Small Group Outline
Thursday, September 28, 2000
[View PDF version for printing]
Snack & Chat
Opening Prayer (Song: Dry and Weary Land)
Worship
As the Deer
Group Stuff
The "Hip" Wheel à individual Christian life, but has implications for the group as well.
Talk about ministry / service (generally / specifically & personally / corporately). "Think about ways that you can "minister" in this group and ways that this group can minister to others."
Pass out Group Directory
Small Group area on Kelvin & Wendy’s web site
Group Name??
Sacred Romance
In general for this chapter…
"The chapter begins with an invitation to ‘listen to our lives,’ to go back into our own stories and recover something precious that has been lost. As Frederick Buechner said, ‘If we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly,’ then we may come to discover something about our true heart and the ways in which God has been calling to us. Is this a new thought to you – that to find God, you must find your own heart, listen to the story of your life? Are you eager or apprehensive to look back?" (W 21) [Don’t answer out loud]
"You may be hard-pressed to remember happy images from your childhood. There are childhoods that have been so bleak as to seem only tragic.
You must interpret the word by all that you have missed in life. MacDonald" (W 23)
[If it’s an issue with remembering the past vs. "pressing on"
Stones, Ebeneezers, "Remember…" 2 Timothy: remember how you were raised
And Acts 17:24-27]
To get things started…
TV Theme Song Game
One person picks a number between 1-65. That track is played from CD. First person who gets the show right gets a tootsie roll. Invitation to share where you were, what you were doing when you watched that show. (Get a tootsie roll for that too?) Repeat as desired.
Did anyone bring childhood / teenage photos? Did digging these out trigger any memories or feelings (either good or bad)?
Place photos on table in center of the group. Maybe the photos can help us remember the earlier years that we’re all reflecting back on.
Did anyone happen to bring anything else to share ("found" or "made")?
"What were some of your favorite stories as a child? Books, movies, TV shows?…What was it about those stories that you loved? Did you see yourself as one of the characters?" (W 23)
(Autumn: Track 1: George Winston) "Recall one of your best memories from childhood: a Christmas with your grandparents perhaps, a family vacation, or a summer afternoon with a best friend." (Adapted W 22)
Does anyone feel comfortable sharing one of your memories with us?
How did the word "Romance" first strike you as you read Chapter 2? What do you read it to mean now?
" ‘Each of us has a geography where the Romance first spoke to us. It is usually the place we both long to see again and fear returning to for fear our memories will be stolen from us’ (p 14). Do you have a place from your youth that you have longed to return to? Have you returned? Why or why not?"
[Lewis quote p20]
"Think for a moment about how you spend your free time (or how you’d like to spend your free time if you had any). Lewis says that even in our hobbies, we are looking for the Romance. Is it travel? Gardening? Sports? What makes it so enjoyable? Why does it make you come alive?" (W 28)
" ‘The Romance comes and goes as it wills. And so we are haunted by it…There are enough hints and clues and ‘tantalizing glimpses’ to keep us searching, our heart ever open and alive to the quest’ (p 21). Would you say that is true for you – that your hear is open and alive to the quest? Would you like it to be true?" (W 30)
Prayer
During Autumn: Track 1: (George Winston)
Silent Prayer: "Anything you need to say to God…"
Suggest: "Ask God to guide you this week in putting into action the things we’ve been talking and reading about."
Close aloud.
Housekeeping
Application / reflection card
Snacks next week?