October 6: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

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Love

Teaching Text:  James 1: 13-18

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• The Truth about Temptation and Desire

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Do you still notice temptation in your life? 

• Where did you get tempted this week? 

• What is your go to response when you are faced with temptation? 

  • Give in

  • Avoid/Escape

  • Justify

  • Other…?

• James, from his endurance in the fire of trials and with the help of the Holy Spirit, writes this letter.
  

• “Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters when you face trials of many kinds…”
  

• He says “hey watch out if you find yourself blaming God” for the difficulty you are going through, that does something to us. Namely, it turns us away from the person who is our comfort and help.”
  

• Now he writes about temptation.

  • When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

    – James 1: 13-15
    

• God can always be turned to in a time of temptation because God is not the cause of temptation.

• It’s worth mentioning just briefly, this dynamic though, that there is a difference in our life with God between TESTING and TEMPTATION.

  • TEMPTATION very often works on a desire that really does need to be met in our life and a suggestion of how to meet that desire without God or in conflict with God and God’s way.

    • Appetites, Approval, Ambition

    • Consumption, Security, Status

    • These are archetype temptation areas of the human life.
      
      

• God will allow us to be tested, sometimes even lead us into testing. But God does not tempt us to sin.

• There are times when testing is essential

  • Before we are given more power and responsibility 

  • When it needs to be determined if you are ready 

• If God brings you into a time of testing, it almost always because God wants to trust you with more.
  

• One of the more difficult aspects of maturity is learning to deal with the reality that not everything your mind and heart produces is worth trusting and worth acting on

• There can be powerful impulses in our life that are deeply deceptive.

  • Cultures says:

    We need to learn to trust what we want.

• Now this takes some nuance to parse because of course there can be good instincts, and wisdom, and true longings that grows up within us

• BUT ALSO the long testimony of the Scriptures says that desires can come into our consciousness, into our field of consideration, that if we follow them will not lead where they initially seem they will.
  

• We seek the satiation of our appetites, or the satisfaction of our souls, without considering God and God's way.
  
  
  

• The image James uses is graphic; there are certain desires that get you pregnant with death.

  • There are desires that when followed diminish your genuine human life

    • The desire for revenge, gives birth to violence, which leads to physical loss of life.

    • The desires to seek comfort over and over again in a harmful numbing or mind altering substance, leads to addiction, which leads to many deaths before then actual physical death.

      • workaholism, envy, distraction, lust
        
        

• How these idols work:

  • In the beginning there is a great promise and small request

  • Over time the requests get more and more and the shine comes off the promise 

    • The job, the relationship, the alcohol, the grudge, the envy.

    • Laziness asks more and more of you gives less and less
      
      

• “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”

  – James 1: 16-18
  
  

• If it's good in this world, it originated with God

• Have you been in a place where you have been following desires that lead away from God?
  

Parents:

• How do you talk to your kids about desires?

• Do you help them recognise desires and help them think through how to be patient and find healthy satisfaction?

• Can you help your children be aware of temptation? 

• How can you help them see the prize of delayed gratification?

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September 29: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

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Love

Teaching Text:  James 1: 1-12

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:

Greetings.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• Joy in Trials

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• If you could change one thing about your instantly, what would you change? 

• What defines your well-being? 

• What does our world say about what well-being looks like? 

• There has to be more than just the circumstances you are currently in to determine your well-being. 
  

• One of the other most powerful arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul makes note of this sibling phenomenon…

  • “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” 

    – 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8

• There is no gospel without the resurrection of Jesus.

  • Jesus could not have been just a good moral teacher with some historical influence because his ideas were compelling.

  • He claimed to be God, to be Israel’s Messiah, and the world’s Redeemer. 

  • If He wasn’t those things, then He was either crazy and delusional, or He knew He was lying, or He was those things.

  • He is life and He gives life.

    • And this brings us to the heart of the book of James.
      
      

• JAMES is New Testament wisdom literature. Like what you might find in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Scriptures.

  • Whatever your view of the world or your belief system or your philosophy, you need some answers to the questions …

    • Why is life so challenging? AND 

    • How do we deal with its difficulty and pain?

    • Is there is a way to live through pain other than just being blown and tossed by it and then despair?
      

