House Work, Parents

Much like last week and the discussion about marriage, be mindful that even those who do not have children can benefit from the principles laid out in this week's talk. Not only are there general relationship helps tucked into the message this week, but there is much to consider in thinking about our own parents.

Wisdom finds teaching in what foolishness dismisses!

Enjoy, wise leaders!

Thaw

• What is most on your mind right now, no matter what it has to do with?
• How often is this topic in the forefront for you?
• Why do you think it's worth thinking so much about?

• What from Sunday's message most stuck with you?
• What changes within yourself seemed necessary?
• What frustrated you?

Read

• Deut 4:9
• Thoughts?
• What does it mean to "heed yourself" or "watch yourself closely" in the context of also teaching your children?
• Why is "self-control" so key in ensuring the success of the next generation(s)?
• What is the difference between self-socntrol and fixation on children?

Read

• Proverbs 3:21-26
• Proverbs 4:20-22
• Proverbs 6:20-23

• Thoughts?
• Themes?
• What's the difference between teaching your kids information and showing them how to live?
• What's the difference in how this is done?
• Were you raised mostly by the giving of information or the giving of examples?
• How has that affected you as an adult?
• Is one easier? Which? Why?

Discuss

• What does it mean to live a great story as a parent?
• How does the story you feel you are living (as a parent, a son or daughter, employee, etc...) compare with the story you feel like you are supposed to be living.

Leader note: Help your group members understand that discontentment isn't the point here. The point is willfully not living a good story for fear of difficulty, loss of respect, fear of failure, etc. This isn't simply about chasing every ambition in the name of making something of ourselves; rather, it's about not settling for cultural programming at the expense of the story God has for us to live. Example: Generosity often gets overwritten by anxious greed and statements like "when I make $XXXX then I'll be a giver!". For some, forgiveness and love are pushed back in the name of "getting on with it" or "don't have time for drama". In examples like these, often the better story is not being lived, although it's clearly calling from the background, all the time. Our children, though, don't hear the calling or understand our procrastinations. They only observe the life we've settled for, and learn from our observable prioritizations what is "best", no matter what words we tell them!

Apply

• What are things you would like for your children to be known by?
• How does one teach a child this?
• How does the teaching of these characteristics change with a child's age?
• What are you up against when it comes to living out a good story with your kids?
• What do past regrets have on you and your progress?
• How can the group help you work through these?
• How can the group help you with goals pertaining to the story you would like to live?

House Work, Marriage

Continuing the discussion, we now include marriage.

As in weeks prior, the main point is the main point, yet the principles can be applied in numerous situations regardless of the kinds of relationships we're talking about. Make sure and think through the implications before and during your group time of how the single people in your group will benefit from the discussion.

Thaw

• What kinds of thoughts and discussions have you had regarding "The End of the World", the Rapture, etc?

Leader note: Probably note wise to make theological stances public if you have them, or to let some debate develop, hijacking your whole time together. The idea here is simply to talk about what many have been thinking about in recent days regarding God, the Bible and judgment. For reference, there is no official position at Crosspointe on eschatology and/or end times. The views held by staff and elders vary regarding what the rapture is if there is one, Christ's return(s?) and what the word "apocalypse" means. This variance multiplies beyond measurement when you include the differing perspectives held in the whole community. So, enjoy a brief chat about it, try not to let anyone's belief in the room or in the news be labeled "whacko", and keep moving!

• What most stuck with you from Sunday morning? Why?

Leader note: Always bear in mind that for many people, the most significant moment happened in communion or in the music, or in prayer. make sure and give them room to share.

• Who popped into your mind during the message?

Read

• Proverbs 4:23
• Thoughts?
• Over the years, how have you learned to do this, and what is the difference between doing this and simply filtering what words and actions come out (behavior management)?
• Over the years, how has this been difficult?
• How much easier is it to pay attention to others' hearts? Explain, or give recent examples.

Read

• Jeremiah 17:9
• Psalm 139:23-24
• Matthew 15:8-11

• Thoughts?
• How is a close relationship, especially marriage, a crucible for the heart?
• What problems does this cause?
• What blessings does it provide?

Discuss

• How is naming the emotion you are feeling, or the differing perspective you hold, helpful?
• How is it sometimes manipulative?
• When named, what are some helpful responses the other person can provide?

