Worship Guide-Respond 53, 2017

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New Beginnings

•W here have you seen Jesus transform your life this last year? Where are you hoping God will bring newness in 2018?

Welcome

Give each person an opportunity to share prayer requests.

Let’s worship God together!

This week we’ll also look at God’s plan to offer all of us new beginnings through Jesus.

Share Your Story Begin by praying together. This should be a brief, simple prayer in which you invite God to give you insight as you study. You can pray for specific requests at the end of your time together or stop momentarily to pray if a particular situation comes up during your discussion. Then begin your time together by discussing the following questions. • What are you excited about for the new year? • What’s a place in your life where you feel empty? • What’s an area of life where you’re looking for a new beginning? WATCH THE VIDEO

NorthlandChurch.net/Studies Afterward have someone read the discussion questions in the “Hear God’s Story” section and start the conversation.

Hear God’s Story and Create a New Story READ 2 CORINTHIANS 5:16-21 (MSG) Read the passages together, and then discuss the following questions. • What kind of life does God promise to everyone who is united with Jesus? What happens to the old life? • What is special about that new life? How is the new life described here different from the old life? • What does it mean to be friends with God? What does it mean that He’s friends with you? • God “called us to settle our relationships with each other” in verse 18. Who are people you need God’s help to reconcile with? • Verse 20 reads, “God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them.” Who are people God has put in your life so you can invite them out of an old life of division and brokenness and into new beginnings? • The NIV translates verse 17 as “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” What are some of the old parts of your life in which you’ve been looking for God’s rescue this last year?

The mission of Northland, A Church Distributed is to respond to God for the benefit of others. Our vision is to see people coming to Christ and to be transformed together as we link locally and globally to worship and serve everywhere, every day. Join us!

Find Your Story in God’s Story

If you feel God is nudging you to go deeper, take some time between now and our next discussion to dig into His Word. Explore the Bible passages related to this session’s theme on your own, jotting your reflections in a journal or in this study guide. Want to go deeper? Select a few verses and try paraphrasing them: writing them in your own words. If you like, share them with the group the next time you meet. Where have you seen God’s abundance cover needs and offer new beginnings in areas of life where you couldn’t have provided for yourself? Where have you seen His abundance at work in the lives of the people in your group and community?

Connect & Grow

READ MATTHEW 14:13-21 (NIV) • We see in this passage that the disciples try to meet the needs of the crowd instead of asking Jesus to meet their needs. What is a way that you have tried to meet your own needs instead of relying on God’s power and abundance?

Our website has hundreds of archived worship services, stories about the great work God is doing and ways for YOU to be the church everywhere, every day. NorthlandChurch.net

• How do we see God’s abundance in this passage? • Jesus often performed miracles to meet and even exceed people’s needs. Throughout the Bible, we can read stories of people experiencing a new beginning through God’s provisions. What are some ways in our day and age that God supernaturally demonstrates His abundance to those who follow Him? • What do you think the leftovers of food are supposed to represent? READ REVELATION 21:4-5 (NIV) •W hat are hurts and pains you’re looking to God to free you from? What hurts and pains has He already freed you from? • I n this passage, Jesus is declaring that He is making all things new in Heaven. That’s the same thing we learn Jesus is beginning to do even while we are here on earth, as we learn in the previous passage from 2 Corinthians. What about the idea of being made new excites you? What about that idea scares you? •W hat about the year to come excites you? Scares you? What things in the year ahead do you need to turn to God for help with?

Looking for more questions and reflections so you can keep digging deeper? There’s even more to this week’s study available on Northland’s apps or at NorthlandChurch.net/Studies.

DECEMBER 30-31, 2017

DIGGING DEEPER

Ruth 1:11-18 (NIV)

For more information or to get involved as a volunteer, email Hello@NorthlandChurch.net or call 407-949-4000. We are located at 530 Dog Track Road, Longwood, FL 32750.


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