First Importance (Part 1): Testimony

TO START

This week, we began a five part series called First Importance, a series that invites us to look at five important invitations from the resurrection of Jesus. Each of which are reminders of that fact that our faith isn't created but rather handed down to us. This week, we took a closer look at the ways that we are invited to name that God is alive and active right now. 

  • What is the best or worst piece of advice ever handed down to you? (Choose 1) 

TO SHARE

For the entirety of this series, First Importance, we invite your group to have 1 member share a 5 minute response to the following prompt each week for this 5 part series: How was the faith handed down to you?

We encourage one of the group leaders to go the 1st week to model it and for future weeks, we ask that SG leaders personally reach out to members in advance of your next meeting to see who would be willing to share a response to this prompt (maybe start with folks who don’t often have the opportunity to share as much as others and then continue through the group until you can find 4 folks for the remaining weeks of the series)

TO DISCUSS

Read John 20:1-9

  • What’s an example of a moment in your life that was so obvious and apparent maybe even good but you just missed it? An example where your judgment was clouded by disappointment, stress or doubt?  

  • Why do you think Mary Magdalene assumed that Jesus’s absence in the tomb was the work of human hands rather than the work of God?

Zane argues that the resurrection of Jesus “is a simple summoning us to look again” because sometimes the most unexplainable things in life, we can’t help but constantly seek out evidence that proves us right or wrong. 

  • Do you ever find yourself looking for more evidence, something concrete to bolster your belief that Jesus was resurrected? Do you ever struggle with doubting that resurrection is real and transforms?

In talking about seeing hope, Zane made mention that for artist Vincent Van Gogh, hope wasn’t just a state but it was the color yellow. In his paintings, the color was a testimony to God working in the world by unleashing hope through the resurrection of Jesus which is the active presence of God right now. 

  • So, I wonder, what’s an example in your life this week of a stroke of yellow, a testimony of the hope of God showing up?

TO CLOSE

We want to invite your group to close by reflecting on what it means to hand down our faith: the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Close with this prayer:

Christ has died

Christ has risen

Christ will come again

God, may we slowly invite the yellow hope of God,

 to spill into our lives and the lives of others. 

And may our lives be a picture of the hope of Jesus, the risen Christ.

Amen.

Matt DeLano