For Reflection & Discussion
Read Matthew 3:1-17 and John 1:29-34
1. John and Jesus were related and knew one another. How much do you think John understood that Jesus was the Messiah before the baptism?
2. How much of John’s baptism and the baptism of Jesus is in your understanding of what Christian baptism is? (We shall be looking at this further next week.)
3. What do the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus tell us about how God calls and uses people in His service?
4. We know something of the lives of both John and Jesus before their public ministries. What may we learn of the types of people God calls to serve Him? What do their characters tell us about their commitment to service?
5. What do you think we can learn from these two about our own service for God?
The Leprosy Mission
During the service Delyth talked about The Leprosy Mission’s work in Sudan and has provided us some further information from them here.
Every two minutes, someone is diagnosed with leprosy. That’s more than 200,000 new cases a year. Although it is curable, millions of people worldwide are living with the effects of the disease, from physical disability to mental health problems, poverty and discrimination.
We are a global Christian organisation leading the fight against leprosy. Following Jesus Christ, we seek to bring about transformation; breaking the chains of leprosy and empowering people to attain healing, dignity and life in all its fullness.
Everything we do is focused on our goals of zero leprosy transmission, zero leprosy disability and zero leprosy discrimination.
We work in four key areas to achieve this:
Diagnosing and treating leprosy
Caring for disabled people
Fighting stigma and advocation for change
Pioneering research
Please pray for the work of Leprosy Mission.
If you would like to know more, go to the Leprosy Mission website or speak to Delyth. https://www.leprosymission.org.uk/
And if you feel able to give a little to their work, that would be wonderful.