CITY FOLK: How to be Perfect.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden. So, unhide!

It's both great and alarming news that God is not impressed with our rule following. Much less with our simply rating our righteousness against someone else's lack of it.

It turns out God wants us to be at peace, and allow others to have the same, by hanging up the show and admitting we all need grace and mercy and love.

As a group step into the deeper waters of being known beyond impressions and performances. See if you can once again step closer to the freedom Christ is walking us into.

And then, as a group, find a way to make this part of your life beyond the typical group meeting. Perhaps split for several weeks a month into gender specific groups within your group if have men and women. See if more closeness can come from that. Maybe give some ideas for the group becoming smaller groups. Two or three grabbing coffee, taking a walk. Help your members, and yourself, remove the obstacles that hinder you from being one person, rather than as many as seems demanded by everyone but God.



Thaw

• Who is someone in your life that you think of when you thing of the word "genuine" or "real"?
• What is it that allows this person to be the way they are?

• What has stuck with you moist from the music and the message Sunday?

Read

• Matthew 5:13-6:1
• Thoughts?

Leader note: Do not feel the pressure to answer all the questions that come from this large selection of text. Discussions about "hell" (gehenna), cutting off hands and gouging out eyes, prohibition against divorce, etc.; these are all important discussions. However, the overall theme is too important to be distracted from. Jesus recites the Laws exactly as they were known in his day- exactly as many of us know them- and then says there was always an underlying principle that's been missed. Help the group see the pattern of calling out mere rule-keeping as not the kind of righteousness God is after. Try to think in terms of the heart of a person following the rules, and that the body of this law and the heart of people are summarized by being as loving and as compassionate as we can be.

• What themes do you notice?
• Why would Christ begin a section like this by pacifying some of his listeners with the words "I haven't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill (satisfy)?
• How does what Jesus said align or misalign with what you believe God prioritizes?

Read

• Proverb 4:23
• Jeremiah 17:9-10
• Psalm 139:23-24
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• What does heartwork look like on a given day?
• How are your life, your words and actions and attitudes, part of how others undergo heartwork and come to become more at peace and at one?
• What barriers exist at home, at work, at church, for you and others to be people who can put their real hearts on display, without pretense?

CITY FOLK:

A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Unless of course there are no lights.

You have heard it said do not murder. But a low bodycount isn't a great metric for your spiritual maturity.

Let's go deeper.


Discuss as a group the emotion that causes us to act contemptuously, dismissively and all around venomously, even as we pride ourselves for at least never giving in to homicide. 

God never commands emotions, so what was God getting at here?

Thaw

• What's something you feel God has been teaching you in recent weeks?

Leader note: this isn't specifically tied to the message on Sunday, but is a great question to ask often in general because it a) leads to good discussion about what God is doing and b) builds a value in the groups mind that they should be looking for what God is doing in their life, since the question comes up so often. Remember, questions reinforce values!

• What's something from Sunday's message that really stuck with you?
• What's the last thing that made you angry?

Read

• Matthew 5:17-26
• Thoughts?

Leader note: Some key parts of Jesus' teaching need some background. First, the phrase "angry with his brother without cause" didn't originally have the "without cause" part. This was later added as a way of trying to make sense of a seemingly unbearably strict teaching by Jesus. But that creates confusion about when it's okay to hold someone in contempt. It creates an argument about "just cause". Jesus is speaking to something deeper than a justified or unjustified anger.  Second, "Raca" is an Aramaic term that Matthew doesn't translate. He must assume his readers know the term. It seems to best translate to "empty head", but is also thought to be the guttural sound of clearing the throat before you spit, as in spit in the face of whom you are holding in contempt. Third, note that it's "brothers" in the first two cases, while it suddenly broadens to "you fool" being spoken to anyone. Jesus isn't just trying to mend family issues. He's lighting the shadows in this attitude as it is aimed at anyone. How often do we tear down people from afar, as they play a televised sport, speak politically in a press conference, or cut us off in traffic? We don't know them, yet we murder them with our angry hearts.

