As a group, this week may serve as a huge step forward in communal trust and transparency. But you must also remain aware that each member has a different level of maturity and cannot face everything "rotten" beneath the paint at once. Our goal as leaders is to help people take steps regarding the areas they are mature enough to recognize.
You may also notice through this week and the series that offline conversations will be necessary and more effective at giving people an opportunity to be real. If the group time doesn't seem to be drawing out what you sense to be the deeper realities, continue the challenging conversations, but also follow up (and encourage the members to do the same) in other ways and places.
Thaw
- Have you ever lied or exaggerated in an interview? DO TELL!
- What is the difference between the person who answered the preceding question with "no", and the person who said something like "of course, everybody does a little in interviews, it's understood..."?
- What was most impactful from the message Sunday?
- What do you sense is one of the main things God is working on in you?
- What do you sense God is working on in our church?
Read
- James 1:1-8
- Thoughts?
- James, the brother of Jesus, begins with acknowledging their hardships. The followers are scattered, against their will, throughout the whole region and away from their homes.Why do you think he does that?
- Why is perseverance, steadfastness or endurance so important?
- Why is James talking about them asking God for wisdom?
- Leader note: help the group understand that James is helping his readers face their real problems, and not to segment their lives. Asking God for wisdom in light of their very difficult circumstances is important. "God, how do I actually deal with all thats really going on around me and how I feel about it?"
- James talks about coming to God in faith, and without doubting, and that coming with a double mind shouldn't make you expect much. Why?
Leader note: the word for double mind is "di-psychos". This isn't about doubts about God in our modern sense. James is presenting to his readers a way of going to God in ritual, ceremony and in doing and saying what we're supposed to. In doing this, we're tossed by waves, or pushed around by the perceptions of others and the obligations we perceive. Rather than going to God and trying to guess what he cares about, James says go in faith, and bring to him the very real stuff going on within you. Go in faith, not doubting God's level of concern or involvement in what you have determined isn't spiritual, but is just life stuff...don't expect anything from God when you pray about things you don't care about because you think you're supposed to care about it. WHy would you want him to respond to prayers you don't mean? Pray about what's real!
- What does being double minded mean?
Read
- Romans 12:1-2
- Thoughts?
- In light of the word renewal being the same root word as John vision of a "new heaven and a new earth", how would you describe what God is trying to do in our minds?
- What is the difference between "be transformed" and "transform".
Leader note: the idea is the passive tense that Paul uses, where we make ourselves available for something God leads in, and then us doing it all ourselves, such as our culture teaches through self-help and will power.
Discuss
- When is it appropriate to focus on behaviors?
- Why do people prefer to focus on behaviors, their own and others'?
- What do people choose instead of allowing God to deal with them internally?
- What changes when we realize that God loves us with full awareness of our inner worlds, our pasts, and everything that we hide beneath the paint?
- Why is realizing God's love not enough to get us to be real? WHy is the approval and disapproval of human beings so important?
Leader note: You may find people looking for an opportunity to share that they believe more in the impressions of people than of God, that being why even though the truth "God loves me" is a beautiful idea, people are what's most real. You may want to even suggest that the group get real about this and admit, safely, that the reason we would go on hiding our insides and our brokenness after finding our the truth of Romans 5:6-8 is that people won't still love us if we stop performing.
Apply
- What is off limits to this group?
- Are there people in this group that you sense haven't been real with the group in some way?
- What are you fears when you contemplate discussing this with this person?
- Are there ways in which you haven't been real with the group?
- What steps can this group of followers of the Way of Jesus take right now?
- If spouses, friends, family, co-workers got real and it created difficulty and even pain, could you walk all the way through that difficulty, counting it joy, as James said in James chapter 1?
Prayer
- Have members pray, using specific words about what they have concealed from God and others. If they lie, they should refer to themselves as liars, and so on. Not in a fakey, self-condemning way. This is merely an exercise in reality.
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