Fire Safety Training Night

After having been completely surprised by the young people at ‘Redefine’ last week with a ‘Fire Safety Training’ Night that turned out to a surprise party to say thank you to all of the volunteer leaders who help out at the Bible Study; the leaders at ‘Redefine’ thought that we would take the theme of a ‘Fire Safety Training’ night and use it as the springboard to look at the passage in the book of Ephesians about the ‘Armour of God’.

We introduced the night with a short funny video from the movie ‘Despicable Me 2‘.

Here the little ‘Minions’ have all the right equipment, but not the slightest clue as to how to use it properly.

We want the young people to be able to use all of the equipment that God gives them to the best of their ability.

One of our volunteers, James, used to work as an airline steward and he used his fire safety training knowledge to talk to the young people about the importance of using the fire extinguisher correctly and that he knew how to do that because he had studied the manual.

God has given us a great manual to keep us safe: the Bible.

This led into our look at Ephesians 6:10-20. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.¹⁹ Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰ for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.“

Some of the feedback we received from the young people was really insightful.

One said that the word ‘stand’ cropped up a lot, that it seems that the apostle Paul is encouraging Christians to not just half-heartedly stand against the spiritual forces that are against us, but to stand.  Stand tall and strong and give your all.

Another aspect of the passage that a lot of the young people brought out was prayer.  Often when you see a pictorial illustration of the ‘Armour of God’, you have the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit; but prayer as part of the armour does not appear.

Paul really stresses the importance of prayer, and how it can be done in different ways and at different times, but all inspired and fuelled by the work of the Holy Spirit.

It was great to see them getting to grips with the Bible and pulling out some great insights.

We then looked more specifically at two aspects of the armour; the belt of truth and the shield of faith, but encouraged the young people to read the passage at home and ask God to show them more about the armour and how to, unlike the ‘Minions’ in the video clip, use the armour effectively.

When you read the passage above, what do you feel God is speaking to you about?

And, just like the apostle Paul, we really appreciate your prayers for all that we do, that we may fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

Have a great week.