Leader note: This line of questions gets at the openness we are allowed to have with trusted others, especially those we are married to. This openness calls out our quiet, disruptive parts of our hearts that may be determining how we relate to others without ever fully realizing it. This is the beauty, if even painfully so, of genuine intimacy. If we can get to a point where it is safe to simply say "I am feeling disrespected and angry", and for the other to listen and decide to be part of healing (rather than irritation or defense) then the two grow closer, as well as more self-aware (mature!). Yet, if the naming of feelings is put forth to manipulate the other, or control how the other person is speaking or acting, then growth isn't going to happen and, frankly, the two people have more stuck between them than before!

• How is reflecting quietly, by yourself, before you share with others, helpful?

Leader note: No new ground being broken here. The 10 second count. The agreement to talk minutes later. The taking a walk to get some space and clarity. These are all time-tested ways of getting the impulsive heart to quiet itself before relational harm can be inflicted by just saying whatever unprocessed words and emotions fill your mouth. The strategy for this has to be done ahead of time in the same way that the time to practice your free throw is not during the game. Let the older, wiser in the group speak to what he/she has learned about this over the years.

• Has there been a time when you "bit your tongue" and recognized things going better for it?
• What's the difference between not saying something to protect a sense of peace, and not saying something because you don't trust the maturity and wholeness of what you feel the need to say?
• How does this apply to marriage?
• How does this apply to all relationships?

Discuss these phrases:

"When you said that yesterday, it made me mad"

"When you were late, I was disrespected"

• What is the difference between being made mad, and choosing to become mad?
• What is the difference between being disrespected, and choosing to feel disrespected?
• Is it possible for you to make a distinction between what someone else controls in your heart, emotions, etc. and what you control? Explain.
• What are the benefits of making this distinction when it comes to your spouse? Others?

• How is protecting your heart regarding others more difficult when the other person seems to be clearly in the wrong?
• Why might this be even more important where the issue is more objective?

Apply

• What strategies can this group employ to better protect its collective, and individual, heart?
• What role does your daily interactive faith play in understanding your heart, guarding it and knowing it?
• How can this group help with this particular facet of your journey?

• How can this group help you as a husband or a wife trying to have the heart toward each other that you vowed?
• What stands in your way?
• What can you/we do about what stands in the way starting now?

House Work, Single

If LifeGroups totally comprised of married couples discuss this message, then the point was successfully made!

Though the emphasis is on singles, understanding that God made us to be whole people that love each other, versus half (or less) people requiring each others' love to find happiness, is critically important for marrieds and singles alike. Jesus is inviting us to need each other in healthy, whole ways, (true community) but to "carry our own cross" and cease to believe that we're dependent on any other for our fulfillment.

This discussion will be much about disbelief in what's almost universally unchallenged in our society. Make sure you do the work of praying and meditating on these ideas beforehand so that you have in your mind the implications of this great shift in thinking before your group tosses it around. As you discuss this as a group and specific questions and objections arise, remember that this comes back to being remade by Christ to love, not to require or demand love. We cannot truly love and serve a person that we are trying to get love and service from.

Thaw

• If you haven't yet, briefly outline what your summer plans are so that your group can begin having clarity what the schedule will be in the months to come.

• What was a toy that you remember begging for, for some time, and then finally getting? How did you treat the toy, and how did you treat others when they encroached on the toy?

• What most stuck with you from the message Sunday?
• How have you been trying to apply it?

Read

• Galatians 6:2, 6:4-5
• Thoughts?
• Are Paul's two statements about how to handle burdens a contradiction?
• Based on this passage, what is the relationship of one person to another within the early church, where "neediness" is concerned, and how might that be different from now?

Leader note: It may be worth noting, if it becomes necessary in the discussion, that Paul never tells the Galatians to have others carry your burdens. There's no expectation on others that they must serve you. Instead, the expectation is that the each would serve others, while doing what he/she can to carry his/her own. If everyone follows this, then everybody will be supported and served.

• What is Paul talking about when he refers to the Law of Christ?
• How is this different from a position of requiring love from others?

Read

• Luke 14:25-33
• Thoughts?
• Does this passage feel positive or negative to you as you hear it? Why?
• Why would one want to be a disciple?
• Why would one not want to be?
• Does it help to define disciple not just as "follower", "apprentice" or "student" (which the word certainly means) but as "one who has stopped demanding to be loved and served, but asks who they can love and serve instead"? Why or why not?

