Below you’ll find some quick training tips for your upcoming SERVE Experience, as well as this week’s Training Video and other insights to help us stay on the same page.

Please take a few short minutes to watch the Week 6 Training Video and be sure to review pages 61-65 in your Facilitator Guide for tips on how to lead a Serve Experience.

Story Sharing

Be sure to give space and opportunity to let 1-2 group members share their faith story. If you haven’t yet, lead the way to show your group that, though not always comfortable, it’s important to see that your have a spiritual story to share. Remind the group that everyone should be prepared to share & pray in the final 4 weeks together.

Pray for Strongholds

Continue praying for your group members’ strongholds as they either reflect on (or recently completed) the homework for Week 5 (Strongholds).

If possible, review why confidentiality and accountability are important.

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.). 

• Make sure to get something on the books for your experience between or around weeks 6 & 7.

• Try to prioritize something that’s relational with those you’re serving. It’s not a must, but it’s highly preferred.

• You can find a list of serving opportunities with Impact Partners on the Facilitator page or HERE.

Also, consider sharing the SPEAK LORD Devotion in advance to help your group prepare (if your schedule allows).

Note:

The next 2 weeks are so, so important. The previous 5 weeks’ focus on Jesus’ story and power in spiritually impacting us and our world, generally. Now, it’s time to get specific about how we partner with Him in our individual lives. Followers of Jesus should imitate Him, living out of a posture of service in their homes, workplaces, churches, and community at large. In every sphere of our lives we’re trying to align ourselves with Jesus’ mission of restoration, renewal, and redemption.

These weeks especially focus on decompartmentalization in our lives and truly letting Jesus become the authority figure of every area. That means His influence extends into our daily, moment-by-moment life.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

Ideologically, these are very similar weeks. Use your book to help guide your discussion, but below are some important ideas to bring up in both meetings.

Shalom

Rooted identifies God’s goal as Shalom. Typically, when we read the word “peace” in most translations of the Bible, this is the idea to which it’s referring. It’s more than just the absence of conflict, but the complete integration of people, their network, and everything non-human to which they’re connected.

God created a perfect ecosystem that has been hijacked and damaged by the Sin-infection in our world. When we reestablish the wellbeing of that system at any level, we’re contributing to the restoration of Shalom. I like the words like “health” or “wellbeing” more than “peace.”

Shalom is a broad goal but can have very specific, important implications:

• A family connecting and enjoying life well.

• A business running ethically from top to bottom.

• A healthy body.

• Responsible farming or mining practices.

Check out this video from the Bible Project that describes Shalom really well. Feel free to use it in your groups.

Our Individual Purpose

This discussion is meant to start a conversation surrounding an individual’s purpose. We can be really narrow-minded sometimes about our role in the world. Day 5 of Week 6 will hopefully help begin a journey of discovering the way God has uniquely wired an individual to partner with Him in bringing shalom.

The most important idea that most Christians need to understand in these weeks is that their daily tasks, even in their job, should be aligned with God’s mission. I love the way they illustrate this on pages 123-124, though I don’t think it’s complete, especially the “Business” explanation. Do your best to help your group begin to see how their daily tasks reflect God’s mission and values.

That’s a tough, creative task, but truly the depth to which God wants to impact our lives. Not enough Christians have tried to understand this for themselves, and because of that, we have few Christians actually living out God’s purposes in their lives. This world would be a more heavenly place if the accountants, the graphic designers, those overseeing international factory conditions, etc. would embrace into God’s mission within their specific opportunities. Oftentimes I think we can connect it to our job descriptions more than we realize. It’s not just about “evangelizing” at your workplace. It’s about transforming your workplace (which can include your home) to be an integrated place that operates out of Shalom and using your daily work to contribute to Shalom in our world.

Primary Will then Secondary Will (Also called General Will and Specific Will) Many of us want God’s voice when we’re trying to make specific decisions about where to live and work. For most of those things, God is actually pretty neutral. He cares more about the quality of a person, more than the pursuit of a specific career. His Will for each of us first focuses around our love for others, our connection with Him, and our character. It’s actually pretty clear and He will always emphasize that first in a person’s life. We might go to Him asking for a career or parenting decision, but instead He just says, “You are beloved.” That’s just like Him. He wants to establish the most important aspect of our lives before He establishes those secondary things. As you encourage your group to seek His voice, remember that most of what He says will be simple, but profound and important. A great book for further understanding of this is Os Guinness’ The Call.

Lastly, please let me know if you need any additional supplies or support. I have been, and will continue to, be praying for your group!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call, text, email or drop by to connect.