• What key words and thoughts stand out to you?
• Why would Jesus start with such an intense topic as anger, seeing how He'd just been clear that He was inviting people from different places in their faith and maturity to follow Him?

Read

• Mark 3:1-6
• Thoughts
• How would you describe what Jesus does with His anger?
• What can we learn from Him about the role anger can play?

Respond as a group to this quote:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Discuss

• What stops us from trying to understand where others are coming from, so that we don't simply dismiss them?
• How are anger and humility, anger and understanding, anger and wisdom often mutually exclusive?

Apply

"God, I am seeing and hearing this person as an obstacle, help me see and hear them as the object of your love" 

• How can this group help you with pausing, praying, forgiving and asking for forgiveness, so as to do the difficult work of destroying all the barriers that exist between you and others?
• What are we up against in this culture that operates contrary to Jesus' teaching on anger?
• What changes of thought and behavior need to happen immediately if we're to have a chance of growing into the kind of love and peace that Jesus is leading us into?

Meditation

• Spend 5-10 minutes reflecting on the following proverbs, thinking about how they will present to you specific opportunities to apply them in the next week. You may want to write your thoughts during this time.

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” (Proverbs 14:29)

“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.” (Proverbs 16:32)

“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” (Proverbs 29:11)

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” (Proverbs 29:15)

“A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.” (Proverbs 29:18)

CITY FOLK: To Everyone on the Hill.

Thaw

• Have you ever made a team or been part of an organization and had no idea how you did it?, or had a person show interest in you and it didn't make sense; you couldn't understand what they saw. Maybe you even thought you were being tricked? You know, like Carrie. Share the experience.

• What stuck with you most from Sunday?
• What has shifted in your faith or outlook as you have considered the message?

Read

• Matthew 4:23-5:16
• Thoughts?
• As you put yourself on that hillside, what do you imagine people were feeling?

Leader note: You may want to note that salt has many uses: it's added to food to give it a lot more flavor, obviously. It's also added to meat in a pre-Frigidaire society to stave off rot and decomposition...catch that? Salt drives out decay! It also was added to manure for the purposes of creating hotter, brighter fire light. Yes, people used to burn poop for light and heat. Now we burn former dinosaurs!

Read

• 1 Corinthians 1:26-30
• Thoughts?
• Why would God recruit the seemingly unrecruitable to do what would be considered the most important work God would have people do?

Leader note: Acts 4:13 is a great example of God using comparatively lowly people to do His work. The words "unschooled, ordinary men" in Greek are agrammatos kai idiotes...."unlettered idiots."

Read

• Isaiah 53:2-3
• Hebrews 4:15
• Thoughts? 

• What do you suppose changes for someone when they realize that Jesus entered into solidarity with humanity by way of real suffering, weakness, temptation and struggle?
• What do you think our view of Jesus would have been if He'd come in strength, comfort, respect and position?

Read

• Matthew 22:34-40
• Thoughts?
• If love of others is the main idea, then why do so many of us think the main idea is to become the people God wants us to be, or else?

Discuss

• What about your life communicates solidarity and compassion with the human experience, rather than trying to be more moral, or trying to get others to be?
• What areas are you hoping to "clean up" before you accept Christ's invitation to descend the hillside and dive into real life; yours and other's? Where did you get the idea that this was "dirty" or offended God?
• How can this group help you take steps in being a person who loves and offers compassion now, verses when you think you have it all together?
• In what ways do you doubt that the "love of other as self" is powerful enough to deal with sin and error and foolishness and brokenness, to God's standard?

Prayer

• Spend some time reflecting on the mood on that hillside, and then thinking about our modern context. Pray that God would open our eyes and help us understand that God is not asking us to get fit before we start exercising, not is he asking us to come and fill our heads with a bunch of information and then pretend like that was the whole point. Pray that God would show you that this is about messy people walking behind perfection, and in so doing, being the most sincere, humble, honest and grounded people in the world. pray that we would be, in that, just like Jesus.

"All You Need is Love." -Paul (not McCartney)

It's a worthy banner to wave over 2016.