Leader note: Jesus suddenly begins to talk about building a tower and going to war. In both cases he is referring metaphorically to preparedness. To build a tower without having considered how to fully fund it would make you a laughing stock about half way through. What was suppose to look like strength will now look weaker than if you'd not built anything at all. Same with the war bit. If you're going to go to battle, it would be good to have an awareness of what you were before you go off half cocked. Following Jesus and claiming the title "disciple" but not considering the cost to self would be foolish. Interestingly, the cost to self ends up being a bigger blessing to the self in terms of fulfillment and wholeness than not being a disciple could have ever garnered!

Discuss

• How are the people in your life potentially possessions?

possession |pəˈze sh ən| noun

1 the state of having, owning, or controlling something

• Why would we want to control someone?
• What's the hidden evil in being dependent on any other person for your happiness?
• Can you be possessing/controlling someone and loving them at the same time?

Leader note: Someone might bring up a parent's relationship to a child. The argument might go that by controlling her, you love her. She's not ready to control herself, so it would be the opposite of love to not provide control. Discuss the difference between bearing someone's burden (providing for someone's needs, even an infant and her unique needs) and trying to own someone, (even a baby, to get from her the fulfillment of personal desires- needing to be needed to find personal worth). One is the healthy, interdependent relationship that's intended, the other is using another to find happiness. This correlates to being single: being a whole person that can love regardless of reciprocation, and that can understand his or her own legitimate desires for romantic companionship, but doesn't need someone to provide this in order to find happiness and a sense of having worth- this is the kind of person jesus is trying to get us all to discover that we are. A disciple is ready to love. A half person, hoping to possess another to get happiness and purpose from them, is only ready to BE loved. And, as we have seen, you cannot control and possess someone and love them like Jesus teaches us to love at the same time.

• How is our culture reinforcing the idea that love and happiness is something you must get from another?
• How might your own view of relationships, past or present, reinforce this?
• How would no longer possessing people, hoping to control the love and respect and validation that they provide you, affect you as a single person? Spouse? Son/Daughter? Parent? friend?

Additional Reading

• 1 Corinthians 7
• Gen 1:26-28
• Gen 2

House Work, Honoring Parents

What will initially have to do with Mother's Day, we will see, has everything to do with kind of citizens we are (citizens of both the kingdoms of men, and the Kingdom of God.) Use this group time to talk about how to be a people of honor, regardless of the object of our honor being capable of earning it or maintaining it.

It's what we do, because God honored us before we could ever have been worthy of it.

Thaw

• How did your parents meet? What's their story?
• What did/do they do for a living?
• How are you most like your parents? Unlike?

• What most impacted you from the message Sunday?
• What one thing do you feel like was your personal take-away?

Read

Read each of thee and discuss the themes and implications of each one.

• Exodus 20:12 - "Honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." (NIV)
• Proverbs 1:8 - "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching."(NIV)
• Proverbs 10:1 - "The proverbs of Solomon: A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother."(NIV)
• Proverbs 23:25 - "May your father and mother be glad; may she who gave you birth rejoice!"(NIV)
• Proverbs 23:22 ESV- “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.”
• Leviticus 19:32 ESV - “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
• 1 Timothy 5:8 ESV- “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
• 1 Peter 5:5-6 ESV – “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”

Discuss

• Why is honor difficult?
• What is the difference between humble honor and blind submission?

Leader note: Think about the difference between honoring someone that you fundamentally disagree with, or has been hurtful toward you. You can speak well of the person rather than putting them down to get even. You are not a mere victim of the person. You are not obsessed with revenge or public vindication. You don't let hate into your heart about them. It's the kind of strength that resonates with Jesus in the sermon on the mount when he speaks of offering the other cheek once you've been struck. It takes incredible strength and resolve. Contrast that with the kind of "honoring" that sheepishly tolerates abuse, obeying whatever is said regardless of the toxicity. A cowardly push-over that doesn't stand up for what's right so as to keep -pseudo-peace. This is not honor. It's weak and it feeds the darkness one suffers in.

• What examples of honor do we see in our society today?
• How do you respect someone while simultaneously disagreeing with their words, views or actions?
• How do we see Christ answering the previous question?

Apply

• Who are the people that we typically withhold honor from because of their failure of some standard?
• What can be done about this effective immediately?
• What are the hurdles in place for us being honorable?
• What is a way this group can honor its parents? What small step could be taken?

