First Importance (Part 4): Connection

TO START

This week, we jumped into part 4 of a series called First Importance, a series that invites us to look at five important invitations from the resurrection of Jesus. Each of which reminds us of the 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 experience the promise and invitations of connection.

  • What’s something in your physical and/or spiritual family that has been passed down from generation to generation? 

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: How was the faith handed to you?

Reminder: Invite folks to share in advance of your group meeting and maybe start with folks who are less likely to share. This practice will continue for the next 3 weeks of the series: May 8th, 15th and 22nd. 

TO DISCUSS

To get to the heart of this promised connection, we are going to dwell solely the Lord’s Prayer together: Read Matthew 6:9-13

  • How often do you spend time praying the Lord’s prayer? Are you even familiar with this prayer? If you have one, what’s your first memory in connection to this prayer?

  • What stands out to you in the Lord’s Prayer? What parts are most convicting, compelling or challenging to pray? Why?

The start of the prayer is so important in that it says “our father” and not “my father” and Michael mentioned that this is an indication and affirmation that “we are never alone when we pray this prayer”... 

  • Does that reality inform the way you pray or the way you understand Jesus’s invitation to follow him?

Furthermore, Michael mentions that following Jesus isn’t the practice of escapism or solely longing to be taken to heaven rather than living out the kingdom now. Rather, “it’s praying for REDEMPTION on this earth” 

  • So, what would it look like in your life at your work, at RRCOC, in TX, in the U.S. for us to truly usher in our prayer for “[God’s] kingdom [to] come and God’s will to be done”?

As Michael neared the end of the Lord’s prayer, he pointed us to our need for deliverance from evil both done to us and evil that is in us. And that without that deliverance we become shackled. 

  • So what evil or darkness do you need deliverance from right now? Your anger, relationship trauma, addiction, apathy, etc.? (If you don’t feel comfortable sharing, I invite you to think about it and ask God to deliver you specifically from that evil) 

TO CLOSE

Near the end of the message, we were reminded that “if we regularly pray Jesus’ prayer, we will be more connected with our Father, one another, and the new creation to come” Close by turning back to Matthew 6:9-13 [ESV Version] and praying this prayer together knowing that those throughout this world, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are praying it alongside you! Invite your group to pray this prayer each day for the next week. 

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name

Your kingdom come

Your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

Matt DeLano