What are two brand new things you learned from Stanley Jon?
On a scale of 1-4 how normal has living on mission become in your household.
1-it’s a challenge and doesn’t happen
2-it happens but it is rare
3-it’s not as consistent as I would like but it’s happening
4-it’s just part of who we are and what we do
Take some time as a household and review the On Mission page to consider how you can be part of what God is doing around the world.
Talk together about your view of the Christian faith: is it mostly head or heart? Is it mostly study and learning and doing or how much is there a place for feeling, the supernatural and a sense of intimate relationship? Talk about when you have experienced both.
Talk about the questions you have related to God’s presence. Consider emailing your questions to the pastors.
FAITH TALKS
FAITH TALKS
1. Get into groups according to where God has placed you as an ambassador. (Work, Life stage, Neighborhood, family, friends)
2. Share specific ways that you currently live as an ambassador where God has placed you.
3. Come up with a few practical things that you can do to live as an ambassador where God has placed you. (Don't over think it.)
Faith Talks:
Faith Talks
1. Tell about a time in your life that a timeless doctrine (a truth about God) answered a current question that you had.
2. What are some of the puzzles that you face or current questions that you have about God or what he is doing?
3. How might God be using those puzzles or questions to help you know Him?
4. Ask some people to pray for you over some of the pressing questions that you are currently facing?
1. What are specific ways you and your household can prepare yourselves for hearing Gods word?
2. Talk about things in your life that numb you to the things of God.
3. What are a few things you can do to eliminate the “God numbing” things in your life?
1. What are some ways you can keep your life pure in your daily walk ?
2. Share some ways you will say YES to living in community with the Word.
3. Pray with at least one other person asking God to show you where you can best fit in His plan for Living the Word in community
This week, find time to look to God’s Word alone, then talk together as a household about what you learned. Here’s a simple guideline.
Faith Talks
How has God used affliction in your life to shape your character and address issues of the heart? Be specific. Look for an opportunity to share that story this week. (Practice with a friend first).
Faith Talks
1. Can you identify one point of pain, something current or past that is a point of pain or grief?
2. It is time to write a Psalm of Lament by following the following steps.
⁃ Target your cry: Who are you crying out to
⁃ File your complaint: Tell God what is your complaint.
⁃ Verbalize your request: Tell God wha you desire
⁃ Preach to your soul: Remind yourself of a truth that you need to remember
⁃ Renew your resolutions: Tell God how you plan on moving forward
3. Share you Lament with a trusted friend.
Meet with a friend and tell a story of a specific situation in your life of pain, grief, or loss (past or current).
As you listen to each other, pay attention to spoken or unspoken “conclusions” about God, yourself, or others. Conclusions are belief statements about how life is (e.g. “People are cruel;” “God doesn’t care;” “It will never work out;” “There’s no use trying,” etc.)
Who might be a friend with whom you could interact, to both hear their story and share your story of pain.
1. If you were to record and playback your household's conversations, who would be the recipient of the most praise?
2. According to the teaching today, why is praise so important?
3. What were David’s obstacles to praise in Psalm 30?
4. What truth can you hold onto to overcome the lie that it is better to lower your expectations than to be disappointed again?
1. How real is Jesus to you? Has he taken up residence in your heart? Is He the sole object of worship? If not, what are the false god’s that need overthrown? Name them and share them with a trusted friend.
2. Are we ‘verbing’ worshippers? Are there views or practices of worship that we need to repent of? Are there points of legalism we need confess and repent of? If so, name them and share them with a trusted friend.
1. Read Romans 15:9 & Psalm 42:5, 11. What is the role of praise for the believer & the non-believer?
2. Make a praise list and share it with someone this week. Write down anything about God that fits any/all of these categories:
What’s one area in your life where you’ve seen God redeem a messy part of you?
Try and share with someone (not in your household) this week one way God has changed you.
Talk about the times you did something challenging for God and it turned out God used it to change you in some positive way.
