Hey, first of all, I am sorry to miss discussion questions last week. I had been away all week and I just couldn’t get to them. I hope your group was able to have some good time together.
Exciting Sunday!
This coming Sunday, we’re privileged to have Foteh Michol join us from Israel to talk about what is happening in his country right now, and to share his story with us. We will also be having our last Israel Interest Meeting on Sunday evening!
Israel: May 9-18, 2027
Lifegroup Discussion
We’ve all had the experience of breaking in to a new community. Moving to a new neighborhood, going to a new school, taking new job, joining a church, etc. That can be difficult sometimes. What makes you feel welcomed and connected when you join a group or community?
Romans 12:4–5 (NLT)
Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
This passage makes it really clear that the community of believers have a deep connection. In light of what we talked about on Sunday, what does “we all belong to each other” imply?
Who belongs to you, and what does that mean?
Romans 12:6–9 (NLT)
In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them.
1 Peter 4:10–11 (NLT)
God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.
Lots of times, we think of serving people in the name of Jesus by way of a mission trip, or of helping someone with financial difficulty. These are good… But the Apostles Paul and Peter seem to be pointing to something different, something ongoing. Something that we are long-term committed to, don’t they? (Romans 12:6-9 and 1 Peter 4:10-11, above)
When you show up to serve, you can really have an impact on others. But what does it do in you when you are part of a team and regularly give yourself away?
How might regular service—not just helping once in a while—shape our patience, humility, faithfulness, or care for others?
Peter says to use the gifts we’ve received to serve one another (1 Peter 4:10–11). What gifts or abilities could you develop by serving on a team?
What can make it hard to commit to serving in one specific way over time?
As a youth pastor at an affluent church in metro Atlanta, I sometimes had trouble finding adults to serve at student ministry events and activities. I remember calling through a list of parents to try to find help. Everyone seemed to have a reason why they couldn’t or shouldn’t serve their kids’ own group. Several of them asked, “don’t we pay you to do that?” For real.
The Bible’s answer to that question is a clear “no…”
Ephesians 4:11–16 (NLT)
Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.
Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.
This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
So, according to this job description, what is the pastor’s responsibility?
And, according to this job description, what is the expected result of this?
How different would the church be if this actually happened?
Hebrews 10:24–25 (NLT)
Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
Okay, so how can we motivate one another to acts of love and good works?
One of our church’s CRITICAL NEEDS right now is for lifegroup leaders. Since moving in to our new facility, we have had 260 people try us out. These are people who need a church, a firm connection to the Body of Christ… But we have almost no lifegroup capacity for new people at this time.
Hebrews 10:24-25 (above) connects meeting together (as in lifegroups) to motivating people to acts of love and good works. Why is it logical to provide more capacity for people in lifegroups?
What team do you serve on right now? What team might you be interested in exploring?
If you aren’t on a team, and you would like to find one, why don’t you explore our opportunities, and test drive a serve team for a week or two?