Weighing God p1

Glory to God in the Highest = Peace on earth.

Glory to other gods = No peace on earth.

As "bumper-sticker" as it seems, this is the premise of true spirituality. When God is seen for God's true significance, our inner wrinkles iron out. Other wise, we become subject to our circumstances, our state of being dictated by all the outer wrinkles of life.

Use this group time to explore alternative ways of thinking about all that we want in our lives. Some of us are bent on improving our looks, numbing pain, giving others a piece of our mind, making more money, finding someone to marry, getting the editorial section into conformity with our views, etc, etc. Other of us have simply said that our peace and contentment will be predicated on a loved one's health, or their living, or on getting out of unemployment. The ancient wisdom says theirs a way to take responsibility in all those columns without becoming subject to them.

At the end, or maybe in the middle of your time, consider 4 or 5 minutes of silence (even if their are kids gathered in another room, banging off walls...), to learn how to stabilize and embrace the full, peaceful awareness at the feet of Christ that we're offered in any moment, any time, no matter what.

Thaw

• How has December stress affect you and your relationships?
• If it hasn't, has it in the past?
• What do you feel like goes wrong if it does? If this doesn't seem to apply to you, what is your secret?
• What most resonated with you from Sunday morning?

Read

• Mark 4:35-40 
• Thoughts?
• How do you imagine Jesus' demeanor as he woke up?

Discuss

• Jesus may seem insensitive to their fears. How does this apply to us now if he was not apathetic to their dangers but was displaying an alternative state to their terror and stress?

Leader note: the Greek word translated "drown" is the same word translated "perish" or "dying" in other places. It's not specific to their watery situation, and their state can be found in us in all kinds of scenarios.

• Do you know anyone one who seems to never be unsettled by "the waves"?
• Would you say this person was "successful" or "unsuccessful"?

Leader note: this last question is intended to get the group thinking about whether someone has to trade real abiding peace for getting things done. Most of us in the west, especially in our neck of it, believe our display of agitation, emotional outbursts, wrinkled brows, etc- all communicate "hard at work".

If anyone has seen the movie Lincoln, it may be good to reference his being portrayed as nearly unflappable- even in the face of criticism, disagreement, shallowness, set backs, injustice and limited time to accomplish important goals.

•  Do you find you're attracted to others' peace, or threatened by it? (Or another reaction?) Why do you think that is?

Read

• Luke 10:38-42 
• Thoughts?
• Which are you most often; Mary or Martha? Why do you answer that way?

Discuss

• Without feeling a need to hyper-spiritualize Christ's words, what is he saying by telling Martha that, though she's anxious and upset about tons of stuff, there's really only one thing she needs to have in her mind?
• What does this say about all the real responsibilities of life?
• Both Martha and Mary's names mean "Rebellion". But that rebellion seems to be playing out in contrary ways. Explore this idea.

Apply

• We live in what many refer to as a Christianized society. But our rates of stress (seen in our health and relational dynamics) seems like anything but "peace on earth". What are a few ways this group can embody peace?
• How much of this effort to live at peace in all matters feels a bit like a lost cause? 
• How can the people in this group, and the discipline of coming together and being real with one another, help each of you to stabilize and find peace, no matter what life throws at you?

Quiet meditation

• Spend just a few moments unclenching your jaw, relaxing your face and shoulders, breathing evenly and thinking about Christ asleep in the stern of the boat. See how calm he is while water splashes and lighting burns the sky. Be mindful of the tension in your body, releasing it, and trading it for the peace that comes with recognizing that their is a master higher than that which keeps us on edge.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace....

Bobby McFerrin was right

Spend some time in your group discussing that which has us worrying and upset. None of it needs worried about, regardless of the varying levels of required concern. Worry is always a frantic lie about what's effective in solving our problems.

As well as discussing what most stuck with the members of the group from Sunday morning, Here are some texts for discussion and reflection.

Matthew 6:22-34
1 Peter 5:7

Make sure and allow people with the least amount of worry in their life to share how they see life and where they learned it. Also allow people who seem to worry the most to share, and see if the group can find patterns. Be gentle, as worriers may worry all the more for being singled out as somehow defective in relation to the rest of the "more spiritual" members of the group. We all worry about something, so it's finding out who is most incapacitated by it generally.

Deja Vu Resurrection

This conversation is sure to challenge paradigms and the best kind of cause head-scratching (this is not to say the conversation can actually cause dandruff. That issue cannot be blamed on the topic...). Many of us are so used to phrases like "died and gone to heaven" that we've stopped asking what the real trajectory of our life is, from a Biblical perspective. Both now and forever.

