God is Love, Guide 3: Communal Generosity
Leader Note: Read through this Guide in full before your Community meets as it will require some forethought and planning. There are two options: one if you already know a need and one if you don’t already know a need. Also, remind your Community to send you any current financial needs they may have that they would feel comfortable sharing with the group.
Take Communion (2 minutes)
Leader Note: Begin this time by taking communion together, whether as a full meal or some version of the bread and the cup before or after your meal. If you don’t already have a Communion liturgy, have someone read through the prayer as written below.
“God, before anything existed, you were there—and you were love. You didn’t become love; you’ve always been love. Out of that endless love, you made us. You pursued us. You brought us back to yourself. And here at this table, we see what your love looks like: self-giving and sacrificial. We remember you, Jesus—your body given and your blood poured out for the world. We love because you loved us first. Help us receive your love fully and share it generously—by the way we spend our time, care for others, and give of ourselves. Amen.”
Read This Overview Aloud (5 minutes)
Our last Guide was about practicing individual Generosity—listening to the Spirit and quietly giving in the flow of our ordinary lives. And along with being a personal discipline, Generosity is also a shared way of life. From the very beginning, the church has been a communal economy: a Spirit-filled family marked by mutual provision and sacrificial love. The earliest believers “were one in heart and mind… and God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4v32–35). This generosity wasn’t forced, but was joyfully given as an overflow of the love they received from Jesus.
Scripture reminds us that Generosity starts with those among us, the people we eat with, pray with, and share life with. Communal generosity grows from a people who know they belong to God, and therefore belong to one another. So while we look outward once a month to take spiritual responsibility for our city in our monthly Mission Rhythm, this week we look inward to take spiritual responsibility for the people right here in our Community. Now, sharing our own needs can bring up an array of emotions, but the essence of Christian community is that we will all have needs and that we will all have something to give. Together, we ask tonight: “Who among us has a need that we can meet in love?”
We offer what we have—not simply our money, but our attention, our trust, our faith—so that someone else might experience the goodness of God through the care of his people. And when we live this way, we tell the truth about who God is: God is love and his love knows no lack.
Do This Practice Tonight (30 minutes)
Tonight’s practice has two parts. First, we will begin by sharing stories of gratitude from this past week and by reviewing the practice from the last Guide. Then, we’ll come together to consider who God might be inviting us all to be collectively generous to.
To start, let’s take the next few moments to discuss the following questions:
How have you experienced God’s generosity toward you this week?
While the goal is never to “perform” Generosity, we do want to bear witness to it together as we grow in our practice as a Community. In response to God’s generosity to you, were there moments this week where you sensed God prompting you to give to someone else—whether one time or on-going? How did you respond?
Opening Prayer
For the rest of our time together, we’ll discern as a group how we can practice Communal Generosity—pooling our resources to love someone we know. Let’s begin with prayer, asking the Spirit to guide us in this conversation of discernment.
Leader Note: Pray aloud, inviting God to continue to make your Community as generous as he is. If you already know a need, feel free to close the prayer and move onto the Share part. If you don’t already know a need, also ask the Spirit to bring to mind one person each of us knows that has a need your Community could meet. Remain silent in prayer for about a minute, giving space for God to speak, then simply close this time of prayer saying, “Amen.”
Share
Leader Note: If you already know a need, now would be the time to share it with the group, whether the person with the need is willing to share for themselves or if they’d rather you share for them. This can be as simple as saying "someone reached out this week about an unexpected bill totalling $XX”. If you don’t already know a need, ask the Community if, while they were praying, God highlighted a need they have or a need they know of in their network of relationships. Even if your Community has already helped someone financially recently, the Spirit may have a further invitation for you all. You can do that by simply reading the question below:
If a need you have came to mind while we were praying, please feel free to share that with the Community, but if there isn’t a need within our group, is there someone in our broader relational network (e.g. a neighbor, friend, or someone we serve during our Mission week) that comes to mind who is in need?
Discuss & Decide
In a moment, we will pray for discernment as to how God is inviting each of us individually to give to this need, but right now, let’s take some time to discuss how we can best meet this need as a Community, and facilitate giving in a healthy way.
Leader Note: Funds can be given to the leader (via cash, Venmo, etc.) to be distributed, but be sure to pursue accountability by involving two people in the process. If the financial need surpasses the capacity of the Community, consider sharing this need with the church via the Benevolence Form.
Pray for Discernment & Blessing
We’ll close out our Practice for tonight by praying for two things. The first is for the Spirit to speak to each of us what we are individually being invited to give through the question: “What would it look like for me to give—not just money, but prayer, presence, and encouragement?” As we consider this question in prayer, let’s remember that God’s invitation to each of us will look different, the same way it did for those in Jesus’ Parable of the Poor Widow (Luke 21). There is no “better” or “worse” invitation—only the one God is asking of you.
The second thing we will pray for is a blessing over the person(s) we intend to honor with our gift. We’ll pray that God would multiply it, provide abundantly, and that our friend(s) would feel seen and deeply known in the process, because this is not just an act of charity—this is the economy of heaven breaking into our midst.
Leader Note: Close this prayer time with our Sunday giving prayer: King Jesus, we give joyfully because you held nothing back from us. We give generously because we want to become like you. We give sacrificially because we want others to taste the life of your Kingdom. Receive these gifts and use them for your glory. Amen.
Read The Practice for the Week Ahead (2 minutes)
As we close out our Guides on Generosity, let’s follow through on our plan to meet this need this week. If you sense God inviting you to give financially, take the step of sending that money in the way we decided to do so tonight. If you sensed God inviting you to pray specifically, do that. And if you sensed an invitation to presence, do that. And if tonight God highlighted to you someone in need, but we as a Community aren’t able to support them, consider what invitation God might be extending to you this week. Additionally, what we practiced tonight should be a regular part of our Community rhythm, so if a need ever arises, we all should feel welcome to let a Leader know or share it with the Community during our prayer time. Finally, if your family is looking for a way to practice Generosity with your kids, follow this link to walk them through the Family Guide on Generosity:
End in Prayer (5 minutes)
Leader note: Close your time together in prayer, asking the Spirit to grow in each of you a heart of gratitude, a deeper trust in God’s generosity, and a desire to reflect his generosity to others.