Mind Your Head: The Way of the Door

Conflict. To strike against.
You have already experienced this today. Things going slightly, or dramatically, at odds with how you want them to go- even how they should go.
How will we behave in light of reality not often being alined with how we want it?

One answer is always, of course, rooted in the fact that we want too much. We have too many desires that go un critically supported by ourselves and our culture. Once we figure out that our desires waging battle within us are keeping us disappointed by the reality outside our head, life gets a heck of a lot smoother.
But until then, we have to mind our head about our response.

Use this discussion as a way of creating an environment where it's safe to disbelieve the culture's dominant paradigm about conflict, and therefore grow. This is counter-cultural to say the least. And the work isn't easy. However much at odds with everything else, this is what it means to be wisely aligned with the very spirit of Christ, who was fundamentally at odds with us, and yet calls us friends.


Thaw

• What have you noticed about the Olympics that tells us about the differences in nations' culture?
• What things have you noticed about your own thinking since this series, Mind Your Head began?
• What most resonated with you from Sunday (most challenged, most clarified, etc..)?

Read

• Proverbs 29:11
• Thoughts?
• How does this frame you last skirmish with someone else, or theirs with you?
• Why do many of us believe that other's control our moods, happiness and even the things we end up saying?
• Can you think of a cinematic or literary figure that was known for being in control, even though his or her opponents tried to rattle them?

Read

• Proverbs 12:16
• Thoughts?
• What would you say is actually happening when a disagreement turns into something that controls the mood, and in some measure the life, of those involved?

Leader note: It is worth noting, despite our focus on "conflict", that we are often controlled by someone else's positivism as well. Remember, being affected is normal. But falling under the control of someone's flattery and admiration, or attraction or envy, is just as bad or worse than being controlled by their negativity. You may want to ask some of these questions along the lines of the positive things that get said and allow to shape our identity. Sometimes good is just as bad!

Read

• James 4:1
• Thoughts?
• What percentage of your relationships and interactions would you say is best described as the Way of the Breach?
• What is the root cause and what do you think could be done about this?

Discuss

• Who do you know that lives out the Way of the Door? Describe them.
• Who do you know that lives out the Way of the Wall? Describe them.

Apply

• Are there things that you don't say in this group, though you'd like to, because you know that it may actually control the mood of others?
• Are there people in this room that wanted to answer yes to the preceding question, and didn't because they didn't want to change the vibe of the room?

Leader note: This is supposed to be funny. But it's also supposed to alert us to all the ways that we believe we're living in a breach, anxious what goes out of the hole, because anything can come back through. Use this as a time to commit to affecting each other, but not having control over each other. Our LifeGroups should be a (THE for some of us) place where it's not unsafe to say things, explore things and admit things, there being little risk that others will feel overtaken by it. Sure, it's risky to some degree. But aligning our hearts in unity always was. 

• How much time do you spend angry or frustrated at others for their behaviors, and would you like that to be less?
• What can this group do to help it's members, on a daily basis, live in peace with the world regardless of its acquiescing to our wants?
• How can we work to love people from the strength and wholeness of the way of the door, even if they live at the breach or the wall?

Leader note: Pay attention to answers that sound like a need to drag others into a life they don't yet want. We can't "make" people live at peace with us. We can only woo them into the lives that we are living. Which of course says a lot about us spending our energies demonstrating wholeness rather than insisting others convert to our ways without living those ways ourselves.