• Our world is good at some things. It’s not very good at all in our currently culture for preparing people to go through hardships and pain 
  
  

• James gets right into it. And he shows us that patience doesn’t give all its treasure away on the first day, but that if we can learn to endure in faith 

• We might 

  • shatter the illusion of sufficiency

  • deepen our understanding and awareness of God

  • expands our compassion

  • we might even know and understand ourselves more

• “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” 

  – James 1: 2-4

• James seems to know that suffering exposes reality and because of that can deepen our understanding of and ability to live in the real world.

• Our world had a brokenness and violence in it that runs through to the core. The more you live well doesn’t mean you will live easily with a smooth journey.

• At the heart of our faith is a perfect Person suffering deeply, all the way to death for crimes He didn’t commit.

  • A man dying for his enemies.
    

• James is saying that we need to pay attention to our perspective when life gets hard.

  • But along the way you may have to realize all the other things you are practically relying in for your well-being, 

  • You may need to see that despite what you say about God you have many other functional Saviors.

  • “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.  But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” 

    – James 1: 5-8
    

• “Doubt” is translated more accurately as divided loyalty. 
  

Ask for wisdom

• God doesn’t just give wisdom to the best people who have earned it.
  

They ask for help

• “Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. 

  Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” 

  – James 1: 9-12

• Sometimes suffering exposes things for how they reality are.

Connects us to reality

• Suffering shows the character of God beyond my mood and circumstances. 

• Capacity for endurance

An important word about the why and the where of suffering

• Be very gentle and humble with the WHY

• Be courageous with the WHERE
  

The Crown of Life

• Suffering and hanging on to God and knowing God is hanging on to you can prepare you to LIVE

• And the reward is you get LIFE.
  

This is a Friendship

• We are to run to Christ. Who has suffered. And we are not alone.

• We trust in His resurrection!!!
  

• “From the standpoint of Heaven, the most miserable life on earth will just look like one night in a bad hotel”

  – Theresa of Avila 

• “My question – that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide – was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man…a question, without an answer to which, one cannot live. It was: “What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?” It can also be expressed thus: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy.”

  – Leo Tolstoy  
  
  

• Shatter the illusion of sufficiency

• Deepen our understanding and awareness of God

• Expand our compassion

• We might even know and understand ourselves more
  

• Where do you go to ask for help?

• Which circumstances make you question God? 
  

Parents:

• What is your first instinct when you see suffering in the lives of your children?

• What do your responses teach your kids?

• Do your children see some of your suffering? 

• How do you model suffering and faith response to your children?

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September 22: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

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Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭John 15: 1-16

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Vision Sundays | Love | Gardens

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What’s one thing you have done that you are proud of and that has taken a long time to accomplish? 

• Name a person who has served or invested an extraordinary amount in your life

• What about that person’s love are you grateful for? 

Gardens 

• “I think this is the best-known story in the world because it’s everybody’s story.  I think it is the symbol story of the human soul.  I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear.  The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.  I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection.  And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind.”

  – East of Eden 

• Lee goes on....

“One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world—and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. The human is the only guilty animal. Now wait! Therefore I think this old and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul.”

– East of Eden

• Whatever our understanding of the world or our lives we have to grapple with some explanation for why we fall back into the same patterns and struggles and anxieties and violences or aching search

• “In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

  – C.S. LEWIS

• Is there a love that could heal everything?

• Creation and redemption are the movements of God Who has love at the very center of God’s Being

• Julian Barnes said, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”

• From Eden to the New Jerusalem - we begin in a garden with a tree in the middle and the last pictures are of a city with a garden in the center and the tree of life for the healing of the nations.

• “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

  – John 15: 1-5

• Out of love grows fruitfulness

• “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. 

  “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

  – John 15

• Church, our vision is PRESENCE, FORMATION, and LOVE

• It is their story - BE WITH GOD, BECOME LIKE JESUS, LIVE A LIFE OF LOVE BY THE SPIRIT

• “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other. 

  – John 15

• Our vision is love, because God’s Vision is love.

• The fruit of God’s Kingdom grows in love. That is the Garden.

• God is the Gardener, but He has asked us to join in.
  
  

Here is our call. 

• Abide in the Love of God

• Contend for Love in Your Closest Relationships 

• Work the Gardens of Love in Our City 

• We can only pass on what we have received. 

• We sow seeds of love where we can 

• We tend what we can see in the gardens where we see the things of God growing

• What does your garden look like? 

• Your home, your building, your block?

• What tending of that garden is needed? 

