Guide 1: Envy
Seven Deadly Sins
Review the practice so far (10 min)
Since there is no practice so far to review, let’s discuss the aim of the Guides in this series: to establish a common vocabulary for sin and confession and a sustainable rhythm of confession in our Community. So, before we dive into the overview, let’s take a moment to discuss our personal experiences—good or bad, brief or long, past or current—with confession.
Have you ever had a rhythm of confession (whether individual or with a group)? If so, what was that like?
Based on those experiences, what might we want to emulate and what might we want to be mindful of or avoid as we grow in confession as a Community?
Guide overview (3 min)
In our day and age, society often views the concept of “sin” as archaic and outdated. And yet we’ve all come face-to-face with our brokenness—ours and others’. Each of us knows the shame, frustration, and sadness that comes in the aftermath of not loving God or others with our whole hearts. And, try as we might, our willpower alone isn’t enough to make our sin go away. Jesus says that “everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8v34). We need help. We need, in the language of the Scriptures, a Savior—someone to deliver us from our sin. And the good news is that God has come to our rescue. Jesus’ friend John tells us that “if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1v9). So the way we partner with God in uprooting the corrosive power of sin in our lives is through the practice of confession: telling the truth about what we’ve done so that we can receive God’s freely-given forgiveness.
During this series, we will explore seven historically recognized root sins and invite the light of God’s love to shine into our darkness by confessing our sin to him and to one another. Now, understandably there may be some initial resistance to the idea of confessing your sin to other people because we fear that it may change the way people see, respect, or even love us. It’s for this reason that confession needs to be treated with utmost care. So in a moment we will establish some ground rules and use an agreed upon framework each week to ensure safety, build trust, and grow together.
This week, we’re focusing on the sin of envy. Envy is when we respond to feelings of personal inadequacy with 1) passive resentment over the good fortune of others or 2) with active delight in their misfortune. It could look like resentment over a friend’s new house, jealousy of a coworker’s promotion, joy that someone messed up in their presentation, not celebrating another’s accomplishment, or comparing yourself to someone who you think is better, prettier, smarter, healthier, or more successful than you. So, tonight, we will engage the practice of Community through the exercise of confession. Each Community Guide in this series will be the same. We will: define and explore one of the seven sins, do a shortened Examen with silent confession, practice corporate confession, and then end by receiving communion together.
Exercise for tonight (30 min)
We want to be a community of love and depth in a culture of individualism and superficiality through the practice of Community, and during this series we will lean into the exercise of confession to help us get there.
One of the many reasons corporate confession is important is that it allows us to hold one another in the loving presence of God, preaching the good news of God’s forgiveness to each other that is often difficult to believe for ourselves. Hearing another person’s confession and praying God’s forgiveness over them is healing for both people because it reminds us that sin is alive in all of us and that each of us is in need of a Savior. We need help to uproot sin in our lives—it’s too strong for any one of us to beat alone, and we are not meant to.
Now, since we are just beginning, it’s important to be on the same page about how we engage in our practice of corporate confession. Every confession is vulnerable and sacred, so privacy and confidentiality matter as we build a sustainable rhythm together. To help maintain confidentiality and safety, we will use the same framework every week. But before we get there, let’s begin with some Shared Community Agreements for Safeguarding by talking about our posture, our promise, and our practice.
Our Posture: Every confession is sacred.
It is a privilege to witness the courage it takes to confess sin out loud. When someone confesses, we are witnessing the outpouring of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. We are on holy ground together. So each confession will be met with God’s compassion by responding with something like: “Thank you for sharing. God loves you with an everlasting love and joyfully forgives you.”
Our Promise: Every confession stays in this room.
We build trust and safety and maintain each other’s dignity by protecting confidentiality. A sin confessed by someone is released to Jesus and should not be repeated by any of us. If a Community member is absent during a confession, the only person who gets to fill them in—if they choose—is the person confessing. The only caveat to confidentiality is if the confession reveals a threat of harm—in which case the Community Leader will contact a Communities Pastor (if the threat is less urgent) or 911 (if the threat is urgent).
