Building a Home

Have you ever thought about your front door? or maybe its your side door for you.

But for me there is some sort of magic there at my front door. It is different than nearly any other door you encounter. When I approach the door I reach immediately for the handle, right?

What happens when you approach anybody else’s front door? You ring the doorbell, maybe you knock.

Have you ever thought about the streets around your house. For me there is some sort of magic there on my streets, right? You go on a vacation and as you are on your way home, as you get closer, maybe it is night time and you were dozing but you just wake up and look out the window and you recognize the distinctive quiet of your neighborhood streets, right? For some reason, the sights and sounds and smells feel familiar.

Have you ever moved to a new house? I have and somehow over time all those things follow you to the new place.

It makes sense that the place where you spend the majority of your time imprints itself on your psyche. But I think it is more than just the place. It is about your family. Think about it, this is the place where you have your most intimate relationships. People who know you better than anyone else knows you. People who have seen your best. People who have seen your worst.

It is those relationships that I think give your home its magic. It is your family.

We talk about building a movement here in bcsm on top of a community of apprentices to Jesus. And the kind of community that we are building here is a family. We want bcsm to become a kind of spiritual home to a spiritual family/ community. Ephesians calls it the household of God.

Ephesians 2:19–22 ESV

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Small Group Time

Read This Overview (2 Min)

In the past, small group time has been a time mainly for learning, but since we have become a movement, we thought it would be better to devote this time to practicing. In order for that to happen, you need to see this time and space as holy. Holy, in this case, means set apart for spiritual purposes.

1. No teasing

This is a time to have fun with each other, but not at each other’s expense. So even if it is a joke that the other person seems ok with, we don’t want to hear put downs in this space.

2. Actively Listen to One Another

This is a time to learn from each other, to pay attention to one another and to grow together. You can not do that if you are not listening to one another. Sometimes you will be instructed to have individual conversations. But if you are not told to have an individual conversation, don’t have one.

3. Keep Holy things holy

If someone shares something in this group, it stays in this group.

As long as everyone is good with those requirements, let’s start.

Begin with prayer (5 minutes)

Have somebody lead a prayer asking the Holy Spirit to lead and guide your time together.

Debrief (5 minutes)

What has stood out to you about bcsm since we changed the name to Bridgetown Church Student Movement?

How do you think a church and a family can be similar? How are they different?

Open the Bible together (5 minutes)

The church in Corinth was known for its intelligence and influence (they had a high intellectual intelligence), but needed to work on how to love and care for each other (they had a low emotional intelligence), leading Paul to write explicitly about this issue in a letter to them. With this in mind, read 1 Corinthians 13 :4-8 , 13 aloud together and discuss the following question:

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

What gets in the way of  your ability to practice the characteristics of love—such as patience and kindness—that Paul describes in this chapter of his letter? (e.g. busyness; exhaustion; strained relationships; unaddressed anger, sadness, or fear; etc.) Practice (20 Min) Below we have laid out the five components of a Community Temperature Reading. The goal of a Community Temperature Reading is to gain greater insight and clarity into your present relationships (or, as the name suggests, to get the “temperature” of people in your Community) and to proactively address areas of miscommunication that can hinder relationship. Have one person from your Community read through each component’s description and examples out loud. After each component, pause and follow the community instructions. After spending 3 minutes on one component of the CTR, move on to the next.

(Note: At first glance, some of these components may feel forced or cheesy. We encourage you to suspend judgment and to give them a try so that you can build these relational skills into your life.)

We are going to practice something called the Community Temperature Reading. This is a tool that can help us as we seek to become the kind of community that is built on the love described in 1 Cor 13.

1. Appreciations: If we pause and reflect, most of us can name the things we appreciate about the various people in our lives. However if we’re honest—whether because of cultural influence or an assumption that others already know how we feel about them—our gratitude often goes unspoken.But speaking the things we appreciate out loud is an integral part of healthy relationships. Some examples of appreciations could sound like: “I appreciate how kind you are.” “I appreciate your willingness to help other people.” “I appreciate your sense of humor.” Community Instructions: Pause and spend 3 minutes sharing Appreciations as a Community. You do not need to go in any particular order; simply encourage your Community to take this opportunity to express what they appreciate about one another. You may find it difficult to come up with things to say. If so, that is ok. This is practice.

