That Stuff That Floats:

This discussion will be in large part the group functioning as the church. Many people only ever hear their pastors talk about important things, but they never have someone they trust speak these things into them, remind them of who they are and really do the "life with" part.
This may be a turn of the page where your group's growth and maturation is concerned. Not because the questions and insights are that good, but because you can decide that you are going to really figure out what it means to walk together and remind each other who you are in light of the resurrected Christ.


Thaw
*We did a stress rest last week. As we think about how insane things can get this time of year, let's spend just a moment and do it again. How is our stress level and what are we doing that is healthy?

Leader note: If every member of the group is sharing a busy schedule, a lack of rhythm and a sense of bad living, it would be a great use of your time (and a great way to really shepherd) to spend five minutes in quiet. Depending on your environment, you can close your eyes and do nothing, you could quietly read something like psalm 40 to yourselves, you could write out a prayer. Don't forget to lead your group through what it actually is, rather than going through the motions and missing it!

*What most stuck with you from Sunday?
*Why?
*Who is it that reminds you of who you are and helps you feel connected to the greater story?

Leader note: if they say nobody, or just their spouse, you may want to consider that an invitation in the next few months to create more of an environment of mutual support, challenge and relating outside the group time.

Read
*Luke 24:13-35
*Thoughts?

Read
*2 Cor 5:17-19
*1 Peter 1:3
*Thoughts?

*There is a theme that Jesus wants to give us a living hope that death, disappointment, pain and setbacks aren't final? What would this concept have to do with continuing to "move"?
*Why is walking a metaphor for our faith?
*Why is the cessation of movement a metaphor for hopelessness?

Discuss
*What are specific ways and for what reasons do we stop walking?
*From the answers to the previous question, is there a common theme regarding that which seems to suck the hope out of us and render us motionless?
*What gets us going again?
*How do we make sure the answer to the previous question is in place?

Leader note: time might have been an answers. And so is people. But few of us have any intentional time or trusted others in or life to make that happen. You might use this moment, gently, to see how your group can be more of this for your members.

*Respond as a group to this quote:

"Hope, for the Christians, is not wishful thinking or blind optimism. It is a mode of knowing, a mode within which new things are possible, options are not shut down, new creation can happen." -NT Wright, Surprised by Hope.

Apply
*True hope comes down to trusting that Jesus, starting with death and working backward into even our smallest woes, has something life-giving to say to us. How does hope in resurrection and redemption of all things speak to you?
*As you heard the previous question, what did your cynicism and despair whisper to you?
*What would your life look like if you fully acknowledged what your cynicism was trying to drag you into, and yet you lived by hope anyway?. Be as specific to your real and particular circumstances as you can.

Closing meditation
*Spend a few moments celebrating the birth of Christ by acknowledging that God continues to tell us he's not finished in his giving of himself to sinners. Then commit John 11:25 to memory, noting that it doesn't promise the avoidance of pain, but routes us through it to ultimate redemption.

That Stuff That Floats: Naivety Scene

Use not only your particular night, but this season, to allow the Spirit of Resurrection to spark some hope in the members of your group.
Some hopes are alive and well, while other hopes are not really hopes at all anymore. They're distant memories of a simpler, more naive season that gave way to cynicism and "reality".

But the birth of Christ, like the resurrection of Christ, point to the story not being over yet!

Thaw

• On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the need for hospitalization and 0 being completely chilled out, where are you with stress right now?
• Why?
• What causes or changes that, especially in December?
• How can this group help you or be helped by you?

• What stuck with you from Sunday?

Read

• Genesis 1:1-3
• Thoughts?
• How does this story speak to our individual lives beyond a telling of the origins of the universe?

Read

• Thoughts?
• 1 Corinthians 13:13
• Why are these three lumped together? What do they have to do with each other in the context of being a loving, healthy community?

Read

• 1 Peter 1:3
• Thoughts?
• What does Christ conquering death have to do with how we live our lives at work, as members of a family, a nation, how we handles things being difficult or seemingly impossible?
• Why do we separate issues and circumstances that apply to resurrection and hope, and those that are untouched and so require our worry, despair and giving up?

Discuss

• What are some of things that you have remained hopeful about in your life? What is it that works against this hope? How often do you pray about it and talk through it with others?
• What are some things that you used to hope for and stopped? What changed?

Leader note: It may be a childhood hope that parents would stay married, but ultimately didn't, or a death of a loved one. In these cases, hoping can sometimes turn into an unhealthy lack of acceptance in the grieving process. You may want to ask what good has come, or can potentially come, from things like this in the past that didn't go at all like they had wished. Not that the past can be changed, but how might we search for beauty in it. Ask questions like: How is God resurrecting the broken pieces? What have you learned from it? How can we find good in it, and use those circumstances to catalyze beauty in our own lives? What is that part of our story still trying to do positively if we'll let it?

• Considering what it was like to hope and wait on the other side of Jesus being born, what does the birth of Christ say to our sense of despair?
• In what ways do we feel attached to our cynicism and feel like despair is something to cling to?

Leader note: The idea here is an insistence to not get hurt or look like a naive idiot. We want to hope, but we won't because we're certain that it leaves us unnecessarily vulnerable for taking some kind of emotional, social, psychological hit. See if the group is willing to explore that part of the problem of hope is that it just feels childish. Remember, the Kingdom belongs in many respects to the mentality of children! (Matthew 19:14)

Apply

Chew on these ideas as a group:

• Hoping is an act of Creativity
• Hoping is an act of Love
• Hoping is not "Denial"
• Hoping makes your past your prologue.

• How can the group help you this December, and beyond, with nurturing even the smallest hope that the story isn't over yet?

Leader note: Remember, trying to fix or quote single Bible verses to people not willing yet to entertain hope is harmful and makes hope less appealing, as it will seem to be the currency of fools. Hoping with people is a gentle process of asking better questions with people about circumstances, and, as we will see in the next message, reminding people that they are more than the sum total of their pasts and regrets.