Our Practice: Everyone participates.
We will show our support for each other by all participating in confession. Simply observing doesn’t help create a safely vulnerable environment. Each of us is committing to participate in confession and declaring God’s forgiveness.
Do we all agree to this?
(Leader note: Go around and have everyone agree.)
Thank you all. We will be reading and committing to this each time we meet to keep building trust together. And since we’ve now established our Shared Agreements for Safeguarding, we’re ready to start. Each night we meet during this series, we will follow the same framework: a shortened Examen with silent confession, corporate confession, and then communion.
So let’s all find ourselves in a comfortable, open posture of prayer, and then we’ll take 3 minutes to pray the Examen—asking the Spirit to search us and draw our attention to a moment this week where the sin of envy was present in our lives. As God brings something to mind, we’ll silently confess it to him, admitting where we sinned and asking for his forgiveness.
A Condensed Examen. Holy Spirit, as we turn our attention now to the week we’ve lived so far, we ask for your help to guide us back through it with special attention to the particular sin of envy. Take us to a time where we either experienced passive resentment over the good fortune of others or active delight in their misfortune. Come, Holy Spirit. We yield to you. Guide our minds, memories, and imaginations. As you bring something to mind, we will silently confess it back to you and ask for the forgiveness that you so freely offer.
(Leader note: Set a timer for 3 minutes.)
God, thank you for bringing up our sin so that you can forgive it. Thanks that it is your delight to forgive and restore us back to right relationship with you. Thank you for rescuing us. Amen.
Corporate Confession. Ok, now we are going to practice corporate confession. But before we do, I wanted to share a bit about my own personal experience with it these last few months.
(Leader note: Share about what confession has been like for you as you started your own rhythm of it after the Confession Workshop at November's Community Leader Cohort.)
We’re going to go around, one at a time, and confess out loud in one sentence the sin we just confessed before God. A confession for tonight might sound like: “I confess that I was envious when I didn’t celebrate my neighbor getting a new car this week.” or “I confess that I was envious when my coworker got an opportunity to share in the meeting instead of me.” or “I confess that I was envious when I got excited that my sister had to share some bad news with the family.” or “I confess the envy I felt looking at my friend’s social media post that made his family seem perfect.” It just needs to be one sentence, “I confess that…” We’ll go around in a circle—starting with me—and each make our confession. After each person confesses, the next person to go will begin by thanking that person for confessing and reminding them that God has forgiven them. This could be as simple as saying, “Thank you for your honesty. God loves you and God forgives you.” And then they will make their own confession.
(Leader note: Begin with your own confession. “I confess…” It’s possible that in the anxiety of the moment, someone may forget to thank the previous person for their confession or remind them of God’s forgiveness. If that happens, don’t interrupt them, but go back once they’ve finished to thank the previous person and remind them of God’s forgiveness. Once everyone has finished, move onto the next section.)
Absolution & Communion. As we have each confessed silently to God and aloud to one another, let’s take a moment in silence to come back to God’s loving presence to us—to the Father who runs to each of us, forgiving us and clothing us in robes of righteousness. Even now, draw your attention to his nearness to you.
(Leader note: Allow everyone about 30 seconds of silence, and then hand out the communion elements and speak these words of absolution before receiving communion together.)
Sisters and brothers, hear the good news: when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. We have been washed clean of our sins by his love and restored to right relationship with him. Hallelujah! Thanks be to God! Take the body and blood of Christ, who poured out his love for us on the cross to freely forgive and restore us to himself. Let’s eat and drink and remember him.
Exercise for the week ahead (2 min)
Tonight we tried out a way to practice corporate confession and absolution—of naming our sins before God and others and receiving God’s forgiveness. So, until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead is to:
Begin to develop a personal rhythm of confession. Take some time to intentionally consider what a personal rhythm of confession might look like in your life. Whether you do the Examen each evening (here’s a Guide to help guide you in that) or start a confession group with some friends, take a step towards living a life of freedom and forgiveness.