• What one place can you love and serve consistently this fall? 

Parents:

• What gardens of love and care can you invite your kids to participate in?

• Where can you serve the city or church together as a family? 

• What habits do you want to create for your family? 

 

For ideas on how to show hospitality through the Good Neighbor Collaborations, email Patricia Manwaring at patricia@trinitygracechurch.com

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September 15: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

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Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭Luke 22: 7-34

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”

“Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.

He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”

They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!” They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdomand sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Vision Sundays | Formation | Tables

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Describe one of the most memorable meals you’ve ever had and why it was so memorable.

• Imagine yourself at the end of your life, looking back and asking yourself what matted most in your brief time on earth. 

ALTARS

• We are answering the question, “What matters most?”

• Jesus himself, when asked to summarize, said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”

• We are spending a few weeks this fall asking what is most important for us as a church. What is our VISION? 

PRESENCE - FORMATION - LOVE

• That we are called to make this a priority as a church family, as people…to…

  • Be with God

  • Become like Jesus

  • Live by the Spirit

ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS

• We believe God is inviting us to… 

  • Build Altars - places where we are seeking God’s presence and mark that God has met with us

  • Set Tables - places of welcome, friendship, hospitality, where we are formed in community 

  • Tend Gardens - sow seeds of love, tend places where good things are growing, seek the fruit of the Kingdom of God

• “If you can read the gospels without getting hungry, you are not paying attention.”

– Arthur Boers

• In Luke 5 Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at Levis house.

• In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed at the home of Simon the Pharisee during a meal.

• In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.

• In Luke 10 Jesus eats at the home of Mary and Martha.

• In Luke 11 Jesus condemns the Pharisees and teachers of the lay at a meal.

• In Luke 14 Jesus is at a meal when he urges people to invite the poor to their meals rather than their friends.

• In Luke 19 Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zachaeus.

• In Luke 22 we have this account we heard today of the Last Supper.

• In Luke 24 the risen Christ has a meal with the two disciples in Emmaus, and the later eats fish with the disciples in Jerusalem - thats where PETER is restored after his predicted denial 
  

• ”The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10;45); “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost: (Luke 19:10); “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.” (Luke 7 v 34.) 

• Tim Chester points out in his book A Meal with Jesus …

  • “The first two are statements of purpose. Why did Jesus come? He came to serve, to give his life as a ransom, to seek and save the lost. The third is a statement of method. How was he going to do this? He came eating and drinking.”

– TIM CHESTER

THE SACRAMENT IS A MEAL 

• “The blend of celebration and betrayal in the scene at supper is preparing us for the blend of triumph and tragedy in the crucifixion itself. Jesus accomplishes his true mission by being falsely accused. He achieves his divine vocation by submitting to the punishment that others had deserved. As God took the arrogant opposition of Pharaoh in Egypt and made it serve his own ends in the spectacular rescue of his people, so now, through this one man at supper with his friends, we see God doing the same thing. When the powers of evil do their worst, and crucify the one who brings God’s salvation, God uses that very event to defeat those powers.

  We who, daily, weekly or however often, come together to obey Jesus’ command, to break bread and drink wine in his memory, find ourselves drawn into that salvation, that healing life. The powers may still rage, like Pharaoh and his army pursuing the Egyptians after Passover. But they have been defeated, and rescue is secure.”

– NT WRIGHT

• We grow through BREAKTHROUGHS and HABITS

• What tables can you set?

• What invitations can you extend? 

• Where are you committed to showing up every day? Every week?

• What are your practices and habits of formation?
  

• Parents:

  • What table habits can you create that will immerse your kids in the value of hospitality?

  • Which non-married person/s could you invite over for a meal to welcome them and give the family time to hang out with?

  • How can your family show hospitality to the vulnerable and or under-resourced? 

• For ideas on how to show hospitality through the Good Neighbor Collaborations, email Patricia Manwaringat patricia@trinitygracechurch.com

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September 8: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭Genesis 3: 8-9

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walkingin the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Revelation 21: 2-3

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Vision Sundays | Pressnce | Altars

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What aspects or traditions do you like most about the fall?

• What are you personally excited about this Fall? 

• The world we live in keeps us perpetually in An Imminent Frame

  • What urgent language in our world can you recall? 

• The thing we lose is TRANSCENDENCE

  What matter most? 

  So many opinions about what matters most. 