LOVE.

Paul even said that that in the midst of so many things we could measure ourselves by, without love it's all empty.


Spend some time dreaming together as a group. be realistic. Challenge the impulse to speak in theoreticals. Think and plan how your group might be marked this year, especially with all the division and side-taking and animus we're bound to see in our culture, by love.



Thaw

• What's a highlight from the Christmas season you'd like to share? 
• What's a highlight from Sunday morning that has stuck with you?

Read

• 1 Corinthians 13
• Thoughts?
• As you imagine Paul saying this to you, what most stands out?

Discuss

• Why do you suppose we have to be reminded over and over to love, even as people of faith in the one who commands loving above all else?

Leader note: this question is an attempt to help group members recognize selfishness and the fear that drives it. Try and help the discussion to move in a direction that highlights the subtle ways that our own self-preferencing makes us forget that, as followers of Christ, our charter is the love and elevation of others over ourselves- a difficult task for the egoic survivalist mentality to face!

Apply

• Who do you know that best emulates compassion, kindness, consideration, love of others and how might you learn from them?

Right Between Us: A Second Seeing

Thaw

• What does November represent to you? Why?
• What stuck with you most from Sunday? Why?

Read

• John 9:29
• Mark 8:22-25
• Thoughts?

Leader note: While reading the Mark 8 passage, you or others in the group may note a verse later records Jesus telling this formerly blind man not to go back into the village. Don't get too hung up on it. There are several possible explanations for telling him not to go back into town. One, Jesus often tells people not to tell others about the miracle he's performed. Jesus is often concerned about the clarity of his message (not being confused with his miraculous ability as some sort of show) and the ease with which he moves from town to town to do what he came to do. He had limited time, and didn't want his path jammed up people seeking him only as a wonder worker. The message was about what others were to become because of Him, a revolution of love, not just a single God/man who could do amazing things for crowds. Additionally, the village/town ay have been bad for the blind man. To adjust to being a seeing person now, it may not have been ideal to send him into what would've undoubtedly been an ecstatic inquisition. Other explanations are just as plausible...again, don't get hung up here.

• What significance is there for you in Jesus doing a "two-phase" miracle?
• What might it mean to cause blindness in those who count themselves among the seeing?

Discuss

• Have there been people in your life who caused you difficulty/harm in their stubborn inability to see or hear you? Explain.
• What does it cost people to admit that they were wrong or ignorant about someone, and to go back and "see them again"?
• In what ways do you find yourself seeing/hearing, but not very good at perceiving?

Read

• Matthew 7:1-5
• Thoughts?
• This is different than "don't judge". This is "judge yourself with the same standards you apply to others." How does this self-reflective, blindspot-acknowledging kind of discernment differ than mere judging or labeling?

Apply

• This week, ask God to give you a second seeing. To "touch your eyes" again with regard to friends, family, enemies, those who live, vote, think, act, decide, relate differently. Ask God to show you three things you hadn't seen before. Perhaps you will be ready to share with the group what this second seeing has revealed about those you thought you already had pretty well figured out!

Right Between Us. The Chair Game.

Thaw

• Have the heaters been turned on yet or not? What's your threshold?
• What most stuck with you from Sunday?

Watch
"I walked on the moon"

• Thoughts?

Read

• Luke 14:1-11
• Thoughts?
• What drives the behavior Jesus was addressing?
• How do you see it playing out in your own life?

Leader note: Keep in mind the previous question is asking about the group member's life, not others' behavior. Make sure this part of the discussion doesn't become recognizing other people's Chair Game playing and not our own!

Discuss

• What's the difference between healthy ambition and the Chair Game?
• What allow Jesus to wash feet and stay out of the pecking order, and how is what what allows Jesus to do this available to us?

Read

• Proverbs 25:6-7
• Proverbs 27: 2
• 1 Peter 5:5-7
• Thoughts?
• Why is this hard?

Respond as a group to this quote from Sunday:

"There is no higher echelon or rank at home, at work, at school, at church, or anywhere, than 'at peace right where you're at.'"

