Apostle Paul: A Trailblazer for Christ - Week 2

The book of Galatians is a wonderful read.  However, if you are with your Faith Group right now you do not have time to read it.  Instead, together, as a group, watch this video.  I encourage you to take notes while you watch the video.   

When you finish the video talk about the following things with your group. 

• What do you remember from the sermon on Sunday after watching the video? 
• What new thing have you learned by watching this video? 
• Do you have any times in your life when you feel like you are in and "us vs. them" situation?  How can you navigate these times in a way changes the situation from an "us vs. them" to a type that contains less stress and more love?
• Why is it important to love our neighbors?  What does the video tell us about loving our neighbors?  
• Are there people in your life who are hard to love?  Why are they hard to love?  What can you do in your life to love them?

In your devotion time this week or as you meet with your Faith Group, Pastor Jim and I encourage you to also take time to open yourself with the following Wesley Challenge question: Do I give time for the Bible to speak to me every day? (pages 49-52 in The Wesley Challenge) 

Real Fishing Stories: The Fish and the Net

Real Fishing Stories: The Net and the Fish

The theme of my sermon was that Jesus is telling us all that we need to cast the net of God's love and grace wide and to everyone.  It doesn't matter who is caught up in the net, we are told by Jesus to love God and love our neighbors.  The judging and sorting is left up to those more qualified.  With you group explore and talk about this story and other stories in Matthew with this same theme...

Read Matthew 13:47-50 - The Parable of the Net

Read Matthew 13:24-30 and 13:36-43 The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds

Read Matthew 25:31-46 The Sheep and the Goats

As you discuss remember that we are not in the business of judging people.  Find the radical love in the passages.  After you have read and discussed the passages, answer the following questions.

1. What are you doing to shine God's love into the world?  How could you do more? 
2. Are there people who it is hard for you to love?  Why?  
3. Why is it important to shine God's love towards ALL people?  
4. Is there anyone that we should exclude from an invitation into the love and grace of a relationship with God?  Does anyone have a story to share of someone who they know who has been excluded from a faith community?  
5. Who is one person that you can commit to love this week and invite to church or a church activity?  

In your devotion time this week or as you meet with your Faith Group, Pastor Jim and I encourage you to also take time to open yourself with the following Wesley Challenge question: Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better that I am? (pages 99-104 in The Wesley Challenge) 

Back to the Basics: Three Simple Rules

Back to the Basics

Three Simple Rules 

James 1:19-26 (CEB)

¹⁹ Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. ²⁰ This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness. ²¹ Therefore, with humility, set aside all moral filth and the growth of wickedness, and welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.

²² You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. ²³ Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. ²⁴ They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. ²⁵ But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.

²⁶ If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. ²⁷ True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.

Discussion Questions

• What are the Three Simple Rules?  How do you already live them in your life?  How are you missing the mark in living them in your life?
• James tell us to be "quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry".  Clearly this was a difficult 2000 years ago as it is today.  Why is this?  How does one develop the ability to be quick to listen and slow to speak?
• Read the quote below from Rev. Esther Rodríguez, a fellow United Methodist pastor...

"May we open ourselves to the idea that simply because we haven’t experienced something a particular way it doesn’t mean others have not experienced it that way. Just because we haven’t, for example, experienced discrimination, racism, sexism, or other -isms doesn’t mean that others haven’t and still do. Just because we’ve grown up understanding the world, our nations, and the way things are one particular way does not mean others have experienced and understood it that way. We all come from different stories, experiences, and ways of seeing the world that are shaped by those. Let us remember these words from James in our dealings with others (and please in our posting & sharing on social media): My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry...” May we be better listeners, more thoughtful speakers, and ones who leave the judging to God."  Rev. Esther Rodríguez

• Discuss the quote together.  Thoughts? 
• Have you ever had an experience in your life when you have tried to explain your point of view to someone but they have been unwilling or unable to listen?  Share about that time?  How did it make you feel? 
• Visit this site and read about the Three Simple Rules for Social Media.
• Discuss the article together.  Thoughts?
• What new practices can you place in your life to help you live out the Three Simple Rules? 

In your devotion time this week or as you meet with your Faith Group, Pastor Jim and I encourage you to also take time to open yourself with the following Wesley Challenge question:  Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward, or disregard? If so, what am I going to do about it? (pages 117-122 in The Wesley Challenge) 

Back to the Basics 

Week 1

Grace

Ephesians 2:1-10 You were dead through the trespasses and sins ² in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. ³ All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. ⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us ⁵ even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹ not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

This week as you meet with your Faith Group talk about the following questions...

1. Has there been a time in your life when you have literally gotten lost using a physical map or your map app on your phone?  
2. Tell about a time in your life when you have allowed other people, influences, or "maps" to guide you in your life?  How did it turn out? 
3. In my sermon I talked about how often we settle for God as the side dish in our lives.  Can you relate to this or share a story where you have only allowed God to be a tiny part of your life? 
4. In my sermon I talked about how God's grace is free but that we have to accept it and grow in our relationship with God.  One of the best ways to grow in our relationship is through the Means of Grace.  Read the article at this link and discuss the Means of Grace and if you are practicing them in your life. 