• And we wanted to take these few weeks at the beginning of the fall as to celebrate 15 years and move into all that God has next for us to center in on what is most important for Trinity Grace.

• At our 10 year anniversary as a church GOD spoke some words to us. Simplified the expression of our vision. It wasn’t utterly new, but it was a sharpening of what we had been living.

  • PRESENCE. FORMATION. LOVE

  • Be with God. Become like Jesus. Live by the Spirit 

• MAKE ALTARS - places of God’s revealed presence

  SET TABLES - places of friendship, hospitality and love 

  TEND GARDENS - places where the things of the Kingdom grow.

• ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS

  • These are places of a presence, formation, and love. They are spaces we build and set apart, we set up and host, we sow seeds and join in cultivation.

  • Places to consecrate and seek God's face. (prayer events becoming a prayer culture)

  • Places to gather and be formed in hospitality and love. (discipleship in groups and specific equipping, growth in hospitality)

  • Places where good things grow, things of the Kingdom, seeds becoming fruit. (seeds of service, love, partnership, growing and harvesting for others)

• This begins with God’s Presence

  • Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” 

    And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
    – Exodus 33

• This is our prayer - God your presence is what matters most and if we have come to place where that isn’t the case will you renew our hearts and minds.

  • The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His Presence. On our part there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work it is to show us the Father and the Son. If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.

    – A.W. Tozer

  • Importance of presence throughout scripture… 

    • In Eden, it is the loss of a sense of God’s presence that we look on at in sadness as Adam and Eve hide in fear from the God they walked with the cool of the evening.

      • And the restoration of our union with God in that way weaves through the whole story 

    • Jacob wrestling with God at Bethel and making an Altar to mark where he had met and wrestled with God 

    • Moses in his tent of meeting, as a precursor to the tabenacle - a place to speak and be spoken to by God as a friend 

    • David - longing to make a place - a house for God - and you can take a deep dive studying David’s tabernacle as a place where he sang and worshipped and ached and celebrated in prayer, writing Psalms, marked by and making God’s presence

    • Jesus - could have prayed anywhere - but he had a custom of drawing away, early in the morning, late the evening, drawing away to be with the Father - he had places, gardens, groves of trees where he went AS HIS CUSTOM WAS - he also also gathered to worship with his neighbors - making altars and sanctuaries in time and place.

    • and the final picture we are given in Revelation is a PRESENCE picture, a marker of where God is with his people, an altar in the text…

      • I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 

        – Revelation 21:2-3

• What is MOST important to you this Fall? What Matters MOST? 

• Where do you 3want God to meet with you?

• What parts of your life do you want to consecrate to Jesus? 

• How can you make time to be with Jesus?

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June 23: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

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Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭1 Corinthians 12: 1-11 and 27-31

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

• Gifts of the Spirit

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What special ability do you have that people in your group does not know about? 

• Resume Virtues and Eulogy Virtues.

  • “The resume virtues are the ones you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being - whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.

    Most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more important than the resume virtues, but I confess that for long stretches of my life I’ve spent more time thinking about the latter than the former. Our education system is certainly oriented around the resume virtues more than the eulogy ones. Public conversation is, too - the self-help tips in magazines, the nonfiction bestsellers. Most of us have clearer strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how to develop a profound character.”

    – David Brooks

  • God is a wild life artist. Eugene Peterson has said this in his book Run with the Horses…

    “Every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless. He never, fatigued and unable to maintain the rigors of creativity, resorts to mass-producing copies. Each life is a fresh canvas on which he uses lines and colors, shades and lights, textures and proportions that he has never used before.

    We see what is possible: anyone and everyone is able to live a zestful life that spills out of the stereotyped containers that a sin-inhibited society provides. Such lives fuse spontaneity and purpose and green the desiccated landscape with meaning. And we see how it is possible: by plunging into a life of faith, participating in what God initiates in each life, exploring what God is doing in each event. The persons we meet on the pages of Scripture are remarkable for the intensity with which they live Godward, the thoroughness in which all the details of their lives are included in God's word to them, in God's action in them. It is these persons who are conscious of participating in what God is saying and doing that are most human, most alive. These persons are evidence that none of us is required to live "at this poor dying rate" for another day, another hour.”

    – Eugene Peterson

  • God is an artist with our lives, but beautifully God is not simply making us into something, but inviting us into a story, giving us gifts along the way, filling our spirits with the Spirit of God in this kind of friendship dance.

