Me Too Two

We all have a person or group that we want nothing to do with, while at the same time we would affirm that our great God loves everyone or he doesn't love anyone at all.
Spend some time as a group teasing out the idea that what feels like strength (making sure we catalog people in various degrees of closeness to ourselves based on their beliefs and associated behaviors) might actually be our inability to deal with reality.

Don't forget to then ask God as a group for His Spirit, where true Life and Strength for this and everything else come from!


Thaw

• When have you been ousted?
• When have you ousted?
• What most stuck with you from Sunday morning?

Read

• Romans 5:8
• Matthew 28:20
• Thoughts?
• What do you discern is true about human beings once they become, in the very least, aware of Jesus?
• What do you suspect Jesus being "with us always" (without any disclaimer about us remaining worth his presence, mind you) says about how he views relationships?
• The ministry and death of Christ were all to restore a loved world to himself, even though that world hadn't merit on it's own. The spirit was given for his continual presence with us. Why do you think so many faithful people turn all this into another way of separating themselves from the unwanted?

Leader note: Think of John 3:16, and how much mess comes with lumping everything together in "the world". And yet, with full knowledge of that mess, he gave himself. This gets more amazing the more you think about it, and the more you realize just how messy humans have always been!

Read

• 1 Cor 3:16
• Rom 8:11
• Thoughts?
• What does this say about the relational resources that are available to us.

Leader note: You may want to help the group understand the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. It's not a different personality than Christ, but the same (reference Acts 16 to see an example of the interchangeableness of terms). That is to say that the same Jesus who ate and lived with the rejected and forgotten, referred to people not as evil or bad but as blind, sick and lost, now inhabits us collectively and calls us church. His spirit contended, in love, with so much foolishness, sin and even violence toward himself; and we have his spirit, providing us the ability to do, in various measure, the same.

Discuss

• What do you remember about the idea that most religion is rooted in a philosophy that begins with beliefs, then associated behaviors and then rewards, subsequently, with belonging?
• What do you remember about what happens when you reverse the order?

Leader note: it might be helpful to remind the group again that beginning with "belonging" is how life works. We all, ideally, belong as babies before we believe or behave a thing. It seems to be the natural order to belong first. But starting with "beliefs" creates yet another meritocracy, and instills an anxiety about keeping the state of belonging by way of good and right beliefs and behaviors (whether you actually do them or not is another story....you do whatever it takes, truthfully or not, to remain included!). Starting with belonging is FAR MESSIER because you are saying that the default is inclusion, regardless of beliefs or behaviors. This takes longer, more resources and is harder to measure for effectiveness, (Think how quickly you could measure success during the Inquisition!) but the miracle in knowing that love is unconditional, even in the midst of negative consequences for certain behaviors, is known to transform hearts.

Apply

• How does this impact life with your family?
• Extended family?
• Co-workers and classmates?
• People groups?
• Different lifestyles?
• Belief systems?

• Why do many of us unconsciously assume that we are included in grace, but others aren't or are less so?

Leader note: listen for a depiction of merit, or in the use of a selection of Bible verses that secures themselves in God's favor and not another. You may even want to discuss as a group Luke 18:9-14. If someone believes that they have followed a code or formula for getting grace, then they have turned grace into something else. If you ask about this, you may get push back that sounds like "so, it doesn't matter WHAT you do?!?" This extreme isn't the case at all, though it is evidence that for the person asking, a systematized theology is under the very terrifying threat of a very organic reality with which it rarely fits.

We all see as we mature that our lives, choices, beliefs and behaviors have an effect on everything we are and do. The point is simply this....none of this should affect our status as loved and belonging, or love was a poor summary for Christ to give. If the principles and ideas and actions are more important than the person, then the summary of God's will should have been "love the law with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbors that are verifiably worth it". If love for us from God is unconditional, and then we give conditional love due to our weakness, to others, we have short circuited God's will, not upheld it. Hard as it is to hear, and hard as it is to live, this is our weakness presenting itself as divinely sanctioned power. It is merely a variation on a theme that reduces love to a transaction.