Apply

• How can this group be a place where the broken ego is put to rest, and the Chair Game is replaced with service and love of others?
• What stands in your way and how can that be addressed?

The Waiting. 5.

Have you taken a step?

Have you cut off (the etymology of the word "decision") the excuses, the fear, misery of ignoring what overwhelms? 

A big thing and a little thing, have you decided to do it later?

Your group members may very well need your group to be able to begin taking actions they have put off. Discuss the topic of procrastinating, knowing that clarity often comes in the context of community, and that we are all looking to each other to feel like we are living life more fully. 

Thaw

• How has the rain over the last two weeks affected you and others?
• What has stuck with you most from Sunday?

Read

• Proverbs 26:13
• Thoughts?
• What is it about later, after the 'lions' pass that seems so real to us emotionally?
• What are the lions you are afraid of when it comes to taking some step on a project, or a conversation, etc?

Read

• Proverbs 15:22
• Thoughts?
• What does this proverb say to your sense of overwhelm or confusion about what to do next on some project or idea?

Discuss

• What is something you wish you could do, but have learned to think of it happening at some distant point in the future?

Leader note: this could require incredible vulnerability  There are times when business men finally admit to having always wanted to be a dancer, shy women confessing they'd always dreamed of opening an ice cream shop, etc, etc. But they have all the reasons in the world why that probably is something to try at another time. Not right now. Create a space that's safe and patient, where people can reveal big dreams, ideas and fantasies of any shape, dreams or duties that God may have very well planted within them, and see what comes of the group compassionately turning it into smaller chunks to finally take on.

• What is a big thing and a little thing that comes to mind when challenged to take steps relationally, vocationally, recreationally, etc?

Apply

• In what ways do words like "lazy" or "useless" get said around you in response to what you are now seeing as a fearful response to pain, disappointment and powerlessness? What can you do about this?
• How can this group help one another to stop procrastinating on a couple of really important fronts? 
• How will you circle back and ask about all this later?

The Waiting. 3.

It should be pretty well established by now that the waiting is hard. The real trick is establishing that the reward to waiting well is more awareness of ourselves and others. Of seeing when we're so used to being blinded.


Spend some time as a group and discuss the feelings we expect God to give us, and what it might mean to our lives that God won't be delivering them.




Thaw

• Share some fall memories from your childhood. Were there any traditions, responsibilities, events that are best remembered this time of year?
• Do you find yourself looking forward to or dreading some of the upcoming holidays? Why?
• What from the message Sunday has most stuck with you?

Read

• This is traditionally understood as the Lord's Prayer. Read it together and see what new dimensions you can recognize.

Our Father, who is in heaven

Hallowed be your name

Your Kingdom come

Your will be done

On Earth as it is in Heaven

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our trespasses 

As we forgive those who have trespassed against us

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil

• Thoughts?
• Why in such a brief prayer template would Christ include two stanzas regarding forgiveness?
• Forgiveness is obviously not a feeling or a disposition, but an act of a will submitted to Christ's Kingship ("Your Kingdom come!"). What does it mean to you that this prayer connects the act of forgiveness without mentioning the associated feelings?

Discuss

• What have you observed happens when you behave primarily based on your feelings?
• In how many areas of your life do you live chiefly on feeling and does that work in your estimate?

Leader note: It may be worth pointing out in the course of discussion that so long as feelings dictate our actions to us, it's Our kingdom come rather than not God's. When we do only what we feel like doing, we shape our will around our desires, regardless of whether that's best or not. This effectively negates the first five lines of the prayer!

Apply
What can we do to become a people who behave in accord with the Kingship of God, rather than the kingship of our (undisciplined) emotions?

Leader Note: It's important to make a distinction here. Our emotions are important, and shouldn't be ignored. The word "undisciplined" is included to communicate that until the emotions are aligned with our highest selves (love, others-centeredness, grace and peace, Christlikeness, etc) then they should be considered, but given little say in the actions we choose. Leave room for people to understand this distinction; disciplined emotion is a beautiful thing!