2: Puzzles: If we’re not careful, we can make negative assumptions about people’s intentions or attitudes based on a single occurrence, especially when we do not have all the information. For this reason, it is important to channel our tendency to make negative assumptions into a more positive, less assumptive inquiry: a puzzle. By treating our assumption as a puzzle we haven’t solved, we are able to keep ourselves from jumping to conclusions, believing the worst of people, and making judgments. Some examples of puzzles could sound like: Instead of being upset and saying nothing, or being upset and angrily asking, “Why did you ignore my text?”, consider saying, “I’m puzzled as to why you didn’t text me back.” Community Instructions: Have each person in your Community pair up with one other person—two if there is an uneven number. Drawing inspiration from the examples above, spend 3 minutes in pairs practicing puzzles by coming up with real or hypothetical examples and sharing them together.

3: Complaints with Possible Solutions: It’s ok to feel frustration in our relationships; that’s a normal part of life together. Some of us grew up believing that if you didn’t have anything nice to say, that it was better to not say anything at all. But, wrongly understood, this is a breeding ground for contempt or bitterness, which can reach a boiling point and have more relational impact than addressing the complaint in the first place. Our job as followers of Jesus is to find the line between being critical and addressing legitimate complaints (rather than dwelling on them or holding them against the other person). It can be helpful to address your complaints with practical, possible solutions by using the phrase “I notice… and I prefer…” Some examples of complaints with possible solutions could sound like: “I notice that you have made jokes about my clothes and I prefer that you would stop.” “I notice that you say that I cheat when we play gaga ball. I would prefer that you would trust that I am trying to play fair.” “I notice that you pick up your phone when a notification goes off during our group discussion. I would prefer that you silence your phone, or wait until the group is done sharing to check your notifications.” Community Instructions: Have each person in your Community pair up with one other person—two if there is an uneven number. Drawing inspiration from the examples above, spend 3 minutes in pairs practicing complaints with possible solutions by coming up with real or hypothetical examples and sharing them together.

4: New Information: As a general rule, no one has all the information and no one can read your mind. For this reason, it is important to communicate. Rather than assume your community knows what is going on in your life, we must regularly share new information (changes in our lives, unspoken feelings, new circumstances, etc.) with the people in our lives. When our community has this information, they are able to act in accordance with that information. Communities can only flourish when we know what is happening in each other’s lives, both the trivial details and the important changes. Some examples of new information could sound like: “We’re practicing for finals in basketball on Sundays this month, so I may be running late to bcsm@night for the next few weeks.” “I just got a new job!” “My family is waiting to hear back on my dad’s diagnosis.” Community Instructions: Have each person in your Community pair up with one other person—two if there is an uneven number. Drawing inspiration from the examples above, spend 3 minutes in pairs practicing new information with possible solutions by sharing new information about your life. This time, try for real-life examples.

5: Hopes & Wishes: Whether big or small, all of us have hopes and wishes for our lives. By sharing our hopes and wishes with our Community, we offer them a chance to see unique pieces of our soul. Even the best of relationships are made richer when we take time to express our own hopes and wishes and to support others in theirs. Some examples of hopes and wishes could sound like: “I hope I can visit my mom this fall in New York.” “I hope to get my driver’s license next year.” “I hope to make honor roll someday.” Community Instructions: Pause and spend 3 minutes sharing hopes & wishes as a Community. You do not need to go in any particular order, simply encourage one another to take this opportunity to share their unique hopes & wishes in the safety of community.

Discuss as a Group

What was it like for you to express yourself in each of the five categories? Which felt the most natural? Which was the most difficult?

With this new mode of communication before us, what hopes do you have for our Community in the weeks and months ahead? (e.g. people feeling safer to engage in group conversation, better individual relationships, people not being afraid to voice their opinions, etc.)