Use this time not necessarily to correct doctrine, but to catalyze a desire for involvement in life NOW. Not just after we die; eternal life is available to us immediately.


Read & Discuss 1 Corinthians 15.
Note that Paul calls "fools" those who ask what the resurrection will be like, going on to say that the thing sewed (a seed) is nothing like what will grow. Paul seems to be saying that there's no way on THIS side of resurrection what we will be like. It's all speculation for seeds to try and comprehend the plant they will be. It's a foolish focus on the issue of resurrection, being that it's yet a mystery. Yet, Paul continues to talk about resurrection hope, and does so through the analogy of sewing seed. Sewing a seed, you may agree, is an act of will- while literal dying (someone sewing you for you) is often involuntary. Paul is speaking of literal death and resurrection, but also intimating that a figurative death and resurrection is our duty now. To sew ourselves (unless he's advocating suicide) is a death and resurrection we take part in today. Thus Paul could say "I die daily!" So, both kinds of dying and living are present in this chapter. A fixation on the unknowable mystery of literal resurrection is in some sense the fruit of hope, but in another, cause for Paul to call you a fool. Read and apply accordingly.

Other Key Texts
John 19:38-20:18
Galatians 2:17-21
John 5:24 (Notice it's already true!)
Rev 21:1-3 (Notice ultimately it's a story of God coming down to humanity, not humanity floating up.)

Discussion and Application
Ask what it is that has the individuals, the families or the whole group stuck and afraid "in the upper room" (John 20). What might the Spirit be inviting them to do, even in the face of danger and difficulty and at great risk to comfort and the status quo, in order that they may be a part of resurrecting their own minds, hearts and their part of the world? How can the group help with whatever is discovered and shared?

Deja Vu: The One Thing More Scandalous Than Sin

After discussing the highlights from the week (discuss politics at your peril!) and from Sunday morning, read Matthew 20:1:16 and Luke 23:39-43. Guide your group to really discuss grace- not the doctrine, but the reality of it available in our lives. 
Try and be honest, if even imaginative, about how you would actually feel in these scenes from Matthew and Luke; not as mere readers of text in a living room, but as participants in what's being described. 
Then, decide what must be adjusted in our faith/life if this is truly what God (and God-loving) is like.

Deja Vu Primordial Oneness

People often say they want to "go deep" at a church. Some come and go to Crosspointe for varying views and levels of satisfaction about what this even means.

Unfortunately, far too often, deep is thought to have a strictly academic connotation. People want to know more about the stuff of words and history and theology.

For your group time, entertain the very real likelihood that deep, to the one who hung it all on love, has to do with how much we pour ourselves into another, with or without full explained theology.

There is nothing deeper than the unity Christ wants to foster between any and every two human beings.

"Imagine discovering in your church bulletin an announcement of a six-week seminar on how to genuinely bless someone who is spitting on you." (November 3rd Tweet by Dallas Willard)

Thaw

• What Thanksgiving plans do you have, and how does that affect our LifeGroup schedule?

• What most impacted you from Sunday?
• Do you plan to, or have you already, participated in the Election Day Communion event? Thoughts?

Read

• Ephesians Chapter 2

Leader note: This is easy to undervalue if you don't consider that gentiles (the nations, the "others" for thousands of years for Jewish people) were to be completely avoided. Even to touch them was forbidden for those who wanted to stay ritually pure. This is NOT to say that there was an ongoing campaign to get rid of them or to do them harm. It is to say that there was a definite boundary between the two because their view of reality, and specifically God(s), were totally incompatible. Paul had upheld this boundary by profession as a Pharisee. Now, he seems to celebrate how reversed everything is in Christ.

• In what ways do we undermine Christ's unifying work by making "Christianity" the point?
• In what ways do we work against unity, intentionally or not, in the way we stand for ideas or defend beloved traditions?
• In what ways do we pretend unity in things like spiritual matters, such as articulated in Ephesians 2 or in any church sermon, but in daily life undermine it with divisiveness?

Read

• John 17:20-23
• Galatians 5:13-15
• Ephesians 4:6
• Colossians 1:19-20
• 2 Timothy 2:22-25

• Thoughts?
• Does our unity and love for each other and all, seem like a new idea or an old idea?
• What is the value in the difference between trying to forge a connection with others, and coming to see a connection that is already there.

Leader note: reconciliation, among other words, assumes by definition that there was an original connection that is being "re" made. Help the group understand that Christ isn't asking us to make as much as identify unity!

Apply

• How can you dial back competition and dominance in your life, replacing it with the often thankless, seemingly impossible task of being at one with others?
• What in your life will oppose any efforts to be more at one with others?

