Of Forests and Trees. Elisha.

Jesus's first recorded words in the Gospel of Mark are that the News from the front is good. We are invited to turn back toward this news (Mark 1:15). Your group time will be another small step in believing this proclamation of the Kingdom, situated right in front of us, if only obscured by a few trees.

Imagine if your group became even more free and full of light as its members conned to awaken to what God really is, and the Love that's really there for them.

Imagine if, contrary to other reports from other fronts, we all began to see that there's goodness available to us and between us all right now!



Thaw

• What makes a person and optimist?
• What makes a person a pessimist?
• What does it mean to be a realistic, honest person while also being hopeful and positive?
• What most stuck with you from Sunday?

Read

• 2 Kings 2:19-22
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• Has there ever been a time in your faith journey where you felt like God "healed the waters" only later to revert back to a sense that things were as "undrinkable" as ever?

Read

• Philippians 4:4-9
• Thoughts?

Leader note: This passage is beyond familiar for many students of the Bible. Yet, to receive it as the writing of Paul, a man imprisoned, misunderstood, alienated from friends and family alike, unsure when he'd finally be killed for his alleged blasphemy, helps us to keep it fresh in our minds as a directive for our most pessimistic inclinations. Help the group understand that this wasn't written from a place of naive comfort, but from a co-laborer, co-struggler and one who understood just what it means to be rescued by God from being enslaved by our own negativity and victimization.



Apply

• Have you given this group, or any other group, the right to tell you whether you are person who lives as though the water is good or not? (In other words, have you made it safe to tell you if you are negative, if you complain disproportionately, if you are one looking to retain your victim energy?)

Leader note: Be cautious of real victimization within your members. Some in our groups have been mistreated in the worst way. We never, especially in the name of faith and spirituality, tell people that they need to "just trust God and get over it." At the same time, without any one person in the group being targeted, create an atmosphere that challenges the instinct to see circumstances as always against. To create a spirit in your group where members allow one another to push back on cynicism and an insistence that bad things are more likely to be real that good things. This is a big part of what it means to be free people of God- we can live in the world though it goes on being the world, with new, unmerited access to clean water.

• How would your life be different if you really began to believe that you are not at the center of misfortune, disappointment and negativity? What would you become freed of those waters?
• How can this group remind you of the freedom you already have so that you can begin to really live?

Of Forests and Trees. Nebuchadnezzar.

If God has an ego, we're in trouble.

Because history has shown that ego + power = suffering for all.

But what if God, and God's power, aren't there to keep us trembling and in fear (as in reminded at gunpoint this Town ain't big enough for more than one Sheriff) but as a resource and reminder that we don't have to do what the animals do; remain fit enough to survive. That at the center of a very beautiful and difficult Universe, there is love and peace for us all.


Use this discussion time to reshape your views of God, each other and what God wants us to know about our place in the Universe.


Thaw

• What's on your mind today?
• What most stuck with you from Sunday?

Read

• Philippians 2:10-11
• Without context -as verses like this are often shared- what does Paul seem to be saying to his audience of varying opinion and faith?

Read

• Philippians 2:1-11
• With context, what does this say?

Discuss

• What are the implications of a master who has walked all the way through life, and is THEN exalted to a place where other recognize his rule?
• What are the implications of a king who simply inherits the throne without any sense of "earning" it?

Read

• Daniel chapter 4
• Thoughts?

Leader note: It's important to realize that Nebuchadnezzar is an appreciator of the God of the Hebrews, but also still has his own pantheon of gods he's traditionally sought as a Babylonian. He is still transitioning to monotheism. His chief god, by the way, is Bel, or more technically in Akadian, "Marduk." Marduk is the head of the gods and is the judge, therefore making Daniel's involvement, whose named means "The Hebrew God is my Judge"all the more interesting. Also note in verse 35 that Nebuchadnezzar recognizes that "all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing." This is a rhetorical device, where his own humbling is applied universally. But clearly, as reenforced by Jesus' command to love one another and that being the highest law; others are worth infinitely more than "nothing." For a self-absorbed king, it's a big step for Nebuchadnezzar to say "perhaps nobody is that big of a deal after all!" The playing field is leveling a bit for Nebuchadnezzar.

Discuss

• Why didn't God destroy Nebuchadnezzar?
• What kind of leader do you think he was after he got his sanity back?

Apply

• In what ways might God need to humble you?
• Why would he want to do that (think of the relationships you have with friends, family, co-workers and how humility might make you more connected to them as "one with you".
• In what ways might God be trying to get you to notice the oppression around you?
• In what ways might God be inviting you to risk experiencing hardship, pain and disappointment, even though you may have gotten good at avoiding it?
• How can this group be helpful as you choose to allow yourself to be humbled so that you might grow in compassion, awareness and love?

Of Forests and Trees. Abraham.

From a Jewish-identity perspective, it all stars with Abraham. Take this time to talk about not only Abraham but also what these images and stories means to faith for other people, in other cultures, all these generations later. There is a lot of content here. You should feel free to use all of it, or select parts that fit your group's personality.

