- What does the 500 years of Israelite history, coming to fulfilment in forty years of wandering in the search for the Promised land, say to us about our European history and where today we stand as a community?
- Focus on one or two examples of nonconformity in your experience. To what extent do both the nonconformist and the community come up to the tests in Numbers 6?
- The Israelites may never have had the rationale for climate change that we are familiar with but try making a list (alone or with others) of how their natural readiness to cooperate with God in nature calls us to address similar situations where we manifestly don’t but could, and discuss your findings with your friends.
- All change involves loss as well as gain. Golden moments from yesterday, however, can also provide a platform for thankfulness whether it is food, children growing up, churches, nations, leaders and politicians, take a moment to think how the same crisis impacts differently on different groups.
- Try applying the Tests of Leadership to Moses and Caleb and reflect on similar situations in your own experience to discover what Numbers has to offer by way of help.
Week Two Intro
Wandering is not enough. What had happened to the vision these people started with? They now have no idea where they are going, or even whether they are going anywhere except in circles. The future looks very much like the past with no sign of an end. To make matters worse the Community is losing (or has lost) any sense of cohesion and the leaders don’t seem any clearer than the people. Someone needs to take control. A direction has to be set. From this point we begin to explore how people and leadership respond in a time of crisis and with what consequences. By the end, if we find ourselves more in our world than in theirs that could be because we seek to worship the same God, with a similar vision, facing similar challenges.