Pray & Bless Week

TO START

This week, we were blessed by Mitch East preaching as we took a break from the Decide series. As we take a breath, we wanted to invite your group into a spiritual exercise that results in your group collectively praying about and for someone and actively blessing that someone in a tangible way. We will get to more of the details below but we want you to start by answering the following question: 

  • What’s a surprising way in which you have been loved this year so far? (encourage everyone to share no matter how big or small) 

Once y’all have shared your responses, we want your group to read the following Mark 12:28-31 together. This text will set the stage and posture for the remainder of the exercise together: 

28 “One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”      MARK 12:28-31

PICK & PRAY

  1. Ask: Who does this group know OR who specifically do you know that often gets overlooked or doesn’t receive as much as they give out to others?

  2. Pray: Collect the names of all the people mentioned and take a moment to pray considering all the names an situations that have been shared… (one way you could do this is to have a leader start the prayer by saying, “Come Holy Spirit, Come, we ask that you would put someone specifically on our hearts to help and to encourage this week”… then 1 by 1 name the folks brought up with a 10 second pause between each)

  3. Ask: If our group was to love on one or two people specifically this week, which names/people stood out to you?

PROCESS & BLESS

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus calls on us to love God with all of ourselves… including our heart, mind, soul & strength. This calling invites us to know each part of ourselves and reminds us that Jesus knows each of these parts of us. Furthermore, Jesus invites us to know and love our neighbor in the same way. So, we want to invite you to go through the following exercise as a way to clarify how you might bless this person y’all prayed for and selected: 

  1. Heart: What things does this person love?

  2. Soul: How is there well-being right now?

  3. Mind: What’s on their mind? What stresses them? What things bring them life and joy?

  4. Strength: How are they doing physically? How are they doing financially? How are they doing (i.e. with parenting, with their job, with their family, with school, with relationships, etc.)?

  5. Bless: How can we bless this person based on what we know about them?

  6. Plan & Go: Figure out the way the blessing happens and do it! 

Matt DeLano