• Why is it important to enter into both the difficulty of this discussion, and the difficulty of living this out, in the context of a loving, supportive community?
• What can happen if you try and unconditionally love a difficult someone on your own, especially if they are hurtful?
• Undoubtedly, people in this group have specific persons in mind when they think of the longterm difficulty of belonging first. How can this group, in the next few weeks, help create a plan for loving this person that engages them with the complimentary (not mutually exclusive) values of love and wisdom? Think about how you can each help each other in the weeks and months to come to be a source of loving power, verses and isolating source of withdrawal.

Me Too One

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Before we were the type of people that you'd expect Pure Perfection himself to want to be around us...before we could point to anything in our selves or our lives and say "we're ready"... and even before we were aware enough of our shortcomings to even know to ask for forgiveness, the incarnation of God came and died at our hands.

Jesus came to once and for all abolish the meritocracy and to make his desire for us known.

It's hard to imagine, but while some just don't know this and therefore it doesn't inform how they love people- some have grown up knowing this and yet still treat people based on merit.

For the next few weeks, we will be simultaneously teaching a social philosophy that runs in the background at Crosspointe, and the way into relating to others that goes beyond a mere transaction with those who can pay.



Thaw

• What do you hope to accomplish in this group with the remaining 10 weeks of 2011?
• How is your time spent outside of group and Sunday mornings set to work along side that goal or against it?

• What has most stuck with you from Sunday morning?
• Who is someone that, in your lifetime, has embodied the philosophy of Me Too toward you? Share how.

Read

• Galatians 6:1-4
• Thoughts?

Leader note: it is certainly thought provoking to remember that this selection is at the tail end of Paul describing the tension between the Spirit and the Flesh. In chapter 5 he has just listed off words and phrases that paint selfishness, followed by the fruit (or the evidence) of the Spirit.
During Sundays teaching, this passage was read in the The Message translation.

• How would you describe the attitude Paul is insisting on?
• Who do yo know that is like this?
• What is it that happens and makes us unlike the picture Paul is painting here?

Leader note: help the group determine the pressures that makes us critical, arrogant and deluded into superiority. When it happens, we're often not choosing to be "mean" or "distant". In fact, we feel justified and could likely defend it. Who are the people and what are the circumstances when we tell ourselves Galatians 6:1-4 doesn't apply.

Discuss

• Describe the difference between an attitude of Me Too, and an attitude on Not Me.

Leader note: It may be helpful for your group's discussion to camp out in this idea for a while on two fronts. One, there is the basic sense of being with people in every way possible, regardless of how the behave or misbehave. But, perhaps more significantly, there is the difference between agreeing that the idea "Me Too" is beautiful and sounds good in a sermon and actually employing it with people that you have hated just last week at work or school. Like everything we learn as faithful people, we can't allow ourselves the simplicity of seeing if we agree. We have to go further and find out what it actually means to live it out in our very real lives.

• What kinds of issues and hurdles come to mind when you consider actually living out a Me Too attitude n your specific context?
• Imagine your family gathered, idealistically around the Thanksgiving table in a few weeks. What faces come to the forefront of your mind when you think of someone denying you for a past decision? How about the faces that you have denied for something they have done or are doing?

Read

• Luke 7:33-34
• Thoughts
• It appears Jesus is painting a picture of a certain kind of piety that always finds a way to stand against, rather than with, people.
• What are the issues that thou have trouble walking through with others? Why do you think that is, and why does this issue stand out beyond others for you?
• Why do some people fight so hard to keep laws, ideas and principles (regardless of them being religious, social, biblical, etc) elevated in value about the very humans they pertain to?
• What do we learn from Jesus' lifestyle based on the accusations made against him in texts such as Luke 7:33-34?

Discuss

• In your estimate, which takes more maturity and spiritual balance: walking with people through anything or being able to stand your ground regardless of the pressures to compromise?
• In the message, Jonathan gave some points for really employing Me Too in your relationships. Discuss them and find way they apply to people that take no effort, people who you dread, and what it means for someone to....Me Too you.

1. Listen
2. Make it safe
3. Look for common ground

Leader note: You may find that the group is inspired by this idea and has already found ways to make it part of their overall attitude. You may find though, that many of them...or even just one that's vocally skeptical...have specific categories that they put people in, and some of those categories are not Me Too categories. They distance themselves form certain people, citing hurtfulness or a lost cause scenario. As leaders, we must do the work of shepherds and help people understand that Me Too ISN'T a law. Laws kill the spirit of all of this. Me Too is a gift that is given with no expectation of return, but obviously doesn't allow toxic people to live unconfronted by the toxicity of their decisions. If Me Too becomes a law, then it becomes something to do irrespective of the persons involved. It becomes one more way to divide.

