Month: May 2022

Can you remember encountering someone from a different culture where that led to misunderstandings ? What do you think was the different values that were highlighted ? Read Luke 13:10-17 What are the different values of the pharisees and Jesus ? What are the rules they are following ? Read Luke 13:18-19. The mustard seed is not a jewish metaphor. They would expect a Sedah tree. Mustard is common. Read Luke 13:20-21 Yeast too is a surprise. A woman who bakes. These are odd patterns to a Jew. Malcolm and Wendy suggest that the point is that this supposed to be surprising.  “Empathy means we surrender the idea that our way of presenting the gospel should make sense because because…

   We love the idea of respectful relationships, but it’s easy for that to go wrong. In the world of aid and development they talk about three modes. 1 ) Relief (stopping the bleeding, I’ll do stuff for you), 2 ) Rehabilitation (We’ll help you get back to normal, I’ll do stuff with you), 3) Development (we walk together). Have you experienced any of these three modes in either giver or receiver mode (remember the earthquake). How did those relationships go ? When were relationships respectful, and when not ? Why ? In John 4 Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman we see him asking questions humbly and treating her with gentleness and respect.  How do we model with with…

Icebreaker : Have you ever had a GPS lead you astray ? What happened ? NZBMS suggest that we need to return to listening. They asked us to read Isaiah 43. Remember they are an exiled people. For them everything has gone wrong.  Together read from Isaiah 42:18-20 (What can we be blind to ?) Read Isaiah 43 : 1- 13. There are promises to the hearer about    1 ) who they are and    2 ) what God does.  Which bits strike you ?    Notice v8.   What would it be like to be blind but asked to bring out blind and deaf people ? Why might God ask people who don’t see clearly to help others…

We’ve been encouraged to look at mutual humility by NZBMS. Why do you think that might be important when wanting to help others ? As part of this we were asked to consider which of the soils of the parable of the sower we might be like. The passage can be read in Mark 4:1-12, Mat 13, or Luke 8:4-10. Soil Type Problem What the soil needs Pathway Hard Softening Rocky Ground Shallow Depth Thorny Cluttered Space Ask people to consider which might be the soil that most resembles their lives (they may not want to disclose). Have a gentle discussion asking people to think of what someone in each of these places might be able to do (or might…

These are really short notes and questions for discussion for small groups. This time there are only 2 questions : If you were to tell your story of coming to faith (or not) what would be the good thing in that ? What renewal did you see ? It’s always worth paying attention to that.(But don’t get stuck there. Nostalgia isn’t our friend in growing.) The 2nd question is : What do you think Gospel Renewal might look like ?