• When God wants to build something, God equips people with gifts.

  • Corinth - was a city and church where God was clearly at work - they saw fruit in the Gospel and outpourings of the power of the Holy Spirit, but we also know they dealt with..

    • divisions over leadership 

    • jealousy and quarreling 

    • obvious and public sexual sin 

    • indulgence and forgetting the others in the body

    • spiritual pride 

    • confusion and even chaos in their gatherings 

  • Their gifts were greater than their maturity - it is interesting that this then is the letter in the New Testament with some of the most extended teaching on the spiritual gifts.

• Our strengths and weaknesses are often intermingled and what can make us great can threaten our downfall. And where we most need help may be the place God is most clearly seen in our lives. 

• The Spirit of God is always lifting up Christ.

  • “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 

    Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

    – 1 Corinthians 12 v 4-7

• These are two huge errors the church can make…

  • Demanding each story to look the same.

    or 

  • Missing that each person’s gifts are not just for them but for the body.

• We see this in the American church in 

  • Rigid behavior modification in a given community - wells vs fences

  • Celebrity Christianity - overly exalting someone because of their gifts

  • Phariseeism - clean up the outside but your heart is heart 

  • Second hand christianity - that person will do the God seeking so I don’t have to

• If you are in Christ you are given the Holy Spirit

• If you are in Christ you are gifted by the Holy Spirit

  • You are gifted by the Spirit to love well.

  • You are gifted by the Spirit to lift up Christ.

  • You are gifted by the Spirit so the body of Christ can this shining outpost of the Kingdom of God, tabernacle that it is meant to be.

• Message of Wisdom – applying knowledge of God and His Word to specific areas of life, making sense of a moral dilemma, I need wisdom here.

• Message of Knowledge – similar but more to do with navigating a particularly difficult to understand issue and making it clear. Help me in this confusion. 

  • Wisdom is the decision

  • Knowledge is the clarity.

• Faith – seeing situations with Gods power in perspective, remembering that all things are possible with God. Trusting God’s character and promise in the real details of life

• Healings – this is the plural which means can happen at times, not necessarily always, and God gives the power for instant or gradual healing. WE should be praying for healing!!

• Miraculous Powers – asking an evil Spirit to leave a person, having a vision of something that will happen, praying for someone to live who has died. 

• Prophecy – sensing Gods heart on a matter and redirecting people by sharing it, Scripture, pictures, words

• Discernment between spirits – being able to sense when motives are impure,  being able to tell when something is not from God

• Speaking in Tongues – praying in a language that is not understood by the speaker, happened at Pentecost and all heard, happens in private prayer, if it happens publically in church then it is meant to have an interpretation

• Interpretation of Tongues –  the ability to interpret what has been said it tongues

• Apostolic – visionary, pioneering work in the Kingdom of God

• Which of these do you think you have? 

• These are way to love one another

  Ways for Jesus to be lifted up

  And you are gifted by the Spirit

• Spiritual gifts emerge in the body of Christ as we…

  • Walk in friendship with Jesus – ABIDE is what the Jesus calls this

  • Speak the Gospel to your heart

  • Regularly spend time in extended prayer

  • Practice speaking with God through your day

  • Hide His word in your heart

  • Meet regularly with the church

  • Have people in your life with permission to call you to Jesus

  • Take risks of obedience when given

• Take Opportunities of Service – when you have chances to serve even if you are not sure yet what you GIFTS are, begin serving

  • Understanding for Christians is often on the other side of obedience

• Follow the Clues of your Passions – look at what makes your heart race

  • Look at what you have imagination for

  • Look at what bothers you in our church

  • How are you meant to BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE

• Follow the Clues of Confirmations from Community

  • Pay attention when those in your community feel deeply encouraged by your service

  • Pay attention when you are being used to build the body up

  • Paul reminded Timothy that the church had prayed words over Him about his calling

• Practice Using Gifts  - once you get an idea about something realize that it will take development

  • A gift can be neglected

  • Practice in your Life Group – you may sense God gving you special insight for a person

  • You may notice a skill at explaining hard to grasp things

  • You may sense it is easy for you to bring people and be open about your faith

  • You may have vision for new things your life group or our church could do

• Capacity - God has given you gift but you may not know yet the space it will fill 

• Development - is in consistency 

• Acceleration - acceleration is a gift God occasionally gives

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