17 May Discussion Guide: What’s After ATX – Week 5
Before We Get Started
For our discussion today we will be using this discussion guide with questions from this week’s video as well as some additional questions we have added for further conversation. 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
As we get started let’s take a moment to pray and ask God to give us helpful, compassionate, and loving conversation with one another and to help us all walk away feeling encouraged and hopeful about what happens when we pass from this life to the next.
This Week’s Topic
This week we will be looking at what the Bible has to say about life after death through the lens of near death experiences. Today, our focus will on:
Hell and Earthly Suffering
Discussion Questions
Questions from the video part 1
When have you experienced suffering, or injustice, in your life?
Why do you think people complain about suffering if it’s natural and normal to human existence?
Questions from the video part 2
If NDErs have heavenly and hellish experiences, how does that affect your beliefs about how people end up at one or the other?
What do you think about the idea that our choice to say “yes” or “no” to God in this life determines whether we will be with or without God in the afterlife?
Have you ever cried out to God for forgiveness and guidance? If so, what were the circumstances?
Additional Questions
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
How does the pain we experience in this life help us to better understand God’s heart more intimately?
2 Peter 3:8-9
“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
If this is true, and God patiently gives us time to repent and desires that we would be with Him both now and forever, then why would anyone end up in that hellish place when they pass from this life to the next?
Closing Thought
How has your life been impacted by our discussions over the past 6 weeks? What, if anything, do you think will change in your life moving forward?
If you would like to continue studying and researching this topic of near death experiences please visit the What’s After ATX? website for more information.
Prayer
As we close our time together, is there anything we can pray for you right now?