7th February
(This guide is designed to give helpful hints in preparing & leading your group in discussion)
REAL LOVE – Part 2: Love in Action
ANNOUNCEMENTS
LEADER NOTE: Go over the Agreement with anyone who missed the first week. Remind anyone that hasn’t signed the Agreement to do so. Drop in the Impact Group drop box at the Welcome Desk by Sunday 28 February.
NAME TAGS: Remember if you have anyone new in your group use name tags for at least the first 3 weeks.
BEGIN TO MAKE PLANS FOR SOCIAL OR SERVICE PROJECT: Begin to think about what project you would like to do. Check our website for some options – TheCatholicGuy.tv/CommunityService
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
Special Note: Remember we are on week #2 with your group. People are still acclimating, especially new people. Lead your group through the questions according to how well everyone knows each other. We have included two “Getting to Know You” questions that new groups and groups with new people can use as ice breakers. Next week these questions will tie in more with the Message. You may not have to ask the first questions but make sure you ask #3.
1. Just in case we ever invite you over to our home what is your favourite meal. What do you like about it? Can you remember when you first had it?
Have fun with this question. Good one to have everyone answer.
2. Just is case we ever go on holidays together where do you like to go and what do you like to do?
Have fun with this question. Good one to have everyone answer.
3. Whether you are Church attender or not you probably have heard the “love” reading from Sunday’s Message at a wedding or a funeral. Real love is more than just an emotion or feeling. When it comes to loving those around you such as family and friends, what is your greatest challenge? As a reminder here it is.
This is a highly personal question that is designed to get take the sharing to a more meaningful place. Example answers might include, my selfishness, a wayward child, the possibility of being rejected, I have never thought about it. Let people engage with the question to the degree they choose.
1 Corinthians 13:1–13 (NRSV)
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
4. During the Message, Bruce said,
“We can fall into the trap of believing that the Christian life is about;
- attendance,
- of measuring up,
- of attempting to keep the rules,
- of being a good citizen,
- that if we do these things Christians and even God will be pleased with us.
- That the Christian life is about performance. It is a giant exam, the ultimate test and if we pass God is pleased with us and we get into heaven.”
Do you agree or disagree? See the following Scriptures.
Many people believe that they have to pass to the test. The Scriptures on the other hand tells us that God judges our heart and that even though we fall short in our actions God is a God of mercy.
Proverbs 16:2
All a person’s ways seem pure to them,
but motives are weighed by the Lord.
Jeremiah 17:10
“I the Lord search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”
Psalm 139:1
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
5. Looking back at your notes from this week’s Message, was there anything that particularly caught your attention, challenged or confused you?
Good question to ask to give people a chance to talk about topics that caught their attention or aren’t addressed in the Homework. The number of responses to this question will vary from week to week.