Bible Merits Question.

Ok. This might be a curious question.

I delegate the Bible merits out. Jr. Leader does them for me.

Last Sunday night I came into the room and they were finishing up on the Bible merit and they closed in prayer.... one of the boys read the prayer right out of the merit.
Is this a common practice?

I heard the prayer and thought...that prayer is way above that boys level of maturity and it sounded so good..I opened my eyes to find him reading it out of the merit.

The Holy Spirit checked md at that moment.. I got the feeling He wants it from our heart. In the mindset of a learning tool.. there is a sample of a prayer there..but have we gotten to the point of reading prayers?

How do you feel about that?

Mark Jones

Jesus taught us HOW to pray, not WHAT to pray. Case closed.  

I like them.  What is the difference between a Prayer and a Devotion?

When the boys make their own prayers, I have seen them turn into "junior gossip" sessions that have nothing to do with what we are studying, and are sometimes less than edifying to the Lord.  

The prayer at the end of the Bible Study Merit is a summation of how the boys can apply the lesson to their lives, and give them something to think about for the week.  That "prayer" is the last thing that we do prior to the Door Prize Drawing and going to the Fellowship Hall for Activities.

In fact, we generally do the Bible Merit right after Roll Call, then we do our Patrol Advancement & Activities, and we come back and do the "prayer" prior to the closing.

I understand that a proper "prayer" is talking to God. But this is a "devotional" to kind-of put a bow on the lesson & tie it together.

I suppose that you could re-write the summary of the lesson into your own words, but how would that be any different?

When I ask my boys to pray at the end of the devotion I give they do pretty well. Its never been please God forgive Johnny for farting and belching...  

To me a prayer is communication between an individual and God. A devotion is 5 mins or less sermonette that only deals with one point. You may use a verse as a reference. Keep it short, to the point, and don't preach directly at a particular boy even if the theme of it is dealing with a current event. A devotion can be a story like a parable the boys can relate to. Then ask for requests and close in prayer.

I don't get into the whole prayer of Jabez thing. It sounds like a ritual or incantation deal to get what you want. I'm probably wrong but its my first impression is that its a fad.

So how many of you have the boys read the prayer as your closing prayer on the Bible study?

Mark Jones

I don't, although I wouldn't have a problem with someone reading a prayer in general unless they never prayed from their own hearts. But even then, I think you need to take into consideration their spiritual age. Many people accept Jesus by repeating a prayer of someone else.

But to your question, no we usually do prayer request time to start ( I divide up the prayers among the boys) and then I usually close in prayer. I rarely even read over the written prayer at all.

I sometimes don't even cover all of the written material anyway. I read over it, highlighting, underlining, and making my own notations, and then we go over what I feel is good leaving out what I think is unnecessary. Some lessons I go over all the material though. I generally like them.

In our Bible Lesson, the only thing that we read "verbatim" is the Bible Verse at the beginning and the closing devotion.

We use the rest of the lesson, but I tend to highlight one sentence per paragraph and we discuss it, then move on. Otherwise you are just reading the whole lesson to the boys, or it would take over an hour to do the Bible Lesson with in-depth discussion.

does anyone have access to the Discovery Rangers trac?

Have any new Orange Bible merits been released beyond the 6 that were out?

Chris,

I looked, and see only Brown Bible Merits in the Discovery Rangers Trac.

Claymore wrote:Chris,

I looked, and see only Brown Bible Merits in the Discovery Rangers Trac.

Brown merits in Discovery trac???  They're supposed to be orange merits for Discovery Rangers.

OOPS.

My guys are doing the Adventure Rangers Track.

(Never mind!)

You got me wondering if Nat'l was revamping the program again before LEAD.

As of the 2014 subscription to TracClub there shows to be 12 "New"s added.

As to the conversation concerning the prayer at the end of the Bible study I'd like to say this.
The complete Bible study is a tool of which we use what we need in an attempt to get a specific point across to our young men. We should know the study well enough in advance to either present it or train our Jr Leader to present it. When the prayer topic appears it should be known that this is a suggestion for a prayer, but it contains a prayer topic of which the Leader should inject into the prayer. This allows the one praying to do so in his own way and words.
Reading the prayer is not wrong, but teaching the leader (man or boy) to follow the leading of The Holy Spirit is more advantageous.
I appreciate all you leaders. God Bless!!

Good Points, Rangerdeant.

If you are using (all or part-of) the Tracclub Lessons, it is a good idea to review them some time prior to class.  If I find something that surprises me during the meeting, it's my own fault.

I think that we are all big enough boys & girls to know that some (much) of the stuff coming from HQ may not be exactly what we want.  We are getting creative enough to know how to pick out and use "the stuff that works".

Yes, eat the meat and spit out the bones. I can't recall ever having a lesson that I couldn't find something I liked to key in on. On some occasions I've like the entire lesson that we read the whole thing. Most times though, I just highlight the areas that I like and focus there.

I think it would be a good idea to have someone read the "SAMPLE PRAYER" and then have someone close in prayer from their heart. A real prayer needs to come from our heart. Not a printed page. I know it's spliting hairs but we should teach the boys right even in the big things like prayers.

Mark Jones

I came from a church where all prayers were Approved by the Vatican, so you could be assured that they were perfect...