Leader note: Be as specific as possible here. There are specific ways our thinking works against oneness and peace between us. Church creeds and doctrinal stances and entire denominations, prejudice, unexplored sexism, longstanding grudges, pride in ability to make snap judgments, devaluing people with less education, viewing different political views as bad or idiotic, habitual non-listening to certain perspectives, etc. All of these (and countless others) must be brought to the front of thought so that we can become aware of all the ways we fight unity in trade for something hierarchal.

Idea

• Consider, as a group, emailing (or creating a list serve or a blog, etc.) each other daily ways that you have found some success in showing oneness with others, where you got hung up in the moment, and where it seemed impossible to be united with someone even in hindsight. If they will truly "know we are Christians by our love", then that love- that creative fight for unity with all people as much as is possible- is something worth working on throughout the week. If your group does this, please share the results.

Deja Vu -Remember and reconcile

This week we do some communal remembering.
Crosspointe celebrates 15 years, and so we're going to take some to thank God for this journey, young as it is, God has us on.

Interestingly, most of us weren't here at the beginning, and so remembering doesn't seem like the right term. How can you remember something you never participated in? This is the beauty of communal remembering. Like the Israelites remembering the Passover for hundreds, even thousands of years (a tough feat for beings that only live 80 years if they're lucky), we remember all of our journey together. Our story is not our own.

Additionally, we will be taking communion. As always, feel free to do that in the context of your group as well. If you have concerns that it's too much to take communion on sunday and then again in your group, keep in mind frequency is not dictated in the scriptures. Many did/do it daily.

The message also ties these elements in. Discuss them as a group from a historical perspective, but also try and find a way or ways that it matters for us today in a non ethereal, truly down-to-earth sort of way.


Thaw

• How long have you been going to Crosspointe? How did you come to find out about it?
• What was your first experience like?

• What most stuck with you from this Sunday?

Read

• Exodus 12:8-11, 12-13
• Thoughts?
• What metaphoric significance might this part of the story have when you consider the firstborn is the primary inheritor of name, property, dynasty, etc.?

Leader note: Some in the group may be hung up on a gruesome, literal rendering of the story. This is fair, although it paralyzes the text as a historical document. If you have members that seem most focused on what this seems to reveal about God should it be literal, here are a few tips to move the group along. 1) Affirm the person's compassion on the children and animals. This compassion, ironically, comes from God. Without the God we are judging as unconcerned with the mass murder he is portrayed as doling out on Egypt, how else can we care for people across millennia so deeply? Our care for these people, and our judgment of God as ruthless, are actually great evidence that God is good and made us the same. 2) Entertain that this story was gruesome then too. This is why it was written down. If it were a non-issue, then it wouldn't have been the key shocker of the story. 3) Remind the group that we interpret God through the life of Christ (Heb 1:3, John 14:7, etc) who was neither a murderer, nor a hater of his enemies. Additionally, he told parables. Perhaps he's always told parables, even before the New Testament ones!

• From an underdog perspective, which the Hebrews certainly had, what would the story of an Egyptian Empire being cut off and handicapped for your sake mean to you?

Leader note: It may be worth pointing out that God routinely sides with those without power. As we think about aligning ourselves with God to be sure and be on the right side of things, we must also consider what that means to our sense of empowerment, as well as what that means to others without it.

Read

• Colossians 1:19-20
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• The english word "reconcile" breaks down as "re" (again) and "concilare" (make friendly). Christ makes animosity, a break in created friendliness between all things, come together again. This, Paul calls "making peace".  How does this fit or not fit with your experience of Christian faith?
• How is reconciliation possible when not everyone/thing wants to "make friendly again"?

Read

• Romans 12:18
• Thoughts?

Apply

• What role do we play in reconciliation, and what might that have to do with our continued taking of communion?
• What role can we not play in reconciliation?
• What reasons might there be for intermingling the words "Body of Christ" for both the church and the bread and cup in the New Testament?
• Where does reconciliation need to play out more in your life?

Leader note: It may seem obscure, but the thread of these questions has everything to do with enslaved people becoming free. The path way is forgiveness and reconciliation, initiated by one who didn't sin.

This Sunday...

Hello my group-leading superheroes

There will be no specific outline for  group discussion this Sunday. As such, I wanted to give you a heads up so that you can:
A. Listen to the message this sunday with one ear tuned to how you'd like to take any thoughts further in your unique group.
B. Look up these passages (which will be referenced in the message) ahead of time to see what springs forth in you to discuss with your group. (Luke 7:18-23, Isaiah 35:5-6, Isaiah 42:7, Isaiah 61:1, Jon 5:1-8, Matt 23:26)
C. Think about how you'd like to use and tweak the generic discussion template:

• What most stuck out for you about Sunday morning?
• What were the key points for you in the message?
• What was the "one thing" you took away that seems applicable in your own, personal life?
• What did you learn:
• *About God?
• *About yourself?
• *About others?
• What changes in thought and in style-of-relating might be necessary in light of what you've learned?
• What are the hindrances to transformation, and what do we do about those?
• What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?