As people share the reasons that Me Too is unrealistic (you'll hear the word "boundaries" at least once during this series!...Mis or over-used, It's our favorite loophole for getting out of the difficulties of loving people who aren't capable or willing to love us back!) be sure and draw them back into the necessity of trusting Christ and his resurrecting power to do what we cannot on our own.

DECALOGUE X

How much of how we "live" is rooted in dissatisfaction with our current situation?

How much of the machine of society runs on the gears of getting more, getting new, keeping up and acquiring what others have?

That's the thing; no one would read those two rhetorical questions and feel like they were just invited into some deep insight. We all already know it. And yet, something in us continues to operate as though we'd never come across the idea before.

As you discuss the 10th command, take some time as a group leader seeing how your group will go beyond discussing what it already knows, and into finding ways to actually live differently. Remember, this is about ceasing to be slaves. But slaves aren't free because they know about freedom. They're free because they walk out of the world that enslaved them.

Take some steps out of enslavement this week.

Thaw

• What was the must have toy/shoe/garment/etc of your childhood? Did you ever get it? Did a friend get it first? Do you remember what your friend/sibling having it first did to you? Explain.
• What is it that keeps us behaving lime children where our wants for other people's stuff is concerned?

Leader note: if someone says "continuing to not have", in response to the last question, ask them if people who have things ate less greedy. The answer might help people understand that poverty has nothing to do with greed.

• What most stuck with you from Sunday morning?
• As you listened to the message, did you think about someone in your life, or about yourself more? Why do you think that is?

Read

• Ex 20:17
• Thoughts?
• These are some primitive categories. Tease them out a bit to modernize them for our context?
• Why do you think this command is the last?
• Why do you think it was meaningful enough to make a top ten list for former slaves?

Read

• Luke 12:15
• Thoughts?
• Jesus literally says here, "be seeing, and protect yourself from all forms of greed..."
• What does seeing have to do with anything?
• What is the difference between "seeing" and simply "don't do ______ behavior?"
• What does it mean to be on guard, or to protect or even to watch?
• Why is Jesus painting a picture of looking over your heart like a shepherd over sheep, or a guard over a city?

Read

• Proverbs 4:23
• Do you see a connection to what Jesus is saying in Luke 12? How do the heart being guarded and greed fit together?

Read

• James 4:1
• Thoughts?
• Where does this begin? Why is it significant to know it doesn't start without outward behaviors?

Leader note: it may be worth pointing out that everything begins in the heart. Lust starts there. Murder starts there. Greed and entitlement start there. Once again proving Jesus isn't concerned with behavior management like so much religion is, he starts with where this really begins...the heart!

Read

• James 4:2
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• Tensions, fights, anxieties, dissatisfactions, worries. Describe what wanting something that someone else has done to you or to a relationship. You may take a moment to think about it. It may be someone's property, their appearance, their success, their family, their relationships, their personality, their disposition, their luck....whatever it is, ,explain what these things may have done inside you.
• Additionally, you may not have any issues of greed, coveting or dissatisfaction within you. Share with the group how you got to that point.

Leader note: if someone does venture out to share how they feel free from greed or coveting, pay attention to whether it stems from them coming from money, or coming from peace. Others who are jealous for more "stuff" in their life believe that if they just had more they would be happy. So if the person sharing mentions financial ease, others may pounce and say "see, if I had that wealth background that they had, I'd be fine". As difficult as it is to understand, the wealth or lack of it isn't the issue. The issue is what we are taught to believe about stuff and having it. We already know that the poor are some of the most content people there are, while millionaires are often on record as miserable. We have to do the difficult work of disbelieving that our peace lies in the possession of things (Luke 12:15!!!).

Read

• With the understanding that Paul writes this from a prison cell, and that the Philippian church had scraped together what they could to make sure he had food and water while imprisoned, read Philippians 4:4-13.

Leader note: depending on where you think you can take it, make special note of verse 12. What is this mystical, secret wisdom that Paul learned that centered him, regardless of external circumstances? What experiences are necessary to teach such a deep, mysterious wisdom? Who do we know that seems to know this secret of contentment? How does this pertain to the tenth command and the a slave having his freedom?

