August Cell 2011

AUGUST 2011

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August 2011 Summer is nearly here and we recognise that over the school summer holiday period you may want or need to run your cell group somewhat differently. Perhaps you are only able to organise one activity during August, or you may be able to continue on a weekly basis throughout. You may be away but your cell group may still wish to get together. Maybe you feel the need to give your cell group members suggestions for activities or challenges to stop summer boredom setting in, or to keep them connected if they are away on their hols!

Rather than provide four weeks of new material in the standard format, this month’s cell outlines are presented in a way that is completely flexible and adaptable to your needs. We have taken the theme of LIVES/LIVES and provided a variety of ideas that you can choose from to make the summer weeks work for you.

We have tried to utilise some of the themes that we have covered so far this year and in previous years.

Where this is the case you will find reference to the specific month’s cell notes which you can access from the ALOVE website resources section. (Cell notes on the website go back to the beginning of 2009!) This is also an ideal opportunity to catch up with some of the cell notes that you may have missed from previous months. We have given suggestions for using some of the many other resources that are available on the ALOVE website as well. We recommend that you take some time to browse the resources section – you never know what else may catch your eye and provide you with inspiration for your summer cells!

Bible Lives ‘The Bible: Uncovered’ was the theme for Roots 2011 and if any of your cell group members were at Youth Roots they should have come away with ALOVE’s brand new Bible resource Shelf Life.

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Shelf Life is a booklet designed to help young people get their Bible off the shelf and into their lives! It presents six innovative and up-to-date ‘apps’ to guide young people through the basics of Bible study and application, and contains loads of fresh, creative approaches to bring the words of the Bible to life and become relevant in our 21st-century lives!

The final section of Shelf Life contains three Bible studies based on stories from the book of Mark: Jesus Feeds Five Thousand (Mark 6:30–44); Jesus Heals A Paralytic (Mark 2:1–6) and The Rich Young Man (Mark 10:17–25).

‘Shelf Life’ would be an excellent summer theme/resource for your cell group. You could take time to read together and try out some of the creative ways of studying the Bible, especially the three Bible studies at the end.

In addition, the final Bible studies have been designed in such a way that a group of young people would be able to get together themselves and easily run their own study! This would be a great idea if you are away during August but your cell group still wanted to get together. Contact the ALOVE office and we will send you as many copies of Shelf Life as you require.

And if your cell group members can’t get enough of the Bible, you could try one of the 30-day Bible challenges available on the ALOVE website as well! continued over >>>

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AUGUST 2011

celloutlines | overview (continued...)

Family Lives The March 2011 cell notes were on the theme of Family Lives. Here are two ideas for ways of continuing this theme over the summer: • Help your cell group to organise a summer family event to which all their families will be invited. This could take on any format, indoors or outdoors, could be as simple as a barbecue at someone’s house or as large as a music festival! The key focus is on a family event that caters for varying age groups. (NB You can choose how you define ‘family’ and so who is invited!)

• Alternatively each cell group member could take up the challenge to organise something special for their own family, such as a day out, a family meal or walk, or DVD or games afternoon. This would work well if you have a couple of weeks where you are unable to get together. Your cell group members could do this in between time and report back how they got on!

Social Lives The April 2011 cell notes gave us the opportunity to think about social justice. Here are some ideas for continuing this theme over the summer weeks: • Week Four of the April 2011 cell notes has several excellent and fun suggestions of corporate social activities that you could organise as part of Live Below The Line – eg, arranging a Live Below The Line Sunday Lunch. These ideas are not only a great way of raising awareness of poverty in the world today, but also act as a fundraiser for a project of your choice. (We recommend the Generation project – see www.livebelowtheline.org.uk/partners/salvation-army/) • Volunteer together as a cell group to get involved in an event or community project that the church is running over the summer, eg, kids holiday club, park/garden clean-up, elderly people’s lunches. This is a brilliant way to serve the local community and the church. This could, however, take a good deal of organisation, (young people may even need to get a CRB to be involved in certain activities) and you will need to liaise closely with the relevant people.

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• If you didn’t do it at the time, or have different cell group members, watch the film Age of Stupid as outlined in Week Four of the October 2010 cell notes. This film is all about climate change and our response to it. The cell notes also provide some great questions for group discussion.

Inspirational Lives Later on in the year we will upload cell notes on the theme of Inspirational Lives: stories of people whose lives were transformed and who experienced new life in Jesus. (If you have any suggestions of people you would like included in these forthcoming cell notes, email the ALOVE office and we’ll see what we can do!) Meanwhile, to start the ball rolling you could: • Arrange a DVD night to watch a film about an inspirational character from history, eg, William Wilberforce in the film Amazing Grace.

