Life Group Discussion Guide

This Guide can be downloaded as a .pdf HERE.

Life Group Discussion Guide :: Sunday, April 22, 2012 (JXG)

Sandy Lake Wesleyan :: Pastor Shawn

Live SENT  |  Week 2

Remember, this Guide is not intended as an exhaustive list of what can be discussed, but is best used as a guide to help your Group process what God is teaching them. Read through the discussion points below and prayerfully consider what the Holy Spirit would have you work through.

 Be sure to pray for, encourage each other, 

and share the victories God is giving your Group.

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Last week, we were invited to take time alone with God and ask him where he has sent us...or where He WANTS to send us to live for the greater purpose of His  design. Take time to ask your Group members what God has shown them as they’ve spent time seeking him. Be sure to pray for each other and encourage members to step into relationships of accountability (giving another person permission to ‘check in’ on them in the area(s) they’ve shared).

At the beginning of the message time, Pastor Shawn shared about a new ‘Live Sent’ expression coming to SLW this fall: The Ready, Set, Grow! Preschool! Take time to pray during your Group meeting that the Holy Spirit would touch the children and families who will be ministered to through the preschool. 

Pastor Shawn talked about Jesus’s process in our lives as we follow Him (saved-set apart-sent).

• What is the difference between being ‘saved,’ ‘set apart,’ and ‘sent?’
  
• Each of these elements is more about God’s activity than our own effort, but we often make this process more about US than what God is doing IN US. What are symptoms of this misunderstanding? What is the result of focusing more on our own effort than God’s leading and enabling?

• In what ways is ‘being set apart’ a process? What are the struggles you’re having as God identifies new ways in your life he wants you to be set apart? Have your Group members pray for each other as they identify these areas of struggle; praise God for his victory in the lives of your members.
  
• By not living SENT we experience less than God desired for us and are in a place of disobedience. Why do you think it seems so many Christ followers stop in their progression at ‘set apart?’ Can we earnestly follow Jesus and yet choose disobedience?

• While this is more about God’s activity than our own effort, what is a symptom that we are out of balance in this and holding our own activity back? What are the results of such an imbalance?

Read Matthew 28:19-20 & Acts 1:8; discuss…

• With Jesus’s command/commission is a promise; what is it? How is this promise central to our ability to live SENT?
• How are these two passages complimentary? What do we learn about our call to move outward?
• What do you think kept the Disciples from stepping immediately into obedience in these areas? How do those same things keep us from obedience today?

Read Acts 8:1b, 4-8; 26-36 discuss...

• Jesus’s call to live SENT was clear, but it wasn’t until persecution came that the church focused on this mission. What ways do you think God uses discomfort/pain/difficulty to position us to obedience and sent-ness?
• How does living SENT require us to overcome cultural prejudice? Where do you see the call to live SENT in your life meaning to overcome cultural ideas in your own sphere of influence?
• Why would God take Philip from a place of fruitful ministry and send him to the barren desert? Have you ever felt God doing this in your life?
• God keeps leading Phillip to do increasingly faith-requiring ministry; this never would have happened if Phillip hadn’t taken initial steps to live SENT.
• What might some foolish-looking opportunities be that God is leading you to as you live sent?
• What are some unlikely circumstances that you find yourself in (in where you live, work, play…) today; how might God be positioning this ‘unlikely circumstance’ to become a tremendous opportunity for the Kingdom?
• “To live sent means we follow His agenda.” What are ways that we substitute our own agenda instead of what God’s design is? What are evidences that we have done this? What are some evidences we have submitted to His agenda?
  

We were asked to reflect on the following question:

“What is the one step you need to take this week to see God do a new thing

 in your life...or in someone else’s life?”

What are the natural opportunities to connect with your Group members as they process and answer the question during the weeks ahead? In what ways can you tackle these things as a Group or through smaller relational connections in your Group? Be sure to follow up in your future meetings to see how God is answering this question.