Mind Your Head:Poison or Fruit

For some of us, the problem doesn't feel so much like a deficiency, but an over-efficiency. We're able to be speaking intelligible words before we've even fully heard them in our minds. It's quite a feat, really. 

But our mouths, trained to fill dead air and to never let an opportunity for a joke, jab, sarcastic grenade or witty comeback pass, have caused most of the problems we have ever had in life. For some of us, it's so well trained, it seems to lead us.

Use this discussion time to talk about the power of words (or more precisely, the power we give words) and how the group might be a place where wisdom can flourish because we're getting our minds to work faster than our lips. 

Thaw

• Talk about your favorite TV characters. See if you can find a pattern in our favorites and the words they say. They probably always had a comeback or a way of speaking themselves bcd into the respect they had seemed to lose. Find out how this shapes us as individuals and as a society, over time. Don't forget to note the fact that these communication mentors aren't real and all their words were scripted. But their impact on us is real!

Read

• Discuss the major scriptural references from the message on Sunday, detailing how they speak to where each person is or has been in their life, and what they feel like God is inviting  each to do.
• Prov. 18:21 Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.
• Matt. 12:34 "…out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."
• Rom. 2:4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?
• Prov. 26:18-19 Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I was only joking!”
• Prov. 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
• Prov. 12:18 Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
• Prov. 16:24 Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
• Eph. 4:29  Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Discuss

• Share times where members of the group have been either in the giving or receiving end of hurtful words. If desired, allow the group space to be therapeutic in an opened forum to say the words that created pain in the past. 
• Discuss how we continue to replay the words that hurt us, continuing to give them strength over us.
• Discuss the difficulty in not using words aggressively, even when you are fully aware that you can push people back on their heals, creating a sense of safety. (Proverbs 12:18)

Apply

• Allow people in the group who have a better knack at measuring their words and understanding the perceived power of words, to share. Be aware of the difference between learned wisdom and a quiet disposition. The latter isn't discounted, but for the flaming extrovert, someone who is by nature quiet is an unrealistic goal. Instead, see if you can find people who feel they have improved in this area, perhaps having been in the past someone with uncontrolled words, and find out how and why.