May God bless your leadership, commitment and the time you and your groups spends together. Peace

Steve

Deja Vu Part 4

As always, our hope is that LifeGroup is a place where brothers and sisters come together and realize they ARE the church, and aren't merely a meeting that talks ABOUT church.

As such, consider strongly this particular message on the temple of God and how it pertains to our view of what it means to participate in God's life. In your group time, as the leader, look for ways to help your members step more into what it means to be part of what God is up to, to cease from an observational role in the church, and to stop discounting themselves because of the seemingly natural inclination to rate themselves up against what they assume to be super-christians.

Additionally, this would be a great week to take communion as a group. The paradox of the Body of Christ is that it celebrates membership by consumption of the Body of Christ. Many of us have grown up in Christian contexts where this is a foreign concept. Communion, or the Eucharist, can only be headed by someone with the clearance for such a job. However, in the scriptures and in the truest tradition of the early church, communion is the eating of bread and drinking of juice/wine and celebrating what Christ, the head of the Body, has been doing in our lives. We need to celebrate every time LifeGroups take on the function of the church where study, prayer, service, growing mindfulness, baptism and communion are concerned. Enjoy! (It is not recommended that you drink wine, or any other alcohol for that matter, until you are 100% confident that none of the members of your group struggle with addiction or have loved ones that do and feel negatively about it. Grape juice is equal to fine for communion.)


Thaw

• Where is your childhood home? What is special about it?
• Did you have friends that had houses that were known by other kids as "the go to" house? What made it special?
• Why are living spaces so important to human beings?
• When you think about how much of human history has to do with buildings to dwell and live in (from castles to holes in the ground), what might the absence of any mention of Jesus' house in the scriptures be teaching us?

Read

• Gen 1:2 (God's Spirit is immediately present over creation from the beginning.)
• Gen 3:8 (In the midst of the Fall, we see God's dwelling is with people directly)
• Exodus 25:8-9
• John 1:14
• Rev 21:1-3 (a return to what was originally intended)
• Thoughts?

Leader note: The New Testament word translated "dwell" or dwelt" is actually the verb form of tent. "Tabernacled" is the idea.

Read

• 1 Corinthians 6:19
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• A progression of understanding seems to take us from the idea that God lives in a tent, to God lives in us even as we make tents. Do you consciously live as though God lives in and through you, or do you hold to the older idea that God lives somewhere else?
• What are the implications of your answer to the previous question?
• What are the implications for members of your group, or a church, or a faith tradition, having different answers to this question?

Read

• Acts 17:22-28
• Thoughts?
• Many of us want to hold to the idea that God only lives in or near good people, or forgiven people. But Paul taught people seemingly "far from God" that they aren't as far as they thought. Discuss the idea that Christian people are aware (where other people are less so) of the God that is always in our midst and what that means for our real, day-to-day, outside the tent and temple lives.

Apply

• What happens to our faith and our real life as we begin to believe that we actually harbor God's Spirit, whether we were previously awake to it or not?
• How can we help each other wake up to this?
• How does our unity play into our discovery that Alight God wants to be known in our collective midst?

Leader note: This may be a good time to talk about forgiveness between us, a lack of gossip, the removal of cynicism and divisiveness, etc. All of these things separate us and block our awareness that a united Humanity was always God's goal.

Deja Vu, Temptation part II

"I can resist anything except for temptation." -Oscar Wilde

This is week is both week two of the series as well as the second part of the message regarding Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. Using the generic discussion template below (which is useful for any resource you are reading or watching together) try and find ways the members of your group are living in a belief that life is found in constant ascent. In turn, see what it might look like in the near term and the long to follow Christ back down the mountain into vulnerable, powerful living.

This will be a potentially confusing topic for those that believe in a literal upward trajectory for faithful people. This discussion may have the side effect of helping people to hold hyperbole and metaphor less tightly in order to appreciate the deeper meaning.

• What most stuck out for you about Sunday morning?
• What were the key points for you in the message?
• What was the "one thing" you took away that seems applicable in your own, personal life?
• What did you learn:
• *About God?
• *About yourself?
• *About others?
• What changes in thought and in style-of-relating might be necessary in light of what you've learned?
• What are the hindrances to transformation, and what do we do about those?
• What role can this group play to help you take steps this week and beyond?

