Church Stuff, week 6

And....We're back.

We hope that you have had a great summer thus far with your group, embracing that things are always different through the summer with group dynamics, but God is still at work and people are still hungry for challenge and meaning in their busy lives.

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This week, as we continue some church basics in Church Stuff, we tackle...or are tackled by, the Holy Spirit of God.

As a leader, you must from the very outset decide if you are going to discuss the Holy Spirit as a topic, or as the One first and most present in the room you're meeting. The former will make for some great chatting and perhaps some learning. The latter is a lifechanging environment where people leave a little differently, seeing the world and their lives a little differently, than when they arrived. DOn't worry about what you do not know. COme as a group to the feet of God and seek to learn and know him together. He wants to grow and guide your group more than you do. Your job is to create an environment where He can do what He does.

Here is the song performed at the close of service.

Thaw

• What are some things that have really stuck with you in this series?
• What are some things that you have really been hung up on?
• What are some things that you feel like God is asking you to take action on and you haven't?
• What most impacted you from the message this week?

Read

• Isaiah 11:1-2
• Thoughts?
• One was said to be coming that would be genealogically connected to the Jewish line, and yet would also have God's Spirit. This was to be Jesus. What comes to mind when you see how His Spirit is described, with wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge and deep respect or fear of the Lord?

Leader note: it may be worth noting, in connection with the above passage, Matthew 3:16. Try and help the group see that the Spirit of the Lord working in and through Jesus equals the inner things they want in each of their own lives, not just relative strangeness and faith-proving tricks. Help them see that these are things we all strive for, though the words we use might be slightly different. According to God, in this passage and in other places, it is only through the Spirit of the Root of Jesse, the Messiah, that these things can be had.

Read

• Acts chapter 2 (The Message translation)
• Thoughts?
• This passage has represented, for a long time, something referred to as the Birth of the Church. What would it be without the Holy Spirit doing what He did?
• Feeling free to use your imagination, what would change in your life, whether it be you faith, how you see your family or vocation, your past, your future, your satisfaction with your present, if God's Spirit were invited to come and breathe Life into all of it?

Leader note: If you have Christians in the room that non or new Christians might benefit from, reverse this question and ask, What would change in your life, whether it be you faith, how you see your family or vocation, your past, your future, your satisfaction with your present, if God's Spirit were taken out of all of it?

Discuss

• Why is it uncomfortable for us, intellectually, behaviorally, emotionally, to embrace that God's Spirit is present with us right now, as well as every single moment after this?
• What are your difficulties with taking on the role, with others, as a living temple of God?
• How do you think God sees these difficulties, since he is the one that came up with the idea to inhabit our messy lives?

Apply

• Vulnerability time: God's Holy Spirit is quietly prompting and hovering over the chaos of your life. Share with the group, no matter how unsure you feel about it, what He might be stirring, challenging, convicting and speaking in you.
• How can the group be helpful as you discern what God's Spirit might be up to.
• Does anyone feel on the outside of the church, even though they come to church and are part of this group? How can the rest of the group help you feel incorporated into the Holy Spirit-connected church of God?

Church Stuff, week 2

By the time you read this, you will have completed countless habitual tasks, motions, movements, routines, procedures and protocols. You, like the rest of us, are a person of habit. God knows this, thus- there are fundamental uses for what many of us have gotten used to calling useless; ritual.

Help your group to find the difference between the baby and the bathwater this week, and embrace the disciplines and ritual necessary to help hold our feet on the path while never letting those rituals becomes the focus or the point. The former is broken people letting God direct their worship and transformation tangibly. The latter is all the bad parts of religion.

What were the key points for you?

What was the "one thing" you took away?

What surprised you?

What bothered you? Why?

Have you ever heard or come across a similar teaching or idea? Have you ever been taught something that was contradictory?

What is/was already part of your thinking on this subject?

What did you learn that was new to you?

*About God?

*About yourself?

*About others?

What changes of thought are necessary in light of what you learned?

What changes of action are needed?

How would life be different if you/we applied this teaching fully?

What are the hindrances, and what do we do about those?

What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?

Church Stuff, week 1

For the next several weeks we'll be discussing some basic church doctrine. Things like baptism, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, etc. As new Christians come on line and as people come from other churches, we feel like it's it's important to cover some introductory ..... "stuff".

In this first week, we cover the church. But to get there, we have to cover a whole lot of other ground first. Our view of the church is quite a few layers underneath our view of God and even religion itself. Help your group take a step in understanding what/who the church is, and what it means to be part of her. Foundational kinds of learning only have value is we all come away ready to apply and do! And nothing could be more applicable than a proper understanding of the church.

Use your meeting time to get your group discussing something that transcends "membership". This is about a mutual response to God's call. A gathering of Kingdom people to go out and do Kingdom things. Church only has value if we leave to go and do what we sing and pray and talk about while together. Find out what kinds of things serve as obstacles, and how to work around them so that the body of christ can be released to do what she does.

Key texts

• Hebrews 10:24-25
• Romans 12:3-5'
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
• Colossians 1:17-20

What were the key points for you?

What was the "one thing" you took away?

What surprised you?

What bothered you? Why?

Have you ever heard or come across a similar teaching or idea? Have you ever been taught something that was contradictory?

What is/was already part of your thinking on this subject?

What did you learn that was new to you?

*About God?

*About yourself?

*About others?

What changes of thought are necessary in light of what you learned?

What changes of action are needed?

How would life be different if you/we applied this teaching fully?

What are the hindrances, and what do we do about those?

What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?

Taste & See

Using the generic format this week, walk through the message and find out out what it means for the group to take a step(s) as unified individuals. Be sure and ask, specifically, who is stepping out in faith for the first time, and who is taking a step for the first time in a long time. Explore the so-what factor, and remember to recognize that your group environment is probably the only shot your members have at making a message become an actual, personal challenge.

Psalm 34:8 may serve as an anchor for your time. The surrounding verses mention "fearing" the Lord. Should this come up, it may be helpful to understand that though the Hebrew words can mean as much as terrify, the context often puts these words up against other things we fear in different ways. So, it's typically a transferring of fear, such as no longer fearing something like going without extravagance, or fearing what someone thinks, but instead fearing God. Rather than terror, we're invited to fear the Lord by way of recognizing who God actually is, beyond our casual assumptions. Meeting God, with a sober view of ourselves, shouldn't be casual. Fear, biblically, is a humble respect. We already fear things (typically the thing we spend most of our money on has much to do with where our fears are pointed....look at what we spend the most on as a society and that's what we give our respect/worship...from entertainment to our appearance to healthcare....), but once clear, our fears should be rooted in our position toward God, by way of our chief concern being about our Creator and the life he designs, not any other man-made interest. This is a discussion about worship...if you didn't notice. Whatever we fear, we worship.

What were the key points for you?

What was the "one thing" you took away?

What surprised you?

What bothered you? Why?

Have you ever heard or come across a similar teaching or idea? Have you ever been taught something that was contradictory?

What is/was already part of your thinking on this subject?

What did you learn that was new to you?

*About God?

*About yourself?

*About others?

What changes of thought are necessary in light of what you learned?

What changes of action are needed?

How would life be different if you/we applied this teaching fully?

What are the hindrances, and what do we do about those?

What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?