The Waiting. Week One.

Americans spend nearly 37 billion hours a year waiting in lines. So we should probably get good at the art form.


Use your discussion time over the next few weeks to help you and your members become the kind of people who can do well what most of our lives demand of us; Waiting. Anticipating. Living between. We can't make waiting go away. We shouldn't try. Life is full of frustration and disappointment and learning to rewire hopes along the way. But it's all the more bearable when we don't wait in line alone!


Thaw

• What are some things you are looking forward to?
• What are some things coming that you dread/
• How do you navigate the emotions to both these kinds of waiting?

Read

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.  -Psalm 27:14

...blessed is the one who trusts in you.  -Psalm 84:12

...let my cry for help come to you. Lord Almighty, Hear my prayer, Lord; -Psalm 102:1

Discuss

• Thoughts on these psalms?
• Do you think of waiting on/trusting God as waiting for the exact thing you pray for, or waiting for God to help you navigate life no matter where it goes? Explain how you think of it and where you may have learned it.

Read

• Respond to this quote as a group:

A man who waits for roast duck to fly into his mouth must wait a very, very long time. 

-Chinese proverb

• What does the idea of taking responsibility for everything you can reasonably take responsibility for say to what you have been waiting on?
•  How can you tell whether you are taking responsibility for the right things when you are waiting for something? When has it crossed over into fear, control, anxiety?

Discuss

• Do you feel free to be frustrated, disappointed, etc? Who taught you this?
• Are you threatened by others' disappointment and frustration when things aren't going the way they'd hoped? From whom did you learn this?
• What would change if you allowed yourself to feel peace with your or another's frustration and concern about what is yet to come?

Apply

• In the message, Jonathan shared ideas for helping us wait well. Journaling- capturing the ebbs and flows and the overall trajectory- was one idea. Finding places, spaces or symbols that remind us that the journey we're on is good, important. Watching people's lives and learning from how they journey. These are ways that we makes waiting a discipline rather than a thing to suffer. What ways make the most sense to who you are? How can your LifeGroup help you to adopt disciplines that remind you that life is a flowing stream from one thing to the other to learn to grow in, embrace and even enjoy?

Discussing the Message

During this series "Made/UnMade/ReMade" we have been encouraging people to go through the daily readings based on the Psalms and Walter Brueggemann's thoughts. Many LifeGroups have been benefitting from the content. If you and your LifeGroup hasn't yet, please check out www.crosspoint.org/made and chew as a group on the text and ideas found there. Additionally, as always, you can discuss any message/video with the following kinds of questions:

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 idea fully?

What are the obstacles and what do we do about those?

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

Ten. Commandment 7.

TEN

You shall not commit adultery.

It's heavy subject. But one that affects all of us either in the direct sense, or even indirectly as a people so often willing to forgo their relational commitments to others in light of something else more immediately appealing. No matter the consequences.

Use this general list of questions to take a discussion with your group about the seventh commandment as far as you can.

Based on the content of the teaching/message:

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 idea fully?

What are the obstacles and what do we do about those?

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

Ten. Commandment 6.

TEN

You shall not kill.

You shall neither have the heart of a killer.

The cycles of attacks, counter attacks, preemptive attacks, revenge and all out war are obviously systemic, but are birthed in the individual. This is where we focus on ourselves, within our own groups, rather than idly chatting and trying to fix the world without dealing with our own.

Use the texts below to discuss God's kingdom and the way of Christ where anger and murder are concerned (Both literally, and as Jesus deals with it as an issue in the heart before a corpse is produced.) If the conversation slides into politics or is divisive, you will know that it has no longer become a Kingdom of God discussion, but one rooted in the kingdom of men.

Thaw

• Who is someone you know that never gets angry? Do you find them to be involved in life, or detached?
• What is something that makes you angry? Why does your anger make sense to you and what good does it accomplish? 
• Respond as a group to these two quotes:

"Everything you can do with anger you can do better without it."