Passages for discussion.

• Matthew 4:1-11
• Matthew 16:13-23
• James 1:12-21

Deja Vu, Temptation

This series is all about that strange sense where you feel like this isn't the first time you've come across this. Whatever this is. 
In the context of direction for the next several weeks, we want to recognize where this pertains to Jesus and his life as depicted in the Gospels. Sometimes it's his words. Other times just where he is standing. A familiarity not only with having read that part of the gospel, but with the setting itself, can come over you.
Sometimes Jesus sounds a lot like Moses.
Sometimes like Israel herself.
Sometimes like people or circumstances in your own life.


This week, wrestle with the wrestling Jesus did in the desert. These first two of the three temptations were not just for Christ to pass a test, but to further show his solidarity with his own familial history and with all those that would come after him.


Thaw

• Where you are from, what is fall like?
• What most stuck with you from Sunday morning and why did it seem important to you?

Read

• Matt 4:1-4
• Thoughts?
• What key words are your eyes drawn to?

Read

• Deut 8:2-3
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• Taking the imagery further, how does this temptation speak to our lives now in the modern west?

Read

• Matthew4:5-7
• Thoughts? 

Read

• Psalm 91:9-13
• Thoughts?

Leader note; You may want to point out that the tempter leaves out in his quote of Psalm 91 the line where the Cobra (a serpent) and the Lion (one of the euphemisms for sin) are crushed under the heel of the One spoken of. This also pertains visually to the promise in Genesis 3 where the seed of Eve will, eventually, crush the serpents head, even though being injured in the process. Obviously this part was not beneficial to the tempter, so it was omitted.

Read

• Deut. 6:16
• Thoughts

Leader note: Make sure and guide the conversation to an understanding that it doesn't anger God when we test him. We all do it. More than God's irritability is at stake. We who are constantly testing and making contingencies on God's performance are establishing a relationship based on what God does. This puts us in control as well as makes the miracles, the answers and the sense of safety that come with our assurances our master.  Not God himself. 

Discuss

• What does this second temptation have to do with us?
• Why has God always been using a chosen few, Israel or Christ himself to show what trust (regardless of external circumstances) looks like?
• How does it help or hurt to consider that Christ is showcasing God's goodness and trustworthiness, while aware that his ministry and life would be cut short by a brutal crucifixion?
• Why is it difficult to see God as worthy of trust when things can go so badly with or without that trust in him?

Apply

• How can this group, or even just a few members of it, help you be a person of trust and peace no matter what temptations to the contrary come around?

A book named Action

"Those are good problems to have."

This is the retort of many people outside the Crosspointe community when they hear the challenges we face.  The logistical difficulties with parking and routing children and adjusting service times. The constant need for volunteer leaders in LifeGroups, student ministry, first impressions, etc. The sheer number of people and what it means to be their church home. The alternative to all of this of course is staring out the window, wondering why the same number of people slip in and slip out every weekend with no effort to or by them. Yawn.

Yes, we have some challenges. But they're good ones.

Use this group time to not only discuss the particulars of being part of a church that has grown so much in so relatively little time. But also recognize that the principles, countercultural as they are, help us experience fullness of life in every respect.



Thaw

• Besides sports or a favorite TV show, what seems to be on your mind the most as the fall season gets underway?
• How is your attitude about all this and why?
• What has most stuck with you from Sunday morning?

Read 

• Acts 20:35
• Though Paul is speaking directly to funding the mission and remaining generous with money, the principle for which he quotes Jesus, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’, is applicable more generally. How have you found it to be true in your life?
• In what ways is our culture learning that to give your self to something is nobler than to take from it?
• In what ways do our lives find confusion in being a Communer vs a Consumer?

Leader note: The idea here is to help members grow in awareness that we often mix the giving and taking roles. When we do this, the taking role is disguised as a giving role but is actually dominating the person's life. Such examples might be giving money mostly for a tax write-off, saying kind things to your spouse to earn sex, cleaning the house to assuage vocalized disappointment, making promises to garner promotions or votes. These and countless other ways appear to be giving, and are even celebrated. But, as always, the heart of the one acting, not their actions, is Christ's concern.

Discuss

• Within the context of Crosspointe, how might the individuals better exhibit being part of the story?