Apply

• How does this group go from agreeing about this mentally to living differently?
• How do we train our hearts, convincingly entitled as they can be, to disbelieve our freedom, life and happiness are dependent on having or gaining what others have?
• How does the tension some in the group carry right now begin to wane as they begin "seeing" and "keeping watch"?
• What's one step toward living at peace with what we already have, while celebrating others' fortune and helping with others' misfortune, that we can take?

DECALOGUE IX

Don't bear false witness.

Don't lie.

Don't say things that aren't true.

Don't create a reality that isn't real.

It's all variations on the same theme: What God has put together, let no one fabricate.

As a group, start with the literal meaning in the post-Egyptian justice context Israel found itself in. If you make false accusations, you perpetuate evil. But, as the discuss continues, find ways that outside a courtroom we may still all be bearing, nurturing and propagating false claims about others, bad or good.

Thaw

• What happens inside you emotionally as October arrives? Why do you think that is?
• What most stuck with your from Sunday morning?
• When in your life were you misunderstood or lied about? What were the ramifications of that?
• When is a time you lied or perpetuated a lie about another? What happened because of that?

Read

• Exodus 1:6-14
• Thoughts?

Leader note: It may be helpful to go back to Genesis, last few chapters, and recap how Joseph and the blessing he was positioned Israel to be in great comfort in Egypt initially. They were blessed with land and resources and health. It's not until the "new king" (thought by many to be Ramses II) comes and, through assumptions, false accusations and tyranny, turns it all on Israel's head, or more poignantly, their back.

• The word "know" in hebrew isn't just vague awareness like one "knows" where an address is. This kind of knowing is about intimate interaction and consideration for the other. Based on this, describe how this turn of events went down.
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• Have you ever noticed how an new employee, student, in-law, neighbor, politician is sized up quickly? Why do people seek to make a determination on others so fast?

Leader note: There are many reasons, but see if the group can come to some agreement about how we like to make up our minds quickly for our own sense of relational safety. When you "know" what someone is, then you can determine how to interact, what they may want from you, where knowing them will get you in life, and how much energy they will take from you. The faster this happens, the faster the sense of security you have. This, obviously, means we settle for all kinds of assumptions and wrong ideas just so we don't go too long with no idea who we're dealing with.

Read

• Exodus 20:16
• Thoughts?
• What does this mean in its most basic sense?
• What happens if we change the word "bear" to "harbor"?
• How about if we change it to "nurture" or "reinforce" or "uncritically examine"?
• What do false ideas do to a person and the society they live in?
• What does this law say about the power of our ability to shape realities, even if they are false?

Discuss

• What if something isn't false? What are the terms for sharing something about someone that you know to be true, firsthand?
• Determine, briefly, as a group, when it's ok and even necessary to share information about another, when that person is not present?

Read

• Proverbs 26:22

Leader note: The Message translation reads this way: "Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy; do you want junk like that in your belly?"

• What do we learn from this proverb about the impulse, however real and important it feels in the moment, to speak about other people (regardless if the information we are hear or sharing is true or false)?

• Should these words only apply to negative rumors and accusations, or does it also apply to positive things as well?

Leader note: Difficult and potentially alienating as it is, even resisting the urge to gush on people who aren't around trains the mind not to reference those not in attendance, as well as helps ensure that a temple;ate of the person is created and so increases that persons ability to let down others. Tricky, but worth considering. Bear in mind that false witness doesn't mean negative. It simply means untrue. We can build people up or shape other's impressions to the extent that even positive words can do harm.

Apply

• Jonathan referred to pushing the refresh button on everyone you know? How does this apply to people in your life and how you have historically dealt with the?
• What are the implications for realizing that we long to be judged by our intentions and yet quickly judges others by their actions, appearances and words (for years, in some cases)?
• What are the risks associated with disbelieving what you hold in your mind toward those that you know and have carried assumptions and thoughts towards that are unfavorable?
• What are the risks associated with disbelieving what you hold in your mind toward those that you DO NOT KNOW and have carried assumptions and thoughts towards that are unfavorable (celebrities, people groups, politicians, etc..)?
• How can this group be helpful as you enter a season of disbelieving your own thoughts toward others, reassessing what and who others are without the commentary our society has programmed into us, and generally being gracious enough to always assume the 9th commandment is always being broken?