Gather & Eat

In your first week this is such an important time! It could be helpful to formalize this time a little more than a normal week. As you eat, maybe go round and share your name, where you’re from, and what you do for work. If you already all know each other than you can probably skip that part.

Pray

Gather together in a comfortable setting (around a table, on the couch, the floor of a living room, etc.). Have somebody pray; asking the Holy Spirit to lead and guide your time together. Don’t be afraid to leave some space in the quiet to just listen and rest.

Discuss

Everybody hopefully had a chance to listen to the message for this week. The message was from John Mark Comer introducing us to the topic of Formation and practicing the way of Jesus.

Use these questions to help guide your discussion as a large group:


Did you listen to the teaching? What did you think?

What are you hopeful for and what are your expectations for what might happen in your life by being part of this Community?

Learn

In 2002 Johnny Cash released a cover of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt”. The song went on to become one of Cash’s most famous and popular singles. Decades after the height of his popularity in his youth, as he sang of pain and regret with a gravelly and weathered voice - the emotional sincerity of his voice cut to the bone. He would die just a year later. The chorus of the song asks with profound sadness, “What have I become?”, a haunting question to be asking at the end of your life. If we are honest, none of us want to find ourselves asking such a painful question.

We have a chance to ask a much better question right now: Who am I becoming?

We are all becoming someone. Someone more bitter or someone more joyful. Someone more harsh or someone more gracious. Someone less like Jesus or someone more like Jesus. We all have a trajectory that we are on, a person we are becoming, and a life we are creating. We must acknowledge that without intentionally shaping our lives around something good, our lives will be shaped for us by the culture of the world. Remember, “formation” isn’t a Christian idea. Everyone is being formed into something.

Paul writes in Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

The goal of our lives is to be transformed by the Spirit, into the likeness of Christ - rather than the likeness of our flesh or the broken world we live in - and in doing so we become capable of living lives marked by goodness. For us, this means apprenticeship under Jesus - to be with Him, to become like Him, and to do the things that He did.

The goal of this course, over the next eight weeks, is to go on a journey where we choose to not just believe in Jesus but to follow him as faithful apprentices. To follow Jesus means we have to draw close to him, go where he goes, do the things he’s doing, steer clear of the things he’s not doing, submit our lives under his leadership and say “Rabbi, you know how to do this better than I do, teach me how to live.”

To follow Jesus also means we must let go of our own idea of how life should be lived. This is the first step on the journey - the step of letting go of what we think our life should be and how it should be lived, and exchanging it for Jesus’s plan for our lives and His idea of how life should be lived. In Matthew 16:24-26 Jesus teaches his disciples: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit someone if they gain the world and forfeit their soul?”

Following Jesus in this way is to lose our life, but in return we receive something so much more valuable, profitable for our soul, and beneficial to the world. There is no more beautiful thing than a life lost in Christ’s death, found in his resurrection, and now living fully awake to his redemptive purposes on the earth, and partnering with him in them.

Share

Split into triads (groups of three, ideally of the same gender) to share at a deeper level. The goal of sharing in triads is to keep those groups consistent so that you can build trust and a deeper connection with people whom you can be more vulnerable and share at a deeper level with.

Check in with each other and get to know each other a little if you don’t already know everyone in your triad.

Then work through these questions, engaging your heart as much as your mind.


  • Are you apprehensive or nervous about this course?

  • Do you feel like you are intentionally living to become a person who is more and more like Jesus? Do you feel there are other influences in the world trying to make you into something different?

  • It’s often easy to highlight the ways we are good at following Jesus, but what areas of your life are you anticipating that might need to change as you follow Jesus?

Pray

Staying in your triads, pray for each other. There may be practical needs or prayer requests, or there may be things to pray for regarding the topic of submitting our lives to the way of Jesus. When praying for someone you can ask them if you can appropriately place a hand on their shoulder, and it’s ok to keep your eyes open when you pray so that you stay aware of what is happening to them as you pray. Make sure to invite the Holy Spirit and leave space for Him to speak.

Practice

Here’s some things to practice this week to delve deeper into this topic.

Listen


Read


Matthew 5-6:29

This text is Jesus’s famous sermon on the mount - a great foundation for what it looks like to live as a follower of Jesus. If you can, find time to read and pray through this text during the week.