Getting to know Lydia
15 minutes
Ask someone to read the story of Lydia in Acts 16:11 -15,40. Then present the group with Lydia’s biography: Lydia was a seller of purple cloth, kind of like the Marc Jacobs or Michael Kors of her day! She owned a house big enough for her household, and for guests like Paul and Silas to stay. A church ended up meeting in her house. She was a Gentile (non-Jew) who worshipped God and became a Jew. When she heard the gospel, Lydia became the first Christian convert in her town. She became one of the leaders of the church in Philippi - the church that the book of Philippians is written to.
Split your group into small groups with a leader and a Bible each to examine the story. Get them to discuss these questions: • What strikes you about this story?
- How does Lydia come to faith in Jesus?
- Do you notice it’s a kind of circle? - She worships God, God does something, she responds to God.
- What is Lydia’s active response to becoming a Christian?
- Was it a big risk for Lydia to do any of these things? (Note what happens to Paul and Silas between verses 15 and 40?)
Depending on your group you could get them to act out the story in their groups, or read the whole of Acts 16, noting how Lydia takes Paul and Silas into her house again, once they are out of prison.
Key Point 1
Lydia’s faith was given by God; he opened her heart. We do everything with and through God: it’s not us on our own. Because we’re not on our own, God wants to use us, cultivating a risky and active faith in each of us. Lydia is a great example of this; she would have been a known figure in her town, but she doesn’t hide her faith. Her household came to faith and publicly affirmed it through baptism. She shows outrageous hospitality, despite the next verses showing Paul and Silas getting into trouble with the authorities!
Risky faith video clip
5 minutes
Play the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade clip (available here). After the clip, explain to your group that faith is often a risk and will sometimes require us to take a leap of faith, just like Indiana Jones and Lydia.
Leap of faith
5 minutes
You have two choices here. You could either set out an obstacle course that involves leaping over some un-desirable stuff like a big pool of water or a bucket of baked beans. Let the young people (and leaders!) take turns ‘leaping’ over - have some towels at the ready!
Alternatively, get the group in two lines and ask them to interlock their arms, putting a chair in front of each line. One at a time, allow the person at the front of the interlock to stand on the chair and to fall backwards so that their friends can catch them. Once they’ve had a go, get them to join the back of the interlock ready to catch the next person.
Lydia’s risky faith
5 minutes
Explain that Lydia’s faith was marked by five things: believing, baptism, evangelism, hospitality and leadership. It’s now time to explore them. Have the A3 sheets in five corners of the room with a leader prepped alongside each sheet. Get your group to split up, move round every area and discuss how important they think each area is to Christian faith. Why might each have been a mark of Lydia’s faith?
Key Point 2
Sometimes we read stories in the Bible and they feel disconnected from our lives, but God wants to use you, just as he used Lydia. Lydia was just an everyday person like you and me, but when she heard the gospel and God opened her heart, she was empowered to live a bold life for God. In 2016, God wants to use us too!
What does it look like for us?
15 minutes
Get the young people back into their small groups and ask them to chat through these questions:
- What feels easy and comes naturally to you, like hospitality did to Lydia? God gave you these gifts and desires, he wants to use them.
- What areas feel a bit riskier? (Inviting a friend to church, committing to a gap year or summer project, befriending that person others are mean to.)
My challenge
5 minutes
This is some time for your group to respond to God on their own. Get them individually sitting around the room, where they won’t be distracted. Give each of them a post-it note and pen, and ask them to prayerfully write on it one ‘risk’ they want to take for God. You might want to put some worship music on in the background. Have the lining roll spread in the middle of the room. When they are ready, get each person to come and stick their post-it down on the paper. Once everyone has had a turn, gather the group around the lining roll to be encouraged by each other’s decisions (you may want to say a group prayer).
Pray it in
5 minutes
End by getting everyone into small groups to pray for each other that God would help them to take their ‘risks.’ End by encouraging them to retrieve their post-it note from the lining roll, take it home and put it somewhere they’ll see it, for example on a bedroom mirror.
Lydia Corbett was a youth pastor in London and Manchester and is now training for ordination in Oxford.
