We need to take off our masks, show who we really are - who God has made us to be. God wants to showcase us to Edinburgh so that Jesus can change this city.

We must not blind ourselves to the problems around us, as if they’re not our responsibility. The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) was moved with compassion, he came close to the man and engaged with him, he connected to his brokenness. He bound up his wounds, actually carried him, found him a safe home and resourced him.

Thomas Guthrie (Scottish minister whose statue is on Princes Street): If the world is ever conquered for our Lord, it is not by ministers, not by office-bearers, not by the great, the noble and the mighty, but by every member of Christ's body being a working member; doing his work; filling his own sphere; holding his own post; and saying to Jesus, "Lord, what wilt thou have me do?" ... Let each select their own manageable field of Christian work. Let us thus embrace the whole city, and cover its nakedness, although, with different denominations at work, it should be robed like Joseph in a coat of many colours.

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How to get involved in Safe Families:

• Family friends: volunteers who offer direct practical family support to carers or children. Can be activities, a listening ear, or practical help.
• Host homes: Includes day hosting where volunteers look after children for a morning or afternoon, and overnight hosting where children are cared for overnight (for up to two weeks) to give carers a break, or to help with emergency situations.
• Resource friends: providing useful items, and skills according to the need of the families.
• For more details see the Safe Families website
• To hear some stories of volunteering that has happened here is a video of one family's experience. There is also this video created by the CSJ on presentation of their award for family to Safe Families for Children.

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Questions:

• Ask if anyone in your group has been helping with Safe Families and what that has been like.
• The parable of the Good Samaritan is familiar to many Christians but it would have shocked Jesus’s listeners. Why does Jesus choose to shock us in this way?
• What would it look like for you to love others in a costly way?
• Do you enjoy God? What is the evidence that we do, and that we don’t?
• In our current cultural moment of hostility to the church and the gospel, how does the church serving and living change the narrative?
• How could you get involved in Safe Families? Which of the options available would challenge and grow you?