Leader note: This is no guilt trip. Some people can't serve any more than they already are, can't at all, or just shouldn't. There is a phenomenon where the same few people keep taking on responsibilities, wearing themselves out. Like a football game with 22 people sweating and exhausted and 40,000 spectators sitting and watching. This question doesn't represent this kind of scenario being perpetuated. It's simply about people who have predominantly received other's effort instead jumping in and saying "I want to be part of this!" Should interest be expressed, regardless of the area (parking lot, children, students, cafe, info team, etc.) have the person email volunteers@crosspointe.org

• Within the context of Crosspointe, how might this group better exhibit being part of the story?

Leader note: Dinners at DRM. Mission trip. Serving together as an entire volunteer team for children on Sunday morning, etc. Again, contact volunteers@crosspointe.org for more information.

• Outside the context of Crosspointe, what are some ways that you can live the kind of story where you give yourself to others more than you hold expectations and demands on them?

Meditate and Apply

• Many times when a challenge for volunteers and "doing" go out from a church leadership, it just sounds like manipulation and coercing. Hopefully, what is being conveyed and heard is instead an ongoing invitation to be part of a better story. To leave the tired narrative about predominantly taking, expecting, consuming and evaluating based on personal benefit, and embrace sacred difficulty as a new way of life. Read Acts chapters 1&2 to yourself, and allow the Spirit to kindle, or rekindle an excitement about being part of something bigger than a Sunday event going well. We're all invited into the story of the one who gave Himself, and called it more blessed.

Mind Your Head: People of the Smaller Table

On a chilly Saturday, March 4, 1933, with the US reeling in economic hardship few of us could really comprehend, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in the opening of his inaugural speech,

"...first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Here we are, eight decades after the Great Depression, still learning from these historic words. Still trying to figure out how un-paralyze in the face of economic challenges. Still trying to figure out what to do with a seemingly primal urge to be terrified. Still allowing ourselves to slip into a visceral, instinctive anxiety that robs us of the very life we're trying to protect with panic.

And Jesus offers us, in yet another way, rescue. Freedom from slavery. Peace during storms.

Use this group time to not only discuss the topic, but to uncover ways that the topic describes how the members of your group are living their actual lives. This isn't most centrally about money, even though that issue is the anchor we're using. It's about wisdom and mindfulness. Remember, wisdom isn't just about knowing things that others might not. Wisdom is being able to apply that knowledge when everyone else has succumbed to reflex. You may find that your LifeGroup is the best (only?) shot some of your members have to live a different way, despite the culture demanding we live off fear and the divisiveness that goes with it.


Thaw

• Share a time when you were paralyzed by fear.
• What most stuck with you from Sunday?

Read

• 1 Timothy 6:6-21
• Thoughts?
• Why was this a big enough deal for Paul to close his letter to Timothy this way?
• What would you say is the wrong way to understand his words to Timothy, and ourselves?
• Have you seen what Paul is warning Timothy about play itself out in your or others' life?

Read

• Matthew 6:25-34
• Thoughts?
• Do we believe Jesus is giving realistic words to us in this passage? Why or why not?
• Jesus mentions "what will we eat...drink...wear..?" These are primary categories of sustenance and protection from the elements. What can we learn by his not mentioning "How will I pay for my house?" or "where will I work?" or "how will I receive a college education?".

Leader note: The idea in this last question is to recalibrate our perspective about how much of our normal life would be better considered a blessing. An extra. In speaking to the poorest of the poor, Jesus was speaking to base needs. To us, it sounds like he doesn't understand what needs really are because his list is so incomplete. Many of us have amassed so many things and experiences that we forget a life of blessing can be lived in conditions we may now unconsciously consider a curse. Being careful not to demonize the wonderful blessings we have, it's helpful for people to see how insulated from reality they can have us become. God may not consider us in a tragic situation if we lose our house or are unable to fix our car. Challenged, but not in a tragedy. Worry is a sign that we have forgotten that poverty is relative, and that we've been invited to live richly at every level of resource.

• What are things that sneak up and make you worry the most?
• How does this affect your life? The life of those around you?

Read

• Proverbs 15:17
• Thoughts?

Read

• Romans 12:1-2a
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• How can we, in the midst of a culture that seems to exist on fear and impulse, live un-conformed lives?
• What would the affect be on the culture if followers of Christ were known not by what they were against, but for being models of wholeness, peace and love no matter the outer circumstances?

Apply

• What are things you feel paralyzed by right now?
• How can this group help you?

Leader note: People may say that there is nothing the group can do to help. This presupposes that there is nothing that can be done with the fear and as such, must be experienced. Gently reaffirm that the person is not alone, that Christ's words about worry are about perspective change, not circumstance change, and allow the group to be creative in how it can love its members.

Story

• Many of us have heard this story, but it does a good job in repositioning us back into the reality we most desire:

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.

As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.

The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”

The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”

“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.

“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.

The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”

The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.

