Week 1

The Christian Season of Lent provides the opportunity not usually highly valued in our fast passed and ever changing world.  In our Christian year it calls us to a period of reflection.  It begs us to Stop, Listen, Reflect, Learn and Transform. Our faith again and again recognises that humans need a pattern of work, rest, reflection and recreation (re-Creation).   The weekly Sabbath is an example of a pattern is intended to help as restore our Shalom (Peace).  Lent can be a time in the pattern of our year that offers space so that things might be different.  If you yearn for change in your life, our church and in the world changing direction requires us first to stop.

 

You may like to prepare for this week’s study by engaging with the following resources:

 Watch the Ted Talk by Robert Waldinger

or Listen to Podcast - The Pineapple Project  S5 Ep 1(Warning - Mild Coarse Language)

or Listen to Hugh Mackay’s Australia Day Address 2019

or read the transcript of Mackay’s Address - Download Here

Review the Glossary definitions of the 4 types of relationships - Read Here

 

O Lord, who for our sake fasted forty days and forty nights:
give us grace to use such abstinence,
that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit,
we may ever obey your godly will
in righteousness and true holiness;
to your honour and glory,
who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen.

 

Read the passage in what ever way suits the gathered group.  If it is a long passage you may wish to use different voices.  Give space after the reading for people to read quietly on their own to reflect on passage. Click the button below to bring up the reading.

 

Listen again to Sunday’s message from the service. Note what stands out for you this time.

These questions can be a guide to encourage the group to engage with the Bible Passage and/or the Sermon from the previous Sunday as well as the other materials suggested as part of the preparation. Some groups may wish to revisit this material together as time allows.

Reflecting inwards: Transforming You

  1. How does this passage speak to your life?

  2. Did you discover something new in reading it again?

  3. Did it raise any questions you would like an answer for?

Reflecting outwards: Transforming Relationships

  1. Name the people or characters that are mentioned or referred to in the text?

  2. Describe the various relationships that are present?  (try and keep to what you observe in this passage only and avoid straying into what you know in other parts of scripture)

  3. Do these relationships change as the story unfolds? 

  4. Are the individuals changed during these encounters?

  5. Are these changes positive or negative if compared to the character of the Kingdom of God?

 

Reflecting on the Now

  1. What is the significance of good relationships to being human?

  2. What does a good relationship look like?

  3. What is the connection between the importance of relationships to our mission to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God?

Gathering the wisdom

  1. What new thing have you learnt through participating in this Study?

  2. How might you use this learning in your life?

God, as we have gathered in your presence
we have come to recognise our inner tendency
to pre-build walls and defensive arguments
for moments of competition and opposition to our views.
We know this comes from fear
and that it robs us of seeing the other afresh.
Help us, O Lord, fill us with courage and grace
to see others and their views not as threats
but as fellow human beings with hopes, dreams and ideas.
As we go from this place help us to embrace those we fear and see them as you do.

Amen.