Related Message
When you hear the sermon on Sunday do you ever wonder how you can draw some of its ideas or challenges into your day-to-day life? Come and explore the spiritual exercises presented here to reflect on how you can physically walk the sermon out this week. Read through the suggestions and try one or more. Or, better yet, let them inspire you to create something even more in tune with how you personally meet God. Either way, use this space to become more deeply engaged with Christ, as you open up to the love of God, and listen to the guiding voice of the Holy Spirit. May you enjoy the presence of God as you... Reflect.
Cultivating Love...
Read this quote a few times and consider the marks that you carry, as well as the wounds that you have inflicted. Consider the power of our words and our gestures.
“Our body, our whole being, carries within it the marks
of each act of gentleness and tenderness
but also each wound, each sense of rejection,
each word or gesture which gave us the impression
that we were loved or not loved
or that we were guilty.”
- Jean Vanier (Befriending the Stranger, p. 31)
- How do your friendships function? Are you offering gentleness and tenderness, or are you pushing for what you can get out of the friendship?
- Regardless of what your friendships look like, you can commit to cultivating love this week. Commit to listening and learning about others. Commit to gentleness and tenderness rather than try to fix problems or avoid pain. Commit to really loving.
What is “Friendship”…
How would you describe or define friendship? How does our culture define friendship? How is your description/definition influenced by, or different from cultural notions of friendship?
Watch the following commercial:
- How many friends/friendships do you really have, as opposed to acquaintances, facebook “friends”, fellow Life Group participants, etc?
- How do your friendships change in person as opposed to online? Do you present a more guarded or crafted image of yourself online or in person? Or are you more of an exhibitionist (willing to post things, or say things, that you would rarely share face-to-face)? Or are you the same in each environment? Ask your friends.
- As you reflect on your answers to these questions, what have you learned about yourself as a friend and how you give of yourself in friendship to others?
Sharing Our Lives…
Read 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8. What does it mean to share “not only the gospel but our lives as well”?
- In your relationships with people who are yet to love Christ, which do you share more of: the gospel or your life? Why? What makes it hard to share the other?
- How do you think that fact skews your friends’ perception of you? Of your life of faith? Of Jesus and the Church?
- In what ways could you be more deliberate to correct the imbalance in your relationships? What is one thing you could do to seek to share “not only the gospel but your life as well”?
- Make an appointment with a friend who does not yet know Christ and do one small thing with them to try to intentionally right the imbalance in your friendship.
For this week's reading recommendations, check out READ.
For this week's conversations starters, check out TALK.
