Guide #2: Faith & A Kinship Experiment
Faith, Hope, & Love
Review the Practice (10 minutes)
During this series, we are practicing Witness as a way to embody the Spirit’s gifts of faith, hope, and love by expressing hospitality and sharing the good news of Jesus with people in our life who do not yet know him. Specifically, we are exploring how we can aim these relationships toward kinship: the deep, God-rooted recognition that we are all interconnected. Let’s take some time to reflect on the theme from Sunday and how this last week went as we considered both the obstacles and the opportunities we noticed.
During this past week, what opportunities and/or obstacles came up as you set out to take a step towards Witness or kinship?
Who might God be inviting you to step towards kinship with this week?
“Faith” is about recognizing Jesus in the ordinary, mundane, and even unwanted circumstances of our lives. Where might Jesus be showing up in your life right now that you could be missing?
Overview (2 minutes)
We need God’s help to love him with our hearts, minds, souls, and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is why Jesus says that the Father gives us the Holy Spirit—to empower, transform, and help us to live life with God. During this series, we are exploring three hallmarks of this Spirit-empowered life: faith, hope, and love. Each is a gift that God works in us, pouring himself out into us and then through us into the world.
Each time we gather as a Community during this series, we will 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. Oftentimes, this looks less like handing out pamphlets to strangers and more like building relationships, loving people faithfully, and practicing kinship. Kinship is 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)
For our exercise for tonight, we are going to plan out a kinship experiment for next week. Remember, these are opportunities to deepen pre-existing relationships with people in our lives who we deeply care about. We’re using the language "experiment" to encourage creativity, risk, and thinking outside the box. We can do these together or on our own, aimed towards the relationships in our monthly service rhythm or our neighbors, planning something as big as an event or as small as coffee with a coworker. Whatever we do, the goal is to partner with the Spirit and one another to find ways to sacrificially love and be radically present to people. So, before we get started, let’s ask for the Spirit’s help and guidance.
Pray this prayer. Come, Holy Spirit. We come into alignment with your heart and desire for our friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and anyone else in our life who doesn’t know you—that they might have an experience with your love that would change their lives forever. Whether we get to be with them when that happens or simply serve as an encouragement on their way, we ask that you would use us to let them know how loved they are. Inspire us tonight with creativity, strategy, and love to be a faithful presence to those in our life who you and we deeply care about. We love you and we trust you. Amen.
(Leader Note: If you have already decided where to aim next week’s Kinship Experiment, feel free to jump to the next step. If you still need some ideas, walk through this list.)
Next, let’s discuss some options. In order to help get our creative juices flowing, I am going to read a list of ideas that we could do.
Our monthly Service rhythm: We could do our normal monthly Service rhythm, but strategically think and pray about how to take a step towards kinship together. (If we don’t have a monthly Service rhythm, let’s walk through this Guide to start one.)
Dinner with neighbors: Instead of all meeting together, we can use our regular Community night to each have dinner with one of our literal neighbors.
Prayer and care walk: We can take a prayer walk together (or in smaller groups) around our neighborhood or a neighborhood in need (like Old Town), with the goal of getting to know or help someone in that 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’s 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.
Now, these are just a few ideas. Do any of them resonate with us or sound doable? Or does anyone have other ideas that fit our Community and could help us practice Witness in a way that aims us towards kinship?
(Leader Note: Open the conversation for people to brainstorm ideas. After 5 minutes or so, go over the options that people discussed and pick one to try next week. Remind everyone that there will be plenty of options to do these—not only do you get to do three during this series, but this is a great way to be thinking about your monthly Service rhythm going forward.)
Now, let’s plan out next week. There are so many things to consider as we begin to plan out our kinship experiment for next week. Below are a few suggestions to keep in mind.
Who? As we aim towards the deeper relationships of kinship, who is the person/people that we specifically feel led to care for and love? (e.g. my neighbor Sam, or the Robertson family, or Skip at NightStrike, or the elderly couple next door I haven’t met yet)
What? If we had to name our experiment or distill it into a few key goals, what might those be? (e.g. it could be called “Operation: Bunko Night” or “Laurelhurst Prayer & Care Walk” or “Dinner with Sharon”, or maybe the goals are to “Learn the names of 4 of my kid’s friends’ parents” or “find and meet one need in my neighborhood” or “offer to pray for my coworker Juan”)
When? It can be really easy for these plans to stay dreams unless we root them in reality. What day and time do we actually want to do this?
Where? If we’re doing this together, where are we going to meet and/or who is going to host? If we’re doing this all separately, where are we each planning for our experiment to take place?
How? There are all kinds of other details to talk through for this to become a reality. How are we going to actually do this? (e.g. How might we integrate the kids in our group? If there’s an associated cost, how are we going to collect the money? Any other questions people might be left with?) We can even set some of our plans in action together! (e.g. text our neighbors about dinner next week, plan the meal for our prayer and care walk, watch a bunko tutorial, etc.)
Ok. Let’s walk through the decisions we just made together and all make sure we’re in agreement and willing to commit to it.
(Leader Note: Have someone or yourself review the plan for next week. Make sure that everyone is in agreement with the plan and will show up/follow through. If there’s any hang ups, remind them about how many opportunities your Community will have to try this. If there isn’t a consensus, it might be helpful for you to just pick.)
Exercise for the week ahead (1 minute)
Tonight we planned with God and one another a way that our relationships might be deepened so that God can love others through us. That said, the exercise for the week ahead is simple:
Implement your kinship experiment. Take whatever steps you need to to ensure that your kinship experiment is a success—confirm plans with neighbors, buy decorations, pray that you would have a willing and open hearts and that God would give you all opportunities to love people well, etc.
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.