Finally, as you meet this week, Pastor Jim and I encourage you to also take time to open yourselves up as a group and dialog on the following Wesley Challenge question:  Is Jesus real to me? (pages 19-22 in The Wesley Challenge) 

From Cowardice to Courage 

This week, while you meet with your Faith Group you may want to reflect on the sermon, using the following Scripture and questions as a way to begin conversation.

John 21:15-17 (NRSV)

¹⁵ When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶ A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷ He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

I love children’s books, this makes sense since I was a first grade teacher.  I love children’s books for many reasons, but one of the reason is that many children’s books have a great message, not just for children, but also for adults.  As I prepared for this weekends message I thought a lot about the book, You Are Special by Max Lucado.  I have read it many times to children, but again, I think there is a message for adults too.  

If you are so inclined I have included a link to a YouTube video of a reading of the book.  After you watch the video AND after you attend church on Sunday, May 13 or have watched the sermon online, you will want to discuss the questions below with your group.  However, you do not have to watch the YouTube video, attended church or watched the sermon online to answer the questions, but doing at least one of those things will be helpful.  You can also discuss these questions outside of a Faith Group...but if you are not in a group yet maybe it is time to sign up.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=15QuHygLwFU

1.     What types of labels do people put on you? What types of labels have you observed people putting on each other?  What types of labels do you put on other people? 

2.    What does it mean that we are created in the image of God?  What does this mean for a woman?  What does this man?  

3.    If you were sitting with Jesus on the beach what type of label or thing from the past would you need to allow Jesus to take care of?  Would this be easy or difficult?  What tools can help you let go of your stuff in a quicker, better, healthier fashion?

4.    Why do we need to get rid of the labels or things?  What does this sheading of the labels help us to do?  

As you meet this week, I encourage you to also take time to open yourselves up as a group and dialog on the following Wesley Challenge question: Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike disown, criticize, hold resentment toward or disagree? 

Get Out of the Car...I Mean Boat

Looking forward to seeing everyone in church on Sunday.  Bring your Bibles because we are going to take some time and walk through the text.  

Next week, while you meet with your small faith group you may want to reflect on the sermon and then use the questions below as talk starters.  

Read Matthew 14:22-33

• If the boat represents safety, what are the boats in your life?  
• Only one person got out of the boat and then that person, Peter failed in a public way.  Have you ever failed in a public way?  
• Was Peter a failure?  

Read the following quotes about failure and discuss them with your group. 

 “Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I've met people who don't want to try for fear of failing.” - J.K. Rowling

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” - Johnny Cash

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” - Henry Ford

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill

“It's failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” - Ellen DeGeneres

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy

Wesley Challenge – Week 1

Well, that title is a lie, I have been doing the Wesley Challenge for more then one week, but for my church family, this is the first week.  In my personal devotions I have been spending the past two months focusing on the first seven questions, the ones about my relationship with God.

1.  Is Jesus real to me?
2. Am I enjoying prayer?
3. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
4. Did the Bible live in me today?
5.  Did I disobey God in anything?
6. Do I pray about the money I spend?
7. Do I give time for the Bible to speak to me every day?

When I started this journey I would say that my spiritual growth was moving at its same old steady rate…just moving ahead…not stalled…just moving at that same old rate…here I am…living my life…doing my thing…the same speed everyday.

Then I started to do the questions and whoa!  It didn’t happen all at once, it was a slow start, but once the momentum picked up, I could feel it.  My personal spiritual growth went from slow and steady speedy quick.  All because I stopped focusing on the head and started to focus on the heart.  It is like God has opened up some new rooms in my heart to work on, to clean out and it feels great.  Well, that might be a bit of a lie.  It actually felt a little uncomfortable at first, it meant being brutally honest with myself.  That was hard.  Ugh, I had let my personal Bible reading slip, I justified all the Bible reading I do at work as personal Bible reading.  I was not praying about the way I spend money.  I was having fun spending it, but was it on the right things, in the right way?  Why was I feeling so bad about all those little games I play on iPad first thing in the morning?  What was that all about?  Was my conscience uneasy about it?!?  But I liked those games!!!!  What was I going to do with that?  AGGGG!!!  These examples and things that will remain between God and myself all hurt, it was hard, but I am on the other side of these seven questions, for now, and it feels great.  I have had a revival in my relationship with God because of these seven questions. 

Now it is time to look forward to week 2, my relationship with myself…

1.     Am I proud?

2.     Am I defeated in any part of my life?

3.     Do I go to bed on time and get up on time?

4.     Do I grumble or complain constantly?

5.     Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?

6.     How do I spend my spare time?

7.     Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying? 

… and chances are, if I am honest and do this right, this might hurt a bit too.