27 Oct Discussion Guide: You Have a Part to Play – Recap
Before We Get Started
For our discussion today we will be using the You Have A Part To Play 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 main 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.
You Have A Part To Play Topics
Fame Culture. Homelessness. Creation Care.
Politics. Modern Day Slavery. Our Common Humanity
This Week’s Topic
Having walked through 6 difficult and culture-shaping topics together and talking about how God might be calling us to play our part in bringing healing into those broken places of our world, we now want to look back at the previous two months and ask ourselves…so, now what? What have we learned together? And, what is it going to take for us to continue playing our part as we move forward, together, into the purposes of God for our lives and our city?
Discussion Questions
What has been your biggest takeaway from the You Have A Part To Play campaign?
Which of the 6 topics did you find the biggest connection with?
Which of the 6 topics did you find to be the most challenging for you?
Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
In what ways do you feel you can continue to play your part in addressing one, or more, of those topics moving forward?
In what ways can we as a group continue to play our part? Can we continue serving alongside the organization we did our project with? Is there something else we can step into as an ongoing missional focus for our group?
What obstacles might keep us from living out the You Have A Part To Play principle?
How can we overcome those obstacles?
According to Paul’s assessment here in Acts 17 God has predertemined the time within human history that you were born, the place(s) you have, and currently, live, and the people you find yourself interacting with week-in-and-week-out for the purpose of leading us, and others, to know Him. This means that every interaction and every conversation with the people who are part of our routine is purposed by God to be a reflection, or even a revelation, of who He is and what His Kingdom is all about. Every neighbor, every co-worker, every “chance” encounter at the gym or grocery store, is a “ministry of reconciliation” opportunity. Paul says God is not far from us in our “feeling” our way towards God.
The reason God is not far from us, or far from the people we find ourselves interacting with, is because His Spirit dwells in us and if we are not far from those people then God is not far from those people. We are missionaries, ambassadors, for Christ who are given the chance everyday to represent our King to the people all around us, the people God has predetermined we would “bump” into. Every person is an opportunity for us to know and reveal the love of Christ.
Most people don’t see others in that light because we are so consumed with our own needs, or own fears, our own desires. We tend to, partly because of the cultural waters we swim in and partly because of our own sinful nature, opporate from a consumeristic mindset constantly looking for the things that will make our lives more comfortable, more conveneient, more predictible. To view others the way Paul is telling us we should would require us getting our eyes off of ourselves and on the needs and fears of others, and to do that means we need to know that we are loved and cared for. As long as we are living in fear ourselves we can never love the people around us. We need a source of unconditional, unwavering, unbreakable love from which we can step out into the world as carriers of that love. It is only when we find ourselves in that place of knowing we are loved and seen that we can begin to lovingly see the people God places in our lives.
Closing Thought
2 Corinthians 5:18
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
What is the connection between our believing the Gospel and us playing our part in the world today?