• Create a summer ‘reading group’ where you all read one biography about an inspirational Christian and meet together (and/or Facebook/tweet each other) to discuss it!

• Go back to July 2010 for great cell outlines on the lives of Eric Liddell and Amy Carmichael if you didn’t get chance to do them last summer.

• Read a book - We have come up with a few suggestions of some books that you might find continued over >>>

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AUGUST 2011

celloutlines | overview (continued...) interesting to read. If you spend some time this summer reading any of these books then we would love to hear what you think of them! You could share your thoughts on the ALOVE UK Facebook page or send in a book review to alove@salvationarmy.org.uk and we could put it on our website.

• Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey profiles 13 people who have influenced him, some of them unusual historical choices, but others inspirational Christians. On the way the book also tells Yancey’s own story of growth of faith from a bad church upbringing, through Bible college and serious doubt, to the questioning ‘pilgrim’ he now is.

• The Gift of Pain is also co-authored by Philip Yancey. Much of the book is about Dr Paul Brand’s ground-breaking discovery in the field of leprosy treatment and how pain is actually a necessary gift of God; but it’s also an inspiring life story – Yancey says ‘the most fascinating life of anyone I’ve ever interviewed’.

• The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson famously tells of his ministry among street gangs in the USA. Run Baby Run by Nicky Cruz is the testimony story of one of those gang members who was converted.

• The stories of 12 historical Salvationists are included in Heroes of the Faith by Derek Elvin • The General Next to God by Richard Collier is a readable biography of William Booth and gives loads of insight and information about the beginning of The Salvation Army.

• Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger and Andrew Quickie. This is a really amazing autobiography about a woman who moved to the Opium dens of Hong Kong and all that she did to help the people who lived there. Definitely worth a read!!

Prayer Lives

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The cell notes in June 2009 covered the theme of Prayer Lives. Week Four presented a whole load of ideas for praying together as a cell group – it’s possible you didn’t get chance to try them all! Why not arrange an evening, half-night, or even a full night, of prayer? The following website also contains loads of creative prayer ideas. www.prayerrequests.co.uk/CreativeArchive02.html Recommended ALOVE resources for use on this theme are the How 2 Pray 4 (h2p4) booklets. These titles are designed to get you thinking about prayer. More than that, they’re designed to get you praying.

Titles include h2p4 Myself; h2p4 Your School; h2p4 Relationships and h2p4 Our World. These could be an inspirational starting point for your prayer event as outlined above.

Creative Lives The cell notes in June 2010 were written somewhat differently and allowed you space to get creative!

You were all encouraged to dig deep within yourselves (and God) to express yourself in a brand new creative way. Look back at the ideas in Weeks Two and Three for suggestions on going out with your group somewhere to look for God’s creative nature at work and to connect with him a new and fresh way. Week Four gives an outline of a creative project designed to encourage group members to explore their own and God’s creativity in a way that inspires others too. This could be great summer project for those with time on their hands!

continued over >>>

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AUGUST 2011

celloutlines | overview (continued...)

Celebratory Lives If your cell group is coming to an end or changing in some way, you may wish to consider spending some time reviewing and celebrating all you have done together. Week Four of the December 2009 cell notes provides several fun and memorable ways of doing just this, such as a light-hearted awards ceremony, some reflective activities, and some fun ways of encouraging each other. This would be brilliant if you have any cell group members moving on at the end of the year – you could perhaps even incorporate some of the ideas into a leaving party!

Student Lives If you have any cell group members moving on to university or seriously considering it for the future, speak to your DYO about getting them involved in a Salvo students discussion group – or ask permission to run it yourself. ALOVE have produced an excellent discussion guide to complement the Salvo Students booklet and it has already proved to be a fantastic preparation for university life! See more about this on the ALOVE website.

Just For Fun! • Quiz Night: There are several quizzes included in the cell groups over the last year or so (March 2011 – Famous Family Quiz; December 2010 – Christmas Quiz; May 2010 – Leviticus Quiz; April 2010 – Easter Quiz; February 2010 – Old Testament, New Testament and Parables Quiz). You could collate them all together and arrange your own quiz night. Each cell group member could bring their own team, or it could just remain as cell group members only! You could even run this as a fundraising event.

• Summer social: Discuss with your group a ‘purely for fun’ activity they would like to do over the summer… and do it!

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We hope these ideas give you plenty to choose from to make your summer cells sizzle! If you need to access any of the resources mentioned, visit the ALOVE website – or if you need any further assistance don’t hesitate to contact the office. We would love any feedback on how your summer cells work out, so please email/Facebook us and let us know! Happy Hols!!

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