Week of July 24, 2011

1. Read Romans 8:26-39.
2. Have you seen "The Lion King"? What did you make of the spiritual connections Father Mike was trying to make on Sunday? Are you able to see spiritual insights from the things around you?
3. What confidence does verse 28 give you about events that occur in your life?
4. Look at verses 29-30. What five verbs describe God's role in our coming to know Him? How does verse 29 define God's good purposes for us?
5. In verses 31-39, how does Paul settle the fears of those who may still be asking questions about the security of God's love for us?
6. How might the forces listed in v. 38-39 try to unsettle our trust in God's love? What does Paul's ringing assurance do for your fears?
7. Can you relate to Simba's journey from home out into the wilderness and back again? Do you know what it is like to run from and then run toward God's purpose in your life?
8. In the midst of your journey, how have you seen the Lord at work?
9. Pray for one another...

Pentecost 5 - Small Group Questions

If you were not with us on Sunday you can listen to this sermon here.

Mt 13:24-30, 36-43
1. Are you a gardener? What weeds have you had to battle most in your yard or garden? How have you dealt with them?
2. The parable doesn't explain how the evil one gets into the good field and among the good seed. What do you think the evil one was trying to accomplish by sowing bad seed in with the good?
3. Augustine said that the church is full of wheat and tares, of saints and sinners. How has this truth been a challenge for you in your church life? Does acknowledging this give you more peace or make you frustrated? Why?
4. All of us struggle with the desire to judge and eliminate tares. Reflect on a recent time that this was true for you. Can you recall a time when you initially judged someone or something as a tare, only to find that they/it was actually wheat?
5. What concerns you most about the injunction to be patient with the tares and wait for the final harvest for it to be sorted out? What prayer or practices might help heal our desire to judge and eliminate tares?
6. What are the tares growing within you? How might you offer these up to God for healing? How has God used your tares to grow good wheat within you?

Pentecost 4 - Small Group Questions

If you were not with us on Sunday you can listen to this sermon here.

Mt 13:1-9, 18-23

1. Which is your favorite parable in scripture? Why?

2. Do you have trouble relating to parables that were originally told as stories to people in a different time and place? Are there modern analogies or angles that make them more meaningful for you today?

3. What do you think that parables accomplish that simple, direct speech cannot? Can you recall a time when a parable led you into a space where you chose to move closer to God? Where you stepped back toward ‘business as usual?’

4. Mtr. Mary encouraged us to look at ourselves as the sower vs. the four types of soil. What kind of sower of God’s love and forgiveness have you been? Have you been a reckless, high-risk sower? Or have you been more frugal and targeted with your sowing? Why do you think this is?

5. Where in your life right now might God be calling you to be more generous with your sowing?

6. Are you able to rest in the truth that it is God’s work to bring the seed to bountiful harvest and not yours? Or do you find yourself pre-judging soil? Trying to do God’s work for him?

7. Can you reflect on your spiritual life and recall when you received the good seed of God’s love and grace and forgiveness even when you weren’t ‘well prepared’ for it? How did this affect your understanding of God and his love for you? Who has been a generous and reckless sower of God’s love in your life?