11 Jun Discussion Guide Coming to a City Near You: Unveiling the Power of Vocation
Before We Get Started
For our discussion today, we will be using the sermon series discussion guides. If you would like to follow along you can access this discussion guide on the website at mosaicchurchaustin.com and then select “community group resources” in the menu options.
Prayer
Because the primary goal of our time together is to establish relationships and learn how to walk with one another in all that God has called us to be and do, we’d like to begin by praying for one another. So, does anyone have anything you’d like us to pray for or anything to share regarding how you’ve seen God moving in your life that we can celebrate together?
This Week’s Topic
Today, we continue our series titled Coming Soon to a City Near You, in which we study the letter of Ephesians. Written to Christians in the ancient city of Ephesus, which is in modern-day Turkey, Ephesians announces to the world that there is a better story coming to a city near you, and the church is the screen on which the “Jesus movie” plays.
Today’s Topic
Unveiling the Power of Vocation
Discussion Questions
If you could have any job for just one month, what job would you choose?
Ephesians 2:10
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Vocation, defined:
1. a particular occupation, business, or profession; calling.2. a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career.3. a divine call to God’s service or to the Christian life.4. a function or station in life to which one is called by God.
Vocation and Our Worship
AW Tozer
God wants worshipers before workers; indeed the only acceptable workers are those who have learned the lost art of worship.
How is worship one of the things “God prepared for us in advance for us to do”?
What kinds of activities, thoughts, or experiences generally help you worship God with greater intentionality?
How can worship prepare and fuel Christians for the work we do in the world?
Vocation and Our Witness
Matthew 5:14-16
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others , so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Martin Luther
The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.
How does the work we do in the world become light in the world?
If God is interested in “good craftmanship,” how should we approach developing and honing our talents and abilities?
Whose life and witness has most impacted and shaped the work you contribute in the world?
Vocation and Our Wonder
Brian Edgar, The God Who Plays
The spiritual life should be an adventure of faith, involving all the characteristics of adventurous play: suspense and surprise, drama and danger, risk and reward, fun and freedom … Play in the spiritual realm has the same qualities that play has at any time: it does not deal with what is, but rather with what could be. Play transcends immediate reality and takes one into another world. Play is the spontaneous expression of a free spirit … A playful spiritual life is one that emphasizes joy, delight, freedom, grace and love.
Mary Oliver
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
GK Chesterton
When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer that it is magic. It is not a “law,” for we do not understand its general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening, practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen.
How do things like wonder, amazement, and play engage us more deeply in the spiritual world?
How does embracing wonder impact our capacity to do good works in the world?
What is something wonderful you have witnessed recently?
Closing Thought
Henri Nouwen
So many terrible things happen every day that we start wondering whether the few things we do ourselves make any sense. When people are starving only a few thousand miles away, when wars are raging close to our borders, when countless people in our own cities have no homes to live in, our own activities look futile. Such considerations, however, can paralyse us and depress us.
Here the word call becomes important. We are not called to save the world, solve all problems, and help all people. But we each have our own unique call, in our families, in our work, in our world. We have to keep asking God to help us see clearly what our call is and to give us the strength to live out that call with trust. Then we will discover that our faithfulness to a small task is the most healing response to the illnesses of our time.
Take turns sharing one small thing you will do this week to answer God’s call to “do good works” in the world.