April 7, 2019 - Strange Gifts: Sharing Jesus

April 7, 2019 The smaller groups in our church community are inside our homes where we go deeper, build friendships, and walk out the Christian life with each other. HOME CHURCH GUIDE + “Breaking the Ice” question (group facilitator) + CHECK-INS: Introduce, check-in + CARE: Needs in the group + COMPASSION: What is the group planning? Are you inviting your neighbours to join in? + GROUP ANNOUNCEMENTS Church-wide, group-only + DIG IN: Discuss questions as a group + END AND HOMEWORK: Final questions, prayer huddles for personal requests. Consider breaking into small groups (huddles) of 2-4, by gender, if large enough. DISCUSSION questions: + LUKE 14:16-24 + MATTHEW 5:13-16 Have you ever received or been offered a gift you did not want? + What is a strange gift you’ve given or received? Why was it strange? + Read some of the key passages and reflect as a group on them. + Why do you think we confuse disagreement and judgement in our culture? How does this (the larger culture(s) we inhabit) impact our views and ways of sharing faith in Jesus? Sharing Jesus is part of the commands of the Bible. The faith is about sharing the “good news”. What are some of your hang-ups with sharing Jesus? The Gift of Jesus is a declaration, a proclamation, that things can and will be different. It is a break with the status quo, things as they are now. It’s a disrupting, and strange gift. + In what ways do you see Pilgrim becoming more outward focused? + Talk about the local church caring about the global reach of the message of Jesus. Acts 1:8 and Matthew 28:18-20 speak of various circles of sharing the life and teachings of Jesus beyond our family or immediate culture(s) of origin and comfort. + Other thoughts? What is the Holy Spirit up to in Vancouver? MATTHEW 5:13-16 speaks of our role in sharing Jesus, and indeed Jesus’ effect is like salt and light. + Preserved food for hard times and later feasts + Flavours Prayer Requests: + Illuminates and makes clear what’s around us But the powers of the world do not cede their ground willingly in our hearts + The powers work to silence true debate and discussion about what makes for a flourishing life. + A Barna research report released this year indicates “almost half of practicing Christian millennials say evangelism is wrong.” SHARER OR A HOARDER? Sharing Christ is part of what it means to have found Christ. + You share what you’ve found. But we’ve been beaten into submission to the ideologies around us. Basically, we’ve been trained to be private spiritual “hoarders”. This keeps the powers of the world unchecked by the Kingdom of God ways of being human. + To hoard this is a relationship destroying, love reducing sin. We think it’s liberalism telling us it’s all equal, I think it’s more sinister than that - the powers are reducing us to consumers. Consumers must not have strong opinions, but just be addicted to the next superficial find - either through Instagram, entertainment experiences, or stuff. We’ve been taught to use our bodies simply as products as well. Porn and sex reduce people to goods and feelings. Jesus tells us there is another kind of deep and life-altering way of living. NOTE: JOINING GOD ON MISSION HAS SOME “SIDE EFFECTS” + Joy! LUKE 10:21, 15:7,10,32 + The Return of the King MATTHEW 24:12-14, 2 PETER 3:3-9 TO REMEMBER: + We must wrestle with our culture that confuses judgment and disagreement. It is counter-cultural to enter into critical or challenging conversations. The culture is numbing us. + We must have a rock-solid conviction that Love is defined most fully by Jesus and everyone needs to become aware of what is at their core as a human. + We must understand sharing Christ as GUESTS is a lifestyle, a daily engage- ment with the Holy Spirit and the others in our lives. GOD IS ON A MISSION and invites us to follow him on His mission to seek and save us from the lostness of consumption, and trying to claw meaning out of things and others that cannot satisfy the first need of relationship with the Creator. + The Spirit of God is creative and wants to empower and partner with us to make Jesus real to us and others. + Hospitality and relationships are funded by time. Support of the church and MATTHEW 28:18-20 HE GIVES US THE POWER WE NEED TO BE A PEOPLE ON MISSION Acts 1:8 + This power moves us to risk moving from anxious hoarders to givers of the strange gifts of Jesus. + A lack of intimacy with the Holy Spirit will result in a powerless faith. + The Spirit will drive us outward to share Jesus. He wants all to have a chance to say “no”. + God does not coerce, force belief. crossing cultures for mission and discipleship are also funded by dollars. Words of spiritual power and truth are funded through prayer, worship, and word. These are concrete behaviours we are to embody as missionary people.