48 Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” 49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are God’s Son. You are the king of Israel.” 50 Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these! 51 I assure you that you will see heaven open and God’s angels going up to heaven and down to earth on the Human One.”

We read…

God knows us, sees us, and God intimately cares for us. We are reminded of this in the passages for this week. We also know that God calls us, sometimes to ministry, sometimes to a vocation, sometimes to specific actions. As a response to God’s love and care and call, as a response to being united with God, we glorify God in all we do. 

• How are we glorifying God with our lives today?
  

• How are we listening for God’s call and following where God leads?

We see God’s call through Jesus’s disciples in John. Jesus tells them to follow me, to come and see, and they respond to his presence by physically going with him. They recognize that Jesus is moving in a different direction, that something about Jesus is pulling them in, and they don’t just stop at this recognition. They see, they hear, and they move. Our faith isn’t meant to be something we just acknowledge from a distance. Samuel heard God’s voice and moved. The disciples heard Jesus’s voice and moved. 

• Are you willing to be moved? Are you ready to go? If so, what might that look like? If not, why?

We think…

• What stands out to you in these verses?

• Does anything confuse you or not make sense?

• How do these verses compare to your own experience in life or in the church?

• What are you considering? What questions come to mind?

We feel…

• What emotions are you experiencing today? How are you making space for these feelings?
  

• Where have you seen God today or this week? What is pointing you to God (maybe it is something in creation, maybe a friend or adult that cares for you)?
  

• What has God made new in your life? In your heart? 
  

• Have you ever experienced a call (audible or just in your heart) from God on your life, as we see in 1 Samuel? 

We believe…

What good could come from Nazareth? An interesting question that serves as the foundation of the Church of the Nazarene. Nazareth was known as a place on the outskirts; no one big or important hailed from the forgotten town of Nazareth (unless they were getting in trouble). When the Church of the Nazarene started, they saw the people on the margins that others didn’t have hope for, that others looked at and wondered if anything good could come of, and we knew that God saw them, that God cared for them, that God could bring good out of anyone.

We practice…

Reflect this week on where you feel called to. Maybe this is a call to ministry in the future, a call to a specific job, or maybe you have no idea where you want to go. That is okay, too! Make a list of the strengths and gifts God has given you. 

• What are you good at? What are you passionate about? 

• How do you think God can use those things in the future? Connect with an adult you trust and talk to them about where God is leading you.

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UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED ALL SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS ARE FROM THE COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE (CEB), COPYRIGHT 2011.