Dot Com(unity) Week Five: Stand with Christ

Christ is with us even in our worst trials.

by Sam O'Neal

When you're studying a well-known story from the Bible, it can be hard to break through the connections and lessons that your group members were originally taught about it. With the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, for example, the lesson of the story almost always focuses on the importance of resisting idolatry.

But if we take the time to dig a bit deeper, we can see another element of the story that is truly wonderful: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had their most vivid encounter with God during their most difficult trial.

And that's the subject of John Ortberg's study for this week.

Teaching Points
The first teaching point focuses on the idea that "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego chose death over worshipping idols," which is the usual focus for this passage. If you're group has not explored the idea of idolatry before, or if they seem interested in the discussion questions as you start out, by all means pursue this route for a while.

But if you're getting a "been there, done that" vibe, feel free to spend most of your time in the second teaching point: "God delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the furnace, not from it." That, I think, is more of a new thought when it comes to this Scripture passage, and every bit as powerful.

I also like the Optional Activity in this section.

Other Activities
Here are a few more icebreakes and other activities from SmallGroups.com that could work well with this study:

Time to Stretch
Use a rubber band to help group members talk about what stretches them.

Stones of Worship
An object lesson that reminds us to focus on the character of God to strengthen our faith when we have trials or temptations