Fifth Talk
A TIME WHEN IT HAS BEEN DIFFICULT TO SHOW CHRIST'S LOVE

I.	To be intentional in our commitment to bring the love of God to others in our environment, we are sometimes called to love someone who seems particularly difficult for us to love.

A.	There is great opposition, both on the spiritual and the temporal level, to the Christianization of any environment.  For the prison environment, the opposition is almost overwhelming.  But with God, nothing is impossible.

B.	We seldom reach any long-range goal by leaving that accomplishment to chance.  Our relationship with God, our very life in grace, can not be left to chance.  

C.	Real love is an act of commitment which is only possible with God's help, his grace.  We are specifically called to love one another as Jesus has loved us. 

D.	We were given a formula for Christian action on the Kairos weekend:  make a friend, be a friend and introduce that friend to Christ.  

E.	Christian action always involves one or more other persons.  To lead one person to Christ by modeling Jesus’ love can take a long time.  Your plan of action may change week by week as you accomplish steps toward your goal.

F.	Sharing our plan with our Share and Prayer Group provides support for us in our Christian action.  They pray for us and the persons or person with whom we are working.  Just as we are the arms and legs which God will use in bringing someone to Christ, so also are our brothers and sisters the arms and legs to be used in supporting our work.

G.	They are there to both affirm us and to build us up, both in success and in failure.  They are never called to condemn us. Certainly, they provide accountability for us, but they do not become the bosses who are supervising the carrying out of our plan.  That is Jesus' task, and God has much to say in scripture about those who attempt to usurp his exclusive right to judgment.  

	So, even with what we perceive as failure in our plan, we should always go to the meeting of our Share and Prayer  Group with joyful anticipation of the comfort and affirmation we will receive from them as we share our disappointment with them.

H.	There is only one way for us to fail in our plan.  That is to not try.  We should all be thankful that God did not call us to succeed.  He only called us to be obedient.  What results from the good we do is up to the Holy Spirit, not us.  We have no control over it.  What may seem a total disaster may be the perfect will of God, who does not think as we think nor do as we do.

II.	Example in scripture.

A.	Scripture is filled with the stories of holy people giving accounts of their "plans" to the church.  Peter's report to the Church at Jerusalem in Acts 11 is one such account.  So is much of Paul's letter to the Romans, as is the report of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:1-21.  There is no need to elaborate on this section during the speaker's talk.

III.	Brief personal witness of speaker regarding loving someone who was a trial of patience to love. 

Response of the Leader

	A.  Invites participants to spend 15 minutes in subjective discussion of talk.

B. Team facilitators break up small groups into pairs, using a different pairing from the previous one.

C.  Instructs pairs to share difficult attempts to want the best for someone they don’t like or trust.  

D.  Asks all pairs to stand and to put their arms around each others’ necks and to pray aloud for God's help for their partner in overcoming difficult situations.