Thaw

• What's the biggest thing you have ever been promised?
• What's the biggest promise you have ever made?
• What most stuck with you about the message Sunday?

Read

• Genesis 12:1-3
• Thoughts?
• What do you notice about what God is setting up?

Leader note: Note that God, six times in just these three verses, says "I will". It's already based on God before the details are given. Also note this is not a tribal or cultural or nation-based promise. It's for all. The actual hebrew terms translated here are "all the various tribes/families of the soil ("adamah") will be blessed because of you". This is something for all humanity, despite the rigid exclusivity that the Jews, and later the Christians, put on it.

Read

• Genesis 15:1-12
• Thoughts?
• Why would God count Abram's continued faith as righteousness, when he'd done nothing else at this point? Why is God so big on trust?

• Why do you think God had Abram reference the stars?

Leader note: Stars make the point of the innumerability of Abram's offspring very well. But also, remember, that Abram has been called out of a whole system that worships and depends on the close watching of the night sky to determine blessing. God is now teaching Abram to use it to remember the faithfulness of a real God.

• Why do you think God used an already established custom of covenanting with cut animals, verses creating something new to get the point of "commitment" across?

Leader note: God seems to, most times, take existing cultural norms and spin them. Circumcision already existed. Temples already existed. Law contracts with abbreviated summaries already existed (see the Torah and the 10 commandments for His spin on that), eating bread and drinking wine were already sacred acts, baptism already existed, sacred writings already existed, hymns, psalms, prophecies, shepherds, sacrifice, etc, etc...)

• Why doesn't God correct Abram for all his questions? 
• Does this seem like doubt? 
• Do you express your doubts to God, or to people, or do you hide it? Why?

Leader note: the  "birds of prey" in verse 11 are "ayit", most likely carrion eating falcons. These falcons are identified with the Egyptian God, Horus, and is likely a wink toward the people of Israel's coming tussle with Pharaoh that would last 4 centuries. But, the seed Abram would, in some sense, successfully shoo that bird away.

Read

• Gen 15:12-13, 17-18
• Thoughts?
• What are the implication of God walking thru the blood alone and twice?
• Going back to the original chat with Abram in Gen 12, and now this- the whole plan seems to rest on the shoulders of God. So, then- what's the responsibility of Abram and all that would come after him?

Leader note: in the coming chapters, you find Abram lying, sleeping with a servant, Hagar, to "help" God with His promise, getting very little right and being largely clueless. God doesn't seem to be hoping we all have our lives all put together.

• Respond as a group to this statement: "God has obligated Himself to what He alone created. He has made Himself the sole guarantor to all creation being set right and redeemed. All our prayers for justice, all our hopes and dreams for being made whole in our own hearts and in all our relationships, all our cries that what is evil and ugly and broken be mended, go to a God that promised He would do all these things. God has bound Himself to fulfilling the purest ache for salvation in us. He has compelled Himself in His covenant to Abram to save the world and to redeem everything in heaven and earth. He must follow through."

Apply

• How do covenant relationships differ from contractual ones?
• How do we live as covenant people in a world that needs the blessing God promised thousands of years ago? 
• What are some examples of stepping into this covenant in our own lives?
• Do you think this LifeGroup is an example of covenant relationships, or something else?
• What can the people of this group do to more fully give themselves to the others,regardless of others performance, merit, etc?

Of Forests & Trees. Jonah

They're all stories we've heard at least a piece of. Jonah, David and Goliath. Sampson. But few of us allow ourselves to glean more than the one or two layers of the story than we're familiar with. Oh, that's that story about the whale that ate that guy. That's the story about the weakling taking down a giant. That's that strong dude with good hair.

Spend some time as a group to discover why stories from as far back as the Bronze Age might still have something to say to our modern life, if we'll allow ourselves to resee the larger picture, the nuance and the subtext.

Thaw

• What is something you are learning right now?
• What most stuck with you from Sunday?

Watch

• Many in the group may have seen this before. But if not, it's a good intro into seeing more than what you've determined to look for: http://youtu.be/Ahg6qcgoay4
• (or, same principle but less well known, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzC_sHTW43c)

Discuss

• Can you remember a time where you became fixated on only one part of the whole (in a project, in a relationship, etc.) and regretted it? Share. 

Read

• Jonah 1:17
• Jonah 2:10
• Jonah 3:5
• Jonah 3:8
• Jonah 3:10
• Jonah 4:1-11
• Thoughts?
• What is this story about if we remove the giant fish? 
• In what ways does the story of Jonah differ from how you'd always thought of it?
• How do you think the first Jewish hearers of this story took it?

Apply

• What does your answer to the above have to do with our own understanding of God and our lives now?
• Do you think the plausibility of a fish swallowing Jonah detracts from the point of the story for us today, adds to it, or has no bearing? Explain?
• How can this group benefit from being challenged to see God as at work in the lives of those we determined were on the outside of our faith?