We wanted to let you know that we are praying for you and your group’s time together as this week’s material is REAL HEAVY and IMPORTANT. Please take a few short minutes to watch the Week 5 Training Video and be sure to Your facilitator’s guide offers substantial help when it comes to Strongholds on pages 98-105.

Online Set-Up

For groups with both men and women, consider scheduling separate men’s/women’s sessions beyond the altogether group time or consider ways to use the same ZOOM account at separate times or devices. Feel free to reach out to us if you need help planning your session. 

Remember…

1) A great Rooted Facilitator is an excellent listener. If you want to read more in preparation, check out this great article on Intentional Listening.

2) Rooted may be the only place where your group member feels truly heard. Foster that kind of dialogue and honor the covenant. [However, if you sense something is outside of the ROOTED Covenant, please notify me directly outside of your group time.] Your primary role is to create an environment that promotes authentic discussions, deeper biblical understanding, and lifestyle transformation among group members.3) Lastly, the PARAMETERS for your time are:REMEMBER to PRAY for and WITH each ROOTED group memberHONOR the Rooted Covenant (found on page 11 of the Rooted book)

Defining Strongholds

This is not a word we use regularly in our theological circles. It comes from passages like 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.We’re using “stronghold” as a specialized term for that primary sin-infection that most of our destructive perspectives and behaviors come from. Day 5 is very helpful in identifying this. Encourage your group to consider all they relate to, but identify one or two particular listed Strongholds that might be the root-cause or recurring problem in their life. It may not always be what you think at first. For example, someone might admit to compulsively viewing pornography. While “sexual immorality” is listed as a possibility, the real problem might be “despair” as that’s just one euphoric way of distracting themselves.

Get Practical

The key to this week is not only growing in awareness of a stronghold, but establishing practices in your life that help you break the power of that stronghold in your life. The primary tactic of sin (and satan) is to get us to believe lies. The Day 5 exercise helps us define the particular lie that’s lodged in our psyche and use scripture to embrace truth.Encourage your group to craft their own truth statements and then utilize these regularly, even daily. Encourage them to post them in a place they regularly look, like on a post-it note on the mirror or the background of their phone. It could be one or two lines directly related to their strongholds or a much more extensive approach. There are a lot of truth statements that are regularly helpful in recalibrating our view of reality.

Counseling

Always champion counseling…as it is normal and natural need for everyone at some point. Do your best to discern when something can be worked through in your group, and when someone (or a couple) needs to consider counseling. If you specifically need to refer someone to a counselor, be very sensitive with how you approach that.Consider doing it one-on-one. Encourage them to check out the following page on our site and call Encompass to set up an appointment. More info can be found at firstchristian.com/counseling.

Serve Experience

Plan ahead for week 6 and 7 and begin to talk to your group about your serve experience. 

We realize that face-to-face service projects are likely to be difficult, so we have put together a Serve Experience guide HERE with options from our local partners, as well as suggested relational serving options to help those who may have needs through collections, donations or celebrations (missed graduation, birthday, wedding anniversary, etc.). 

Feel free to build in a serve experience deadline so you and your group can debrief and talk about your experiences together.