Is there anything challenging you think God may be asking you to do that you are running from?
1-In what ways have you experienced, life on life discipleship that deals with the messy parts of your life?
2-What did you learn through the teaching today about the role of the household in the formation of disciples?
3-What are some steps you can take to make discipleship a central theme of your household?
What fears come up for you when you think about sharing your mess?
Talk about past experiences sharing your mess. Was it positive or negative? What happened to that messy area of your life?
Share 1-2 messy areas in your life with a trusted friend or leader.
Review together the characteristics of the crowds that followed Jesus. Talk about the ways your following Jesus has at times looked too much like the crowd.
Talk together about how your life has been changed (or could be changed) by life-on-life discipleship — how being known in your failure has led you (could lead you) to heart change. What helps/hinders that from happening more?
What have you learned about the way Jesus leads his disciples that makes you want to follow Him?
What did you learn about the pattern of the disciples that you can identify with? In other words how are you like or not like the original 12 disciples?
What does discipleship look like in your life?
How do you respond to the call to disciple and be discipled. What is Jesus wanting you to do now? What are the next steps you can take this week to start moving in obedience?
Review the 8 Resurrection Realities. Which ones do you need reminded about most? How you can remind each other of those truths.
Talk about the areas of alarm and unbelief that come as a result of forgetting Resurrection. Pray for each other in those areas that you will experience resurrection power.
Faith Talks
Talk together about times/ways Jesus “rode into your life.” What helped you recognize Him? What hindered you from “receiving” Him?
Talk about some of the bigger mountains/obstacles you are presently experiencing that challenge your faith.
The contrast between Jesus and everyone else in today’s teaching makes the point that all of us fail and deny Jesus. How aware are you that you fail and deny Jesus?
Jesus’ example of finding strength by being watchful included leaning into community. Spend time together as a community of faith, talking about and praying together about some of your patterns of failing to follow Jesus.
1. How do the central elements of the Bread and the Cup in communion explain how Jesus restores our relationship with God the Father?
2. In this story, the disciples fail Jesus. Their spirits may have been willing but their flesh was weak. Did you know that disciples fail? The question is not will you fail as a disciple but rather how do you respond when you have failed God and others? Do you ignore it,rationalize it, deny it, or work to fix it?
3. Based on this story what do you think Jesus would say to you when you fail?
4. In the garden, what does Jesus do when he is confronted with his spirit being willing but his flesh being weak?
5. What is one way that you desire to be more like Jesus and less like the sleepy disciples?
What are the situations/circumstances where you tend to fall asleep spiritually or go “off duty”? (consider times when life is going well as well as when life is not going well.)
What are practices that you do or have heard of that might be helpful to you being more alert/watchful? Are any of these practices ones you might want to embrace for your household? Talk about putting them into practice
Having a Jesus-centered view of the end times is essential to every disciples. Why do you think it’s so easy to miss the central focus of Jesus when it comes to end times? Has you ever gotten caught up in all the speculation of the end times? How did you come to back to staying focused on Jesus?
What do you feel God has entrusted you to do while you wait for His arrival? How do you come to realize what He gave you to do? Share that with 2 others this week.
Faith Talks:
When you think of your future, what concerns do you have? Do those concerns reveal anything about what you are hoping in?
Read Mark 13:1-13, then talk about any truth in this text that gives you new hope for your future.
Jesus talks about loving God with all your heart soul mind and strength. He goes on to use the example of the window giving everything she has in the offering. If Jesus where watching the way you spend your money what would that tell him what you really love?
Often times it's hard to know how to start tithing. Talk as a household about your tithing patterns. What holds you back, or what motivates you to give? Share stories about Gods provision as you've been faithful in giving.
For Jesus, love is most important. Talk together about the evidence in your life, over the time you have been walking with Jesus, that you have grown in whole-hearted love towards God and others.