Leader note: Card or letters. Phone calls. An agreement to speak honestly about parents in any future story sharing (so that there is no pretending) but with honor and love. A commitment to stop blaming them for this or that until a season has been experienced where mom and dad's context and story have been fully considered. This is no small challenge!

Um, we're going to do what with ideas?

Sorry for the typo. The word in the third sentence was "pass". But I omitted the P and suddenly the curriculum was guiding us into some pretty strange territory.

Be careful with putting all your trust in spellcheck. You can have perfect grammar and still be saying things you didn't intend.

Peace,

Steve

Sheep, Wolves, Snakes and Doves

How many times do we hear something at work, see something on the Discovery channel, read something at the dentist's office, or even read in the bible on our own time, and think, "what's our church's/faith's/pastor's stance on that?"

For just this one Sunday, we will be discussing what it means to be sent out into the world ready to engage it, rather than ready to fear it- wondering what we're allowed to believe. We won't and can't be answering all our questions, but we will try and provide some filters to pass ideas through as questions come up in the future.

Use this group time to talk about the how our faith isn't a fearful, narrow pursuit of Jesus that cannot be discussed outside of approved thoughts and words, but a dynamic, transforming engagement with the world through Jesus Christ alone.

Thaw

• How was this past Easter the same or different for you?
• How would you like to celebrate Easter differently next year, and how can this group of followers be part of that?

• What most impacted you from the message this Sunday?
• What was the main thought you had as you left about how you engage your faith and the world around you?

Read

• Matthew 10:16
• Thoughts?

Leader note: You may want to read versus 1-16 for the context. Though reading the context doesn't change the principle of sheep among wolves and being like snakes and doves, you may uncover that Jesus is speaking to the first-phase, Jewish followers and the charge is to not speak to anyone outside of the Jewish faith. This is not to say that Gentiles (non-Jews) have no part in what God is up to, but it does reinforce that the gospel is "first for the Jew and then for the Gentile". Not until later were the Gentiles sought after (Acts 1:8). This may be a discussion in and of itself, as understand that the New Testament is largely about Jewish men and women convincing other Jewish men and women to see that the very Jewish Jesus is the very Jewish Messiah that they had been waiting for. Much of the context of the NT should be understood this way, as it definitely shapes our understanding of passages and how to apply them accurately in a modern context. Being a "sheep among wolves" can be specifically understood as a Jewish man or woman encountering much resistance from the Jewish Theocracy about the "new thing" called Jesus-following. A gentile response to Jesus' animal metaphor is and should be very different from a first-century Jewish response to it.

• What does it mean to be sent out as sheep among wolves?
• Why doesn't it say "a sheep"?
• What are some characteristics of a herd of sheep and what does that have to do with this group?

Leader note: If the emphasis becomes dependent on "wolves" being big, bad, non Christians!!!!....remember that Ephesians 6 says our war isn't with flesh and blood humans. We needn't be scared around any person or their ideas. Help your group not fall into an "us-and-them" trap, but hold at the center that there is an establishment that can function as a wolf, but is actually comprised of individually lost sheep.

Read

• 1 Corinthians 3
• (Choose a reader, and have listeners write down the phrases that stick out for one reason or another)
• Thoughts?
• Is Paul trying to help early Christians realize the bigness of our faith, or the smallness? Explain.
• Read verse 21-23 again. How encompassing does this seem to you?
• Does this mean that everything is ok and that it doesn't matter what people believe, or is it saying something about a Christians freedom to glean truth, beauty and redeemable elements from anything regardless of it's affiliation with the faith? Discuss.

Leader note: This may be a helpful exercise for your group, to go through their next week and see if they can spot the good in things otherwise, seemingly categorized by religion as inherently bad. Christians are invited to be a courageous, thoughtful, listening and wise people that can spot the roots and reasons for things that fearful, cowering Christians merely condemn. This is an invitation from Paul to live in the real world not denouncing, but being part of redeeming.

Apply

• What does it look for you in your specific daily context to be a sent sheep among wolf-like paradigms, employing the dove and the snake-like attitude? Each member share.
• Is there a way to increase in innocence and wisdom?
• Is there a way to redeem more of what had been previously denounced?
• If you work harder in these areas, what might the non-Christians in your world think? Family?
• What help can this group be as you seek to take your place as a sheep among wolves, and one to whom all things belong because they belong to Christ, and Christ to God?