“When Jesus says turn the other cheek, that does not dictate that you abandon your responsibility to make a judgment in that moment. In most occasions, in your pursuit of Jesus, you will turn the other cheek. But there will be occasions when you don’t. And when you don’t, the reason will be that love obliges you to do something different.” 

-Dallas Willard

Read

• Matt. 5:21-22
• Rom. 12:17-21
• Eph. 4:26 
• Eph. 4:31-32
• Ecclesiastes 7:9 
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• The first Issue Jesus spoke of in the sermon on the mount was anger. What are the implications of that  for a man trying to unite people in freedom and peace?
• Respond as a group to this, from Discovery.com :

During a tour around London’s Science Museum, Hawking responded to a question from 24-year-old teacher Adaeze Uyanwah from Palmdale, Calif. Uyanwah won an international contest to be his guest of honor.

During the tour, Uyanwah asked that if Hawking could change one shortcoming humanity has, what would it be?

“The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression,” said Hawking. “It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he focused on nuclear war being the trigger that “would be the end of civilization, and maybe the end of the human race.”

In an effort to counter human aggression, the 73-year-old said the quality he’d like to magnify is empathy, as “it brings us together in a peaceful, loving state.”

• Jonathan left a few thoughts at the end of the message pertaining to how an aggressive heart can grow. Discuss them and find ways to implement.

• The answer to contempt is love
• Learn to practice forgiveness 

Apply

How can this group help you to pause, reflect and see people better in order to reduce anger, aggression and the heart of one who seeks to hurt rather than bless?

Ten. Commandment 5.

TEN

Thaw

• What themes or overarching values are you gathering from the commandments thus far?
• What has most stuck with you from Sunday morning?

Read

• Exodus 20:12
• Ephesians 6:1-4

• What immediate pictures, feelings and thoughts come to you when you hear this? Where does that come from?
• What are the implications to you of this command being the only prescription, while the others are prohibitive? 
• How is this command enhanced by considering it's directed at the children of those who would worship a golden calf while this very law was being given?

Read

• Have someone read the Colossians 3:1-21, from the Message Translation, aloud for the whole group. Choose someone that can read slowly, with inflection, and see what stands out in Paul's words about what it means to be the people of Christ.

So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.
And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God....
Don't lie to one another. You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.
Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.
Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don't take advantage of them.
Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end.
Parents, don't come down too hard on your children or you'll crush their spirits.

• As Paul makes his way through these ideas, to the family, what thoughts come to mind?
• What words or sentences stood out the most?
• How does learning to honor parents, regardless of their earning it or their reciprocating it affect other relationships?

• Do you feel owed something other than what you got from your parents? Why?
• What do words like forgiveness, trust, demands, bitterness, maturity, and hope say to your situation?
• How has your relationship to your parents been mirrored in other relationships, and what do you sense you need to work on in both?

Additional Texts for Meditation

• Romans 5:6-8
• Matthew 7:12
• 1 John 4:13-21

Ten. Commandment 4.

TEN

Discuss as a group how to put better rhythm in life. Allow those who have good rhythm to share how they got there and how they handle it mentally.

Discuss the reality that sabbath says your work is done even if it isn't.

Discuss how the Spirit of sabbath is trying to get the slaves out of us.

Discuss how an inability to turn off, rhythmically, is a way of slowly dying. 

Key texts for discussion:

Exodus 3:1-4 NIV
Exodus 20:8-11
exodus 31:12-14
Mark 2:23-28
Mark 3:1-4

Colossians 2:16

Based on the content of the teaching/message:

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?

Ten. Commandment 3

TEN

Though not a justification, often times racism in a person stems from a negative encounter with a particular member of a so-called race early in life, or the impression they are given about that race by "one of their own." Sometimes people don't go to the doctor because of a horror story they heard at an impressionable age. And some kids won't eat any vegetables because of a vague memory of the texture of pureed carrots being force fed to them in a high chair.

One bad experience can unfairly, but powerfully, cast a shadow on a whole category.

And sometimes that experience is a person of faith, and the category is God.

Use this discussion to both wipe away the human fingerprints from God's love, and to help snap into realignment those of us that have gotten used to speaking comfortably and simplistically for God about the difficulties of real life.

