Guide 1: Preparation
Faith, Hope, & Love
Review the Practice (10 minutes)
During this series, we will practice Witness as a way to embody the Spirit’s gifts of faith, hope, and love. Specifically, we will explore how we can aim these relationships toward kinship: the deep, God-rooted recognition that we are all interconnected. Since we’re at the beginning of this series, let’s talk about the people in our life who we want to know Jesus’s love.
Who are the people in your life who you long to see come to faith in Jesus?
What would be different about their lives if they knew Jesus’ love for them?
Overview (2 minutes)
The death and resurrection of Jesus impacts more than what happens to us when we die. Life with God has implications here and now, and everything we do is forever altered: how we work, raise kids, interact with roommates, spend free time, and engage society. But we can’t do any of it with our own willpower alone. We need help to love God with our hearts, minds, souls, and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourselves—which is why God gives us his Holy Spirit—to empower, transform, and help us to live life with God.
During this series, we will explore three of the hallmarks of this Spirit-empowered life: faith, hope, and love. Each is a gift that God works in us and then through us in the world. Each time we gather together, we are going to focus on the practice of Witness: expressing hospitality and sharing the good news of Jesus with people in our life who do not yet know him. Doing this faithfully often looks less like holding a sign on a street corner or handing out pamphlets to strangers, and more like building relationships, loving people well, and practicing kinship: the deep, God-rooted recognition that we are all interconnected—created in God’s image and called into communion with one another and our neighbor.
Exercise for Tonight (20 minutes)
Our exercise for tonight involves laying the groundwork for what we’ll be doing for the rest of the series. In each Community Guide after tonight, we will simply plan out what we are calling “kinship experiments”—opportunties to deepen relationships with people in our lives who we love. Whether we do these together as a Community or individually on our own, we will partner with the Spirit and one another to find ways to sacrificially love and be radically present to people who need it. Over the next 6 weeks, we will do 3 of these—using one week to plan it, then a week to do it—three times over. The word “experiment” is meant to give us permission to creatively think outside the box and try new things. We might choose to lean deeper into our monthly Service rhythm, or maybe have dinner with our literal neighbors, host a game night for friends who don’t know Jesus, or something else entirely.
For tonight, though, our time will be spent laying some groundwork for these kinship experiments—asking God for creativity, reviewing our current relationships, and dreaming together about how to use these next 6 weeks to pursue kinship.
Let’s begin with prayer. God, as we take time this season to pay closer attention to how you might be inviting us to love people more intentionally, we confess that we need your help. Come, Holy Spirit, and open our hearts in love, our eyes in curiosity, our minds in creativity, and open our hands in willingness. We trust you and we love you. Teach us to love like you. Amen.
Next, let’s have a discussion. A conversation about aiming our relationships towards kinship—towards mutuality, sacrificial love, and towards communion with one another and our neighbor—could go in many directions! For this discussion, we’re going to talk about two kinds of relationships: those we have as a Community and those we have as individuals. Our conversation tonight will help us figure out where and how to use our next few weeks together.
Let’s start with the relationships we’ve cultivated as a Community. Take a moment to consider the people we come alongside during our Community’s monthly Service rhythm:
Who are the people that we’ve come to know and get to interact with each month? (This could be the people we directly serve, the people we serve alongside, or, if applicable, those working in the organization with which we serve.)
What potential opportunities might we have to deepen or build these relationships?
(Leader note: Have someone take notes—this will help you figure out where to steer your kinship experiments in the weeks to come.)
Next, think back to our conversation that began the night—the people in our lives who we long to know Jesus:
Who could God be inviting me to invest time and love into, that they might know him?
How could I creatively experiment in the coming weeks with kinship love?
(Leader note: Encourage people to write some things down—this will help them figure out what God might be inviting them into during the weeks to come.)
Finally, let’s talk about how we could organize our three kinship experiments. There are so many more possible options than we have time to actually do, so let’s pick 5 or 6, and then I will use those to plan out the next few weeks. Here is a list of ideas (feel free to add to it!):
Monthly Service rhythm: We can do our monthly Service rhythm, but strategically think and pray about how we could take a step towards kinship together. (If we don’t have a monthly Service rhythm, we will walk through a Guide together to start one.)
Dinner with neighbors: Instead of all meeting together, we can use our regular Community night to all go have dinner with one of our literal neighbors.
Prayer walk: We can take a prayer walk together (or in smaller groups) around our neighborhood, with the goal of getting to know or help someone in the neighborhood.
Game night: We could throw a game night—Bunco, Fishbowl/Celebrity/Salad Bowl, etc.—for our friends who don’t know Jesus, with the aim of developing deeper relationships in a non-pressured environment.
Practical service: Maybe there is someone in our Community or in our Community network who has a physical need we could help meet—yardwork, housework, home repair, etc. Consider younger families, the elderly, or those who are sick.
Some other creative way of building or deepening relationships!
What does everyone think? We’ll spend the rest of our time together dreaming together. Again, I’ll cull our ideas down into a plan, so let’s not worry about only picking 3. Let’s dream!
(Leader note: Take notes to help you plan your kinship experiments in the weeks to come.)
Exercise for the week ahead (1 minute)
Tonight we took time to dream through various ways that God might deepen our relationships and love other people through us. While we’ll actually plan a kinship experiment the next time we meet together, the exercise for the week ahead is simple:
Consider the obstacles and opportunities. As you go about your week, talk with God about the people in your life. Who is he inviting you to tell about his love? What might get in the way of your witness—an attitude, a fear, a pattern of behavior, etc.? Take a step towards the practice of Witness this week.
Close in Prayer (10 minutes)
Before we close, we are going to pray with and for one another. The kinship relationships we want to develop and deepen are not just with people outside of our Community—they’re with one another as well. Let’s take some time to hear a few specific prayer requests and then offer those up to God together.
