NOTES:
1] As the countryside was notorious for banditry, it was safer for travellers to do so in company. The 'Holy Family' may have been part of quite a big caravan. 2] Male Jews were expected to keep three festivals in Jerusalem each year (EX 23:14 -17)
3] In v.49 the original can mean either 'in my father's house', or, 'about my father's business'.

WARMING UP: Have you ever been left behind on some outing, wanted to stay behind, or left someone else behind?

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Afterthoughts from, follow-up to last week's Group, or since?

EXPLORING GOSPEL:

41-45    Does the church we belong to have certain traditions or requirements about frequency of worship? Do we ourselves, or our family have some such an expectation? Which of the church's festivals do we make sure we get to? Is that for church or personal reasons? Do we or our church have some order of 'ranking' in our rules or in our mind? Are any of our festivals more 'family centred' than others?
              Do we ever get so 'caught up' in what's going on at church that we can forget arrangements that we've made with, or duties we have towards family members or friends? Have we ever been conscious of some compulsion (on God's part) that's kept us beyond the time we've allowed for some observance or celebration? With what outcome?

46-47    How much has acquiring religious teaching been part of our agenda in life? How does the time we spend on religious 'input' compare with that of either voluntary or compulsory secular education? Has either suffered at the expense of the other? How well are we accustomed to listen to those who have the responsibility for teaching us the things of God? Does our church have some particular learning agenda, or is it pretty hit-or-miss? What about any agenda we ourselves have? Is it being met? Do we get enough answers to the questions we ask in 'religious circles'? Are questions encouraged or not? Do we have any list, long or short, of 'religious questions'? Ought we to have such a list? Would anyone evaluating our understanding of such matters & our answers to such questions be 'amazed' at our grasp of the issues?
             Can we imagine the kind of questions & answers Jesus may have been asking / listening to among those teaching in the Temple area (as he himself did in later years)? What's our experience of getting knowledge as compared with what we then do with that knowledge? Does religious knowledge sometimes seem impractical compared with the knowledge of the workaday world? Do those worlds overlap as much as they should, or we'd like them to? Or are they pretty much separate?

48-52     Are we as aware as we need to be about the impact our questions & answers on religious matters have on others close to us? Are we as sympathetic as we need to be to them & their questionings? To the answers they find along their own life journey? How much is other family members' awareness our business as distinct from theirs? Who judges that kind of thing?
              Are we 'in our father's house', &, 'about our father's business' as constantly as we need to be? What if no-one understands either our need to be questioning, the way we go about it, or the answer(s) we find?