Guide #1: Confession Revisited
Genesis, Pt. 2
Leader Note: This is a new section we’re trying out in Community Guides—sharing the main ideas, any relevant definitions, and a clear and succinct Guide Goal for each Guide. No need to read this section aloud to your Community! It’s here to help you in planning your night together.
Main ideas
Confession is how we partner with God to uproot sin and partner with others to uproot shame.
Confession is an integral rhythm in the life of every Bridgetown Community.
Each Community will use this series to decide how they will commit to engaging Confession going forward.
Key definitions
Confession: telling the truth about our sin
Shame: the felt belief that what I’ve done reveals something about who I am
Guide Goal: To review our practice of Confession over the last 5 months so your Community can decide in the next Guide how to practice it going forward.
Review the Practice (10 minutes)
During this series, we will revisit the exercise of Confession with the goal of agreeing and committing to a particular way our Community will engage it going forward. So, let’s begin by talking about how Confession has gone for us so far.
What have you learned about Confession in this process? (e.g. Perhaps an assumption you carried wasn’t true? Or maybe you learned something about God’s love or something about Community?)
Would somebody be willing to share about a moment in the last 5 months that you experienced God’s love through Confession?
Overview (2 minutes)
Confession is an ancient practice in the church by which God’s people are freed from the guilt of sin and healed of the sting of shame. Simply put, Confession is when we tell the truth about our sin, receiving God’s forgiveness as we do. Oftentimes, this involves bringing to light patterns and instances of sin in our life, by sharing it with God and with those who know us best. We do this because we believe, with Jesus’ friend John, that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1v9). The moment we admit our mistakes, God removes the stain of guilt from our lives. Confession, then, is a way of partnering with God to uproot sin in our life.
But it’s also a way that we partner with the people in our lives to uproot our shame. Shame is the belief that what I’ve done reveals something about who I am. And the only way to test that belief is to risk sharing what we’ve done—or what we are struggling with—with someone we know and trust, who can remind us of the deepest truth: God alone is the one who defines our value, not what we’ve done. And those who have given their lives to Jesus find their value in him. As we confess our secrets, God forgives our sin and our community helps heal our shame.
Exercise for Tonight (20 minutes)
Our exercise tonight involves revisiting the ways we’ve engaged Confession together these last 5 months, with the eventual goal of deciding on what we want our rhythm and practice of Confession to entail going forward. Just like receiving Communion, having a monthly Service rhythm, eating together, and going through the Community Guides, practicing Confession is a way that every Bridgetown Community is partnering with God and one another in our spiritual formation. We’ll also set aside some time to practice Confession together again tonight.
Let’s begin with prayer.Come, Holy Spirit. You have given us the gift of Confession to help us increasingly live lives of freedom from the weight of sin and shame. Guide us in our discussion tonight by bringing to mind key thoughts and experiences we’ve had over the last few months of confessing. Shape our imagination for what it could look like going forward, and bring unity as we make a plan together. Amen.
Next, let’s reflect on our experience with Confession. Over the last 5 months we have engaged in at least 3 different expressions of Confession: in the Seven Deadly Sins series we confessed as a whole Community using each of the seven deadly sins, in the Good News About Our Bodies series we confessed in men’s and women’s groups connected to themes of our bodies and God’s good way, and in the Faith, Hope, and Love series we confessed during our Communion rhythm places in our lives we’ve noticed the lack of faith, hope, and love in our lives. Let’s work through the following questions to reflect back on how that went.
(Leader Note: Consider utilizing groups of 3–4 here, so that everyone gets to share. Then come back as a whole Community, having one person from each group share their main reflections.)
Did you prefer confessing as a whole group or split up by gender? Why?
Did it feel more helpful to have a singular confession topic like one of the seven deadly sins or a more broad prompt like lacking faith, hope, and love? Why?
Did you prefer the longer space for confession like during the first few series, or the shorter confession during communion? Why?
Are there other ways of confession you wish our Community had tried?
Now, let’s practice Confession together. While we’re going to continue this conversation during the next Community Guide, let’s pause here for tonight in order to confess together.
(Leader Note: For tonight, feel free to pick a framework for Confession from one of the previous ways your Community has confessed—and perhaps even based on where you felt most resonance in the room tonight. If it was everyone confessing together, use the “Exercise for tonight” section of one of the Seven Deadly Sins Guides, like this one on Anger. If it was to split up by gender, use the “Exercise for tonight” section of one of the Good News About Our Bodies Guides, like this one on Work. If it was something else, feel free to try it out! Whatever you choose, remember these important components: asking God to search us and confessing silently to him, confessing aloud to one another, and declaring God’s forgiveness over everyone.)
Exercise for the week ahead (1 minute)
Tonight we took time to reflect back on our experiences of Confession these last 5 months as we continue to consider how we might commit to engaging the practice going forward. For the week ahead (or until our next Community Guide), our exercise will be to:
Consider how we can practice Confession together. Let’s all keep thinking through practical and helpful ways our Community might practice Confession together. Feel free to go beyond the scope of our past experiences and dream a bit: Maybe we split into rotating groups of 4 to make sure there’s time for everyone to confess? Perhaps we start a text thread, so that Confession happens outside of our night together? Maybe Confession is our transition time between dinner and the Community Guide?
Close in Prayer (10 minutes)
Before we close, we are going to pray with and for one another. Let’s take some time to hear a few specific prayer requests and then offer those up to God together.