“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”

The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”

The fisherman asks, “And after that?”

The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”

The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

Mind Your Head, The Habit of Pain

An old man stands by the side of a road outside a large city. A younger man walks up to him on his way into town and asks the elder, "I'm moving into this city, what are people like here?"

"Well. first tell me what people were like in the city you came from," the old man responded.

"They were great. Very kind. Hard working. They're good people and I'll miss them," he answered.

The old man stared into the city with a smile. "Son, that's exactly how these people are. You're going to love them. Welcome."

"Thanks, old timer," the young man said as he continued on his way.

Not a minute behind the young man, a second came. The second young man stopped where the old man had stationed himself and, with a sigh, asked the same question.

"So, what are people like in this town?"

"How about first you tell me about people where you come from."

"Eh," the young man said with a dismissive snort. "A bunch of selfish, no good, morons. It's good to have them in my past."

"Well son," the old man said with sympathy in his face. "I am sorry to have to tell you, that that's exactly how the people in this city are. Good luck."

We're often creating a world and accusing it of already being that way. And in this projection that we call reality, we shape God and others around our own imagination. Right or wrong, this takes some undoing. As people of the Christ, our goal is to live properly with our maker and others. This is not possible to the extent that we're not actually interacting with them as they are. We don't get any points (or really any sort of ultimately enjoyable life) for living well within the boundaries of a world we made up in the first place.

Thaw

• What are a couple scenarios where you have noticed wisdom having a larger role in your days?
• Have you noticed wise decisions in others that you may have overlooked before?

Read

• Psalm 139
• Thoughts?
• What thoughts, whether extended from the message on Sunday or from this reading, do you have about David's song?

Discuss

• In what ways have you noticed that your past has shaped how you see your present or future?
• In what ways have you noticed that the way you see others has been shaped by the events of your past?
• How does the cross of Christ speak to pain in all its intensity and unfairness?

Read

• Romans 12:9-21
• Thoughts?
• How does God take revenge, and how might this feel dissatisfying at first?

Leader note: This will serve for some as a trick question. Make sure and note that the last sentence, overcoming evil with good, isn't a command that we're told to follow but God doesn't also live by. This is the peculiar, eternal way of God- canceling out evil with goodness. He doesn't answer pain with ugliness like we so often do. This is why it can be dissatisfying: we want God to hate like we hate, and to take our side. But instead, he absorbs pain and evil, ours and "theirs", and offers us a whole new way outside of a reaction to the one we've walked. He answer's pain and evil and sin from his wholeness. His holiness! See Romans 2:4 as well)

• As we reflect on the pain that we've both caused and suffered, how can we learn to get past it through the cross?

Leader note: Some will try and get past it with religious rhetoric and bumper sticker theology. Kindly call that out. We're talking about people sharing actual, lived experience with healing and wholeness through the Christ, not simply parroted phrases.

• Respond as a group to this quote:

“Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, "God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts.The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, 'Me too.'" ― Rob Bell

Apply

• How do we pray what David prayed at the end of Psalm 139 and mean it?
• How do we expect God might show us the Habit of Pain and us quitting it?
• How can this group help make you more aware of how pain and guilt and regret and anger are shaping the world for you?

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.

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.

Mind Your Head. "What Wise People Know."

• "A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel." Prov. 1:5   

 In our second week on wisdom, work hard with your group to reinforce that "knowing things" isn't the point of life, but living is. Wisdom is a way of saying "we know what kind of life, in any given moment, we ought to live". Let us never forget that we can memorize all the original-language words for wisdom, preach compelling sermons and participate in an ancient philosophy discussion, all centers on what wisdom is and is not, and still be morons! If this doesn't do anything, it isn't anything.




Thaw

• How has "wisdom" and/or wise choice-making come up since last week?
• What did you learn?
• What old patterns tried to take over that are at odds with what you sense was real wisdom?
• What most stuck with you from our time together on Sunday morning?

Read

• "A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel." Prov. 1:5   
• "The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out." Prov. 18:15
• "The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice." Prov. 12:15 

• Thoughts?
• Are you surprised to find that the wise person is described as being a learner? Explain.

Leader note: The idea here is simple; fools and know-it-alls position themselves in a way that tries to communicate they already know. They already know the news. They already know about the best products. They already know the latest science and psychological and dietary scoop. They already know what's going on politically, who's involved and even why. You can't tell them anything. Their job, from their perspective is to tell YOU. Yet, it's the wise people in the scriptures who eagerly learn from everybody, comparing ideas, asking questions and follow up questions, and aren't letting their insecure hopes to be something special overtake their desire to know how reality actually works. Einstein was once quoted as having said "the difference between me and others is that when people find a needle in a haystack, they quit. After I find it, I keep looking through the haystack to see what else I can find."

