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COVID-19 VACCINE EDUCATION INITIATIVE

SERMON/ STUDY GUIDE

This guide is designed to support you as you lead your congregation on a spiritual journey to understand how COVID-19 vaccines connect to our faith. Engage parishioners in a life-changing journey of faith and healing as we navigate life during the pandemic.

SESSION 1: HEALING SESSION 2: ACCESS TO HEALING

Read Read Heals a Man Born Blind - John 9:1-34 Jesus Heals a Sick Woman - :21-34

Reflect Reflect 1. What does healing look like in this passage? 1. What is the role of each person in this Who does the healing? passage? Who is giving access? Who is 2. What does it mean to be healed? preventing access? What/Who are they 3. Who needs to be healed? trying to access? 2. What did it mean for this woman to have Respond access to healing? Was it an issue of justice? 1. When was a time that you needed healing? 3. What difference does it make to have access What happened? to healing/justice? What does having access 2. When was a time that our world needed to healing/justice mean for you? healing? What happened? 3. (Note: Ensure COVID-19 and vaccines are Respond part of the discussion) 1. Have you ever been denied access to 4. Did God use someone to help facilitate that something that you really needed? What healing? If so, how? happened? 2. Who around you may have trouble accessing Pray the healing that they need? Why? O Almighty God, Great Physician, Healer and 3. What can YOU do to support them? Restorer: have pity upon us, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality. In your great (Note: Think about how COVID-19 and vaccines mercy, heal us from all diseases, sicknesses can be a part of the responses.) and infirmities, especially COVID-19. Thank you for those entrusted to care for us: for doctors, Pray nurses, and all medical professionals. Give them O God, you made us in your own image, and wisdom, strength, and endurance in their work you have redeemed us through your Son, Jesus and use them mightily so that many lives may be Christ. Look with compassion on the whole saved. Amen. human family; take away any arrogance and hatred that may infect our hearts; break down Additional Scriptures: :17, Psalm 41; any walls in our systems and institutions that 30:17 create barriers to healing and care, which is a human right for all people; unite us in bonds of love that all may have access to your goodness, mercy, and healing; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Additional Scriptures: Hebrews 4:16, Psalm 143; Jeremiah 17:14

Additional Resources https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/ community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html

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SESSION 3: GIFTS OF HEALING – SESSION 4: LOVING YOUR FAITH + MEDICINE NEIGHBOR

Read Read Jesus Sends out the Disciples - :1-8 The Parable of the Good Neighbor - Luke 10:25-37 Reflect 1. What kind of gifts of healing does Jesus Reflect empower his disciples with? 1. How did the Samaritan practically 2. Are these gifts still alive and active today? If demonstrate love for his neighbor? so, how? 2. What barriers might he have faced in 3. How does Jesus continue to heal others? doing so?

Respond Respond 1. Do you view medicine as a gift or a curse? 1. Who is your neighbor? How can you trust Why or why not? How do you view COVID-19 your neighbor? vaccines? Why? 2. What does it mean to love and receive love from your neighbor today? Pray 3. How do you overcome the barrier of trust? Almighty God, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ went about doing good, and healing all manner (Note: As we all continue to deal with the of sickness and disease among the people: pandemic, think about how getting vaccinated Continue in our hospitals and health centers your fits into building trust and loving your neighbor) gracious work of healing among us; console and heal the sick; grant to the physicians, nurses, Pray and assisting staff wisdom, skill, diligence and O God, whose Son came not to be served, but patience; prosper their work, O Lord. We thank to serve, increase the spirit of neighborliness you for the COVID-19 vaccines and to all who and generosity among us, that in difficult days administer and receive the COVID-19 vaccines, we may uphold one another, in suffering tend to that lives may be saved; through Jesus Christ, one another, and in need befriend one another. our Lord. Amen. Grant us brave and enduring hearts that we may strengthen one another, until the disciplines and Additional Scriptures: Jeremiah 29:11-13, testing of these days are ended, and you again Matthew 9:35; Psalm 30:2 give peace in our time; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Additional Resources https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/ Additional Scriptures: :37-40; january-web-only/covid-19-vaccine-christian- :31-46; John 13:34-45; ethical-questions-fetal-cells.html Jeremiah 29:7 https://statement.biologos.org/ https://biologos.org/articles/mother-knows-best- lets-talk-common-vaccine-concerns

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SESSION 5: DISCERNING SESSION 6: QUESTIONS, WISDOM, THE TRUTH AND DECISION-MAKING

Read Read The Call of Samuel - 1 Samuel 3 The Disciples Replace Judas - Acts 1:12-26

Reflect Reflect 1. How do you test whether something is of God 1. What is the purpose of wisdom? or not? What do you test it against? 2. How do the disciples use wisdom to make a 2. What process of discerning truth do we decision? What steps did they take and who actually see in these passages? was involved? 3. How can we develop discernment today? 3. What happens as a result?

Respond Respond 1. Where do you go to get information? 1. How do you go about making a decision? 2. How can you trust it and determine whether What is your process and who is involved? it is true or false? 2. After you make a decision, what do you do to 3. What role does prayer play? act on your decision? 4. What role does community play? (Note: Tie COVID-19 vaccines into the discussion (Note: Tie COVID-19 vaccines into the discussion by asking people what is the process they use by asking where people go to get information for making the best decision on whether they on COVID-19 vaccines so they can make a should get vaccinated? Suggest they visit more informed decision on what’s best for getvaccineanswers.org to get the facts on themselves and their families. Suggest they COVID-19 vaccines.) visit getvaccineanswers.org to get the facts on COVID-19 vaccines.) Pray Gracious and holy Father, please give us Pray diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, a spirit O God, by whom the meek are guided in to know you, a heart to meditate upon you, ears judgment, and light rises up in darkness for to hear you, eyes to see you, a tongue to proclaim the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and you, a way of life pleasing to you, patience to uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would wait for you, and perseverance to look for you. have us do, to discern what is true and what Grant us wisdom through your holy presence, a is false that the Spirit of wisdom may save us blessed resurrection, and life everlasting that we from all false choices; that in your light we may may know how to navigate the decisions we face, see light, and in your straight path we may not especially during this pandemic, in Jesus Christ, stumble; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. our Lord. Amen.

Additional Scriptures: 1 John 4:1-4, Additional Scriptures: James 1:5, :7- Philippians 4:8-9, 1 Corinthians 13:6, 9, Proverbs 4:7-11 Psalm 25:4-5

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