Church Stuff, week 2

By the time you read this, you will have completed countless habitual tasks, motions, movements, routines, procedures and protocols. You, like the rest of us, are a person of habit. God knows this, thus- there are fundamental uses for what many of us have gotten used to calling useless; ritual.

Help your group to find the difference between the baby and the bathwater this week, and embrace the disciplines and ritual necessary to help hold our feet on the path while never letting those rituals becomes the focus or the point. The former is broken people letting God direct their worship and transformation tangibly. The latter is all the bad parts of religion.

What were the key points for you?

What was the "one thing" you took away?

What surprised you?

What bothered you? Why?

Have you ever heard or come across a similar teaching or idea? Have you ever been taught something that was contradictory?

What is/was already part of your thinking on this subject?

What did you learn that was new to you?

*About God?

*About yourself?

*About others?

What changes of thought are necessary in light of what you learned?

What changes of action are needed?

How would life be different if you/we applied this teaching fully?

What are the hindrances, and what do we do about those?

What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?

Church Stuff, week 1

For the next several weeks we'll be discussing some basic church doctrine. Things like baptism, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, etc. As new Christians come on line and as people come from other churches, we feel like it's it's important to cover some introductory ..... "stuff".

In this first week, we cover the church. But to get there, we have to cover a whole lot of other ground first. Our view of the church is quite a few layers underneath our view of God and even religion itself. Help your group take a step in understanding what/who the church is, and what it means to be part of her. Foundational kinds of learning only have value is we all come away ready to apply and do! And nothing could be more applicable than a proper understanding of the church.

Use your meeting time to get your group discussing something that transcends "membership". This is about a mutual response to God's call. A gathering of Kingdom people to go out and do Kingdom things. Church only has value if we leave to go and do what we sing and pray and talk about while together. Find out what kinds of things serve as obstacles, and how to work around them so that the body of christ can be released to do what she does.

Key texts

• Hebrews 10:24-25
• Romans 12:3-5'
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
• Colossians 1:17-20

What were the key points for you?

What was the "one thing" you took away?

What surprised you?

What bothered you? Why?

Have you ever heard or come across a similar teaching or idea? Have you ever been taught something that was contradictory?

What is/was already part of your thinking on this subject?

What did you learn that was new to you?

*About God?

*About yourself?

*About others?

What changes of thought are necessary in light of what you learned?

What changes of action are needed?

How would life be different if you/we applied this teaching fully?

What are the hindrances, and what do we do about those?

What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?

Taste & See

Using the generic format this week, walk through the message and find out out what it means for the group to take a step(s) as unified individuals. Be sure and ask, specifically, who is stepping out in faith for the first time, and who is taking a step for the first time in a long time. Explore the so-what factor, and remember to recognize that your group environment is probably the only shot your members have at making a message become an actual, personal challenge.

Psalm 34:8 may serve as an anchor for your time. The surrounding verses mention "fearing" the Lord. Should this come up, it may be helpful to understand that though the Hebrew words can mean as much as terrify, the context often puts these words up against other things we fear in different ways. So, it's typically a transferring of fear, such as no longer fearing something like going without extravagance, or fearing what someone thinks, but instead fearing God. Rather than terror, we're invited to fear the Lord by way of recognizing who God actually is, beyond our casual assumptions. Meeting God, with a sober view of ourselves, shouldn't be casual. Fear, biblically, is a humble respect. We already fear things (typically the thing we spend most of our money on has much to do with where our fears are pointed....look at what we spend the most on as a society and that's what we give our respect/worship...from entertainment to our appearance to healthcare....), but once clear, our fears should be rooted in our position toward God, by way of our chief concern being about our Creator and the life he designs, not any other man-made interest. This is a discussion about worship...if you didn't notice. Whatever we fear, we worship.

What were the key points for you?

What was the "one thing" you took away?

What surprised you?

What bothered you? Why?

Have you ever heard or come across a similar teaching or idea? Have you ever been taught something that was contradictory?

What is/was already part of your thinking on this subject?

What did you learn that was new to you?

*About God?

*About yourself?

*About others?

What changes of thought are necessary in light of what you learned?

What changes of action are needed?

How would life be different if you/we applied this teaching fully?

What are the hindrances, and what do we do about those?

What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?