Welcome to Drayton United Church Church

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Starting the week of September 8 there will be a new theme for bible study with a few time options.

Regular online bible study time, Mondays at 10 am

Additional options:

Mondays at 7 pm, in person at the church

Thursday at 8 am, in person at the church

Materials for week of September 8 and September 15 are available below.

Genesis 12:1-5

12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you. 

2 Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing. 

3 I will bless those who bless you, but the one who treats you lightly I must curse, so that all the families of the earth may receive blessing[k] through you.”

4 So Abram left, just as the Lord had told him to do, and Lot went with him. (Now Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.) 

5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they left for the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan.

Theme: Walking through suffering to reach hope.

“We can learn something from Abraham [and Sarah] and the psalmists. They do not get stuck in the past, in their pain. They see a means to push forward. They see a future and hope.”

Courie, Anna Fitch, Walking with God (p. 23)

Thoughts to Ponder:

1. Have you had the experience of leaving one home behind, to make a new home in a different place? If so, what were some of the challenges and some of the blessings?
2. God’s call was so significant, that the names of this couple changed from Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah. What have been some of the crucial turning points in your own life? Did you sense God’s presence before, during and or after?
3. Imagine that you had to relocate to another country- in your 70s! What would you be thinking and feeling? What would you do to prepare?

Genesis 32:9-12, 22-28

Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, you said to me, ‘Return to your land and to your relatives and I will make you prosper.’ 10 I am not worthy of all the faithful love you have shown your servant. With only my walking stick I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two camps.* 11 Rescue me, I pray, from the hand of my brother **Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children. 12 But you said, ‘I will certainly make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count.’”

22 During the night Jacob quickly took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream along with all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone. Then a man[e] wrestled[f] with him until daybreak.[g] 25 When the man[h] saw that he could not defeat Jacob,[i] he struck[j] the socket of his hip so the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

26 Then the man[k] said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” “I will not let you go,” Jacob replied, “unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” He answered, “Jacob.” 28 “No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, “but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed.”

(* I have now enough family, servants and animals to divide into two camps.)

(** Esau is Jacob’s older brother whom he tricked out of his inheritance as the first-born son

Theme: Struggling in faith

“…[E]very moment of the journey Jacob was growing and learning about grace, mercy, and patience. Is the better road the shorter one or the longer one?”

Courie, Anna Fitch Walking with God (p. 28).

Thoughts to Ponder:

1. Are you struggling with something? Has it been a struggle for a long time or a short time?
2. What do you think the face of God looks like?
3. Do you think your experiences can help others face their own struggles? If so, how do you share that?