Thaw

• What has been on your mind in the last week, and why do you think it has been in your thoughts?

• What has stuck with you from Sunday morning?
• Who did you think of during the message, and why do you think that is?

Read

• Micah 6:1-8
• Thoughts?

Leader note: The prophet Micah is largely constructed like court proceedings. Israel has a complaint, and so does YHWH. At this point in chapter 6, God is asking "how have I burdened you?". The implication is that his people are claiming they have a burden, and they may be telling the truth. It just wasn't given to them from God. God reminds them that he is the one that "un-burdened" them from slavery. (Jesus makes a similar point when he tells his followers about is yoke and burden being easy and light in that it all boils down to putting others first Matthew 11:30). A list of supposed wants and needs for a religion-protecting God follows in Micah: what does the Lord require of a person....gallons of this? tons of that? your children? various of your interests that make God out to be the taker, and not the giver? In verse 8, Micah is credited by the Talmud as actually summarizing the whole of Torah; be just, be loving, be humble in your ongoing journey with God.

Gently help people resist the urge to say "this applied to the Jews, but it's not enough because Jesus and becoming a Christian hasn't shown up yet". Jesus' message was identical, and in his Spirit this Micah 6:8 life is the life we live. 

• What does doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God mean?
• What do you feel like is missing from this list based on what you have come to believe about what God wants?

Read

• Exodus 20:8
• Literally: "You do not carry the name of YHWH God emptily, for YHWH clears not the name of him who carries the name emptily."
• Thoughts?

• If this command is so that people far from him, or even people not in leadership positions, would remain clear about the difference between God's heart and human religion, what does this tell you about the power of the lives and behaviors of religious people?

Discuss

• What is something you feel you're supposed to believe about God, but have trouble with?

• What is something you have said to others in a moment of attempting to be helpful, but realized you don't even believe for yourself?
• Where do we get the impulse to have answers and speak for God?
• Why do we often condemn the actions of others, referencing God's holiness, and yet think of ourselves in terms of our intentions, referencing God's grace?
• What does Micah 6:8 say to this?
• What does Galatians 5:21-22 say to this?

Apply

• How does this group apply all this?
• How will this group know it has successfully applied all this?
• What step are you taking now?

Bears Repeating. "We're Talking About Sin Every Sunday"

"You make me sick."
.....Unless you're speaking to a virus, you're probably not telling the truth. Even if it feels true.

As a group, talk about how we decide something is wrong, whether that metric for it being wrong is consistent across other issues that are also condemned or excused, and then how we go about treating the one we are accusing of wrong. In talking about sin, you should recognize this is a sensitive subject for some. Both as people carrying the guilt and shame of sin, and for those who out of fidelity to God and God's standard, feel like it must be named and confronted.

If the spirit of the conversation strays from love, humility, good listening and gentleness, change the subject. The idea is to move forward in our understanding of how Christ deals in grace, not to move forward in how religion has divided over it!

Additionally, you may benefit as a group from taking this quick survey to examine how you prioritize the five moral foundations discussed in the Sunday message. (CARE/HARM, FAIRNESS/CHEATING, LOYALTY/BETRAYAL, AUTHORITY/SUBVERSION/SANCTITY/DEGRADATION....with the possibility of other moral foundational candidates such as LIBERTY/OPPRESSION and HONESTY/DECEPTION) Use discernment with your group, and use it not correctively but to better understand why think what we think about something being right or wrong.



Thaw

• Survey and results?
• What's an odd thing that triggers your disgust.
• What stands out for you about Sunday?

Read

• John 10:10
• Thoughts?
• How does this passage shape your understanding of what's considered sin?

• Keeping in mind the often conflicting values of Care and Sanctity, read Matthew 9 and see what patterns of boundary breaching, inclusion, and otherwise religion-threatening behavior you can find in Christ.

Apply

• What application does this awareness of how Christ treats the barriers we erect between "us" and "them" bring to your relationships?
• How does this awareness affect how you understand God seeing you?