• Were you raised in an environment that chiefly celebrated the power of knowing or the power of learning?
• How has thus affected how you interact with others and the information about reality today?
• Respond as a group to the first point in Sunday's message:

 "Wise people know when they don't know".

Read

• "The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it." Prov. 27:12
• "All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." Prov. 14:23 

• Thoughts?
• How is Sunday at church, or even this LifeGroup a potentially dangerous environment when we consider that there's work to do outside the emotional experience of merely "agreeing".
• What do we learn about the role of wisdom when we see God sent the Christ to live among us rather than an updated set of rules?
• Respond as a group to the second point of the message: 

"Wise people know "should" won't get them there."

Read

• "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes..." Prov. 3:5-7

• Thoughts?
• Why would humility and wisdom go together like this?
• What kinds of things do we have difficulty entrusting to God, and what kinds of things are no-brainers? See if you can find a pattern.
• Respond as a group to the third point of the message: 

"Wise people know that trusting something you have control over to someone else is when trust gets real."

Apply

• There's no much that can be done about all this in the context of a group discussion. This must be enacted. How can this group help you this week in our continued journey toward being wise people?
• When this week can you, ahead of time, prepare yourself to acquire wisdom? Think about places, people, meetings that you'll be confronted with in the next several days. How can you plan now to be wise and glean wisdom from there?
• In what ways are you hoping discussing all this will be enough because to actually start making good decisions about a particular issue is far too difficult?

Prayer

• Consider ending in silent prayer, reflecting on the proverbs above, hoping to leave your time together slightly more open to God's wisdom (wherever you find it) than when you arrived.

MInd Your Head. "Wisdom's First Move"

For the next several weeks we will be discussing select proverbs, as well as the greater theme of how to find and apply wisdom. It will be helpful to bear in mind that these proverbs are not simply penned by the wise Solomon, but collected by him. Whenever he heard wise words in the market place, read them in texts, heard other kings or nobles share them, he would capture them. In other words, what we call sacred scripture both originated with faithful forefathers, and were identified outside the faith by same- and taken. Wisdom is, in part, recognizing truth and substance wherever you may find it. 


The wisest man in the world didn't become a faucet. He became a bucket!


And then, and for the ensuing millennia, these were phrases taught to children and traded as gems with other thinkers. Some brought on chin rubbing. Some brought on bursts of laughter. All of them were cherished as little insights to how people and reality actually worked.


You may consider committing some proverbs to memory as individuals or as a group during this series. Write them on index cards, text them to each other at points during the day and week. Be creative.


_________________________________________________
Thaw

• Who do you think of when you think of wisdom?

Leader note: Point out, once everyone has shared, whether people listed real or fictional characters and what that might mean for our perception of wisdom.

• When is a time where you felt wise? What were you measuring against?

"That's all it takes, one drop of fear to curdle love into hate."

-JAMES M. CAIN, Double Indemnity

Read

• Proverbs 9:10
• Thoughts?
• How did the message agree or differ from your thoughts about the phrase "To fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"?
• What one thought about properly understanding "fear" most stuck with you?
• Why would wisdom start here and not somewhere else?

Leader note: Another way to ask this is, "why is it good for us that wisdom start here?" This isn't a question about God's ego being satiated first. This, like everything else, is for the good of his people. Explore why wisdom beginning with an appropriate, sober awareness of who God is, is best for us.


Read

• Acts 10:1-2

Leader note: The text may differ from translation to translation, but Cornelius is described literally as φοβούμενος ("phobo-menos" God-fearer). 

• How is Cornelius' God-fearing described?
• What does this tell us about what it really means to fear God?

Leader note: It's helpful to see that Cornelius' fear is detailed in his generous alms-giving to people in need and by his prayer. For a Roman centurion, indoctrinated into the idea that Caesar was god and was the source of true peace, and that poor people were literally less human, these two descriptors of his life tell a big story. He refused to inwardly conform to his culture's pattern of life, but remained mindful about what was actually true about God's universe underneath Caesar's. Terror and intimidation aren't listed. His wakefulness to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were.


Discuss

• What would it mean for you to begin fearing God is in a way consistent with what God wants for you?
• What baggage does this idea immediately come with?
• How can this group help sort through what works against you waking to the Christ and his way?

Meditation

• Each read Proverbs 8 & 9, silently. When finished, each share one thought.

Apply

• This week, regardless of where you think of yourself in relation to God, how can you begin fearing or taking seriously or living in knowledge of the Holy One?
• How can the group help?