Jesus warns us to watch out for the natural tendency to be like the Scribes who live to impress others, who love to be praised by others. Talk together about the ways Jesus is setting you free of being like a Scribe.
Faith Talks:
In Mark 12 Jesus said to the Sadducees, a group of religious leader, “…you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God…you are quite wrong.” That is a pretty stinging rebuke from Jesus to a group of people that prided themselves on know Scripture and knowing God.
The Pharisees and the Herodians thought that paying taxes didn't have anything to do with their relationship with God. They believed there were sacred/religious areas of life and also that there were common/secular aspects of life that had nothing to do with God or their faith. What are some areas of life that people tend too think are separate from their faith?
Why is it dangerous to think that there are sacred/religious areas of life and also that there are common/secular aspects of life that have nothing to do with God or their faith?
Jesus showed us another way. In this story it was about taxes but the truth is that whatever we do, every aspect of our lives can be an opportunity for worship. What is one area of your life that you would like to see better aligned with worship and why?
"The big struggles of life are struggles with authority." Talk together to see if that statement is true in your life.
"We can never effectively steward what God has given us until we recognize Him as our authority." Where are you in the process of joyfully yielding all you are to the authority of God? Name the obstacles.
What are some ridiculous things you have asked of God? Has He answered any of those requests? What do His answers tell you about the will of God? Talk about this with 2 people this week.
Which of these five statements about Jesus is most true of you because of your faith in Christ? If Jesus were to make you more like Him in one of these areas, which one would need the most attention?
Faith Talks:
The Bible calls us, at times, to be childlike and at times not to be childlike. Talk together about the ways we should and should not be childlike.
Talk about ways in which you want to grow in childlikeness.
Faith Talks
Contact our Ministering Elders elders@lfachurch.org
Join the Life’s Healing Choices Class. 8-week class, Sunday 9:00am at CCS upper building room 128. Begins Jan 15, 2017
Consider Divorce Care Ministry https://www.divorcecare.org (group locator) Wednesdays 6-8pm. Begins Jan 25, 2017, Beacon Evangelical Free Church 420 S. 6th Ave, Galloway, NJ 609-748-0001
Talk together about 2016: What memories stand out from this year?
Talk together about 2016: What significant things did Jesus do in your life?
Faith Talks
Think about God restoring perfection to planet Earth; talk about what you most look forward to experiencing on that new Earth.
What do you most long for God to restore (make new) in your life?
Faith Talks
1. How can you identify with the need for peace?
2. The Angels made it clear that there is a connection between our experience of peace and God being glorified. Can you identify a time in your life when you experienced a loss of peace because you had made something less than God most glorious?
3. From the teaching tonight what did you learn are “the things that make for peace?”
Faith Talks:
Talk about a time when God’s light came to your place of darkness.
Talk about any dark places in or around your life — call out to God in prayer that His light of redemption would penetrate that darkness.
In the silent nine months leading up to Johns birth Zechariah started to see, understand and believe that they needed a savior and that the savior was coming. In what ways can you practice being still and quiet like Zechariah? What can you do this Christmas to slow down enough to recognize your need for a redeemer?
Zechariah said that Jesus would come and redeem his people. The two things that redemption looks like is a freedom from fear and a freedom to live holy/righteous. In what ways do you need freedom from fear? In what ways do you try to make yourself righteous?
According to this story in Luke what is your redeemer like? What do you think he is able and willing to redeem you?
Sin is lawlessness. How does this compare to your own definition of sin? How is it the same or different?
Which phrase describes you best:
- The law I live by asks "what serves me best"
- The law I live by asks "what does God desire"Explain your answer to a trusted friend.
John Piper writes, " Let every heart prepare him room . . . by cleaning house." What are some things that have replaced God in your heart that need to be dethroned? Share them with someone this week.
Try using this reading plan as you prepare to celebrate Christ-mas. "Good news of great joy" link: http://bible.com/r/C7
