Filled & Led (Part 8): Prayer & the Holy Spirit

TO START

This Sunday, we jumped into part 8 of our Fall series focused on the new vision: “To be a Spirit-filled & Spirit-led church for those who don’t have a home yet”. Each week, we will journey with a part of the book of Acts as we unpack what it could mean (and not mean) for us to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-led people. To start, unpack this prompt together: 

  • What is your favorite thing about the Fall? 

This week we are inviting your group to choose questions from the multiple options below.  Our hope is that these questions might help you to lead your discussion in a way that makes sense for your group this week as y’all “talk it out” and “live it out”.

TALK IT OUT AFTER READING ACTS 12:1-15

STUDY

  • Why does Herod want to please the Jewish leaders? Why would James’ death and Peter’s arrest please them?

  • Luke repeats the details about how heavily Peter was guarded multiple times. Why are those details so significant?

  • What does the church’s response to James’s death and Peter’s being in prison (vv. 5 & 12-15) demonstrate about prayer and human beings?

PROCESS

  • Share a time when you have been nervous to pray for something or someone. What made you hesitate?

  • Share a time in your life when you have done everything right and everything was still going wrong. 

  • Have there been moments in your life where your faith seemed to rest more on the intervention of God than the deliverance of God through Jesus?

LIVE IT OUT 

PRACTICE

  • Have you ever prayed a prayer where the world would have thought, “you’d have to be out of your mind to pray for that”? Why or why not?

  • What is your perspective on prayer? When have you been frustrated in prayer, and when have you seen God move in powerful ways to answer your prayers? How has your prayer life shifted throughout your life?

PRAY

Invite your group to pray for one of two things silently with God either one way they are not okay right now OR one thing they would like God to make possible in this season.  Then close the prayer and end by raying, “Come, Holy Spirit, Come”

Matt DeLano