Renovate: To Make New (Part 4): Call a Professional

TO START:

Spend some time enjoying one another’s presence. Get sheets of paper for each member of your group OR use the private zoom chat and ask everyone to write down one fun/strange fact down about themselves and have them keep it to themselves. If your group is on zoom, you can ask each person to send the fact to only the leader. Then compile them and see if the group can guess which fact goes with which person (Try to keep it to about 10 min max).

TO READ

Before watching the video for the week, take a look at two passages in Scripture: Romans 7:18-24 & Galatians 2:20.

TO WATCH

Now jump into this week’s session 4 video: https://www.anthology.study/Studies/Renovate

TO DISCUSS

Ask this question first:

  • In what ways do you think our culture's definition of “freedom” is inadequate? What are some potential costs of misunderstanding something as important as freedom?

This week, Clay says that we’re only free when we depend on God. 

  • Do you think it’s possible to be free and dependent at the same time? Why or why not?

  • Also, what are some false beliefs or unhealthy behaviors that have stolen your freedom?

Read Proverbs 29:25 together. “Fear of a man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”

  • How do you think your concern about what other people think about you may be preventing you from reaching your full potential?

Clay mentions that in talking with his friend who was struggling with addiction to pain pills that Jesus’s answer to our problems and our entrapments is, “You don’t have to live this way anymore!” 

  • So, how does it feel to know that you can be free? How does it feel to know that God intended for you to experience a freedom that’s greater than anything we can imagine?

  • Lastly, what is one thing you can do this week to start depending on Jesus to meet the needs you have?

TO CLOSE

We all wonder why we do things that hurt us and why we can’t break bad habits. We look for solutions in books or sermons. We look for a what that will rescue us. 

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:24)

The truth is that the solution to our problem isn’t a book or a sermon. It’s not a discipline or willpower. It’s not a what at all. It’s a WHO.

TO PRAY

Last Sunday, we announced the next steps for our church as we begin the search process for a new preaching minister. Please spend some time praying with your group about what’s next at Round Rock Church. Pray for the search committee, the sermon listening team, the prospective candidates and for our church as a whole. Pray that we would be both brave and open-handed as we lean on the Spirit of God to provide. 

And please encourage your group members to participate in our focus groups for the upcoming search if they want to provide feedback. They can head to roundrockchurch.us/focusgroups to do so.

Matt DeLano