Connection Group Discussion Guide | Week 5 My mission statement is _______________________________________________________________________________________ .
Connect (5 to 10 minutes) Come together to build relationships through fellowship and sharing about this week’s worship. • Take a few minutes to share your thoughts about worship this week. What aspects of worship did or did not connect with you? What story or illustration made an impact on you? • Icebreaker: Share about a time when you were part of a team of some kind, whether it was sports, band, choir, etc. What was that experience like? What was your role on the team?
Context (25 to 35 minutes) Dig deeper into the videos and scripture for this week through questions and discussion. Watch the video for this session on your Connection Group DVD or online. • As we have been narrowing our focus from the Great Commission, a mission statement for all Christians, down to this week as we look at personal mission statements, have you thought at all about your own mission statement? Why or why not? How has examining these other mission statements affected your understanding of your call as a Christian? • How can you begin to incorporate your professional call into your Christian call? • What does discernment mean to you? How do you personally practice discernment in your own life? • Have you ever felt that someone else was encouraging you to do something other than what you wanted or God wanted? How do you balance the expectations of God with the expectations of the world? • How do you feel that corporate mission statements are different from Christian mission statements? How does this challenge us as we begin to shape our own mission statement? • How do you balance the struggle of God calling you to take action in the world, but knowing that God is also working in the world around you? Do you ever feel like sometimes you get in the way of what God is trying to do? • How do you respond to the idea that our current calling or mission statement may be for a season? Does it scare you or encourage you that God could call you to something new in the future?
Read Exodus 4:1-16 • What excuses does Moses give for denying God’s Moses was living comfortably in a foreign land call to return to Egypt? Why do you think he is with a wife, a new livelihood, and a new family. making these? This wonderful new experience is interrupted, • What excuses do you typically use when you feel however, when God calls Moses to return to a God is calling you to something difficult? Why are place of pain and fear. these your go-to reasons? • If you had to create a mission statement for Moses in this circumstance, what do you think that mission statement would be, and why? • How does this story of Moses change your thoughts about your own call and mission statement? Read 2 Corinthians 4:5-7 • For us, slave has a negative connotation. How can we understand the intent of the phrase in this passage? • When have you acted as a servant or slave for someone else, as Paul describes here? What was that experience like? • Discuss what it means to take credit for the things in your life, rather than giving credit to God. What harm is done when we do this? • Paul often empowered others to claim their spiritual gifts to join in God’s ministry themselves. Has someone ever empowered you to claim a gift you weren’t sure you had? How did it change your ministry or relationship with God? • How do these gifts inform our personal mission statements? The root of the word amateur is from the French language meaning “to love.” When we refer to amateurs, we are not referring to someone with less skill, but we’re referring to those individuals who do an action purely for their love of it. In this sense, we all need to be amateurs in being witnesses for Jesus Christ.
Call (15 minutes) We believe that God not only shows us who God is but invites us to participate in God’s ministry by answering unique calls in our own lives. Join together in discovering how we can respond to scripture and God’s presence as a church and as individuals. • Take time as individuals to write a mission statement for yourselves. How can you, with your own unique gifts and graces, work towards the mission statements of your Connection Group, St. Andrew, the United Methodist Church, and the Great Commission? • One suggestion: If people are stuck in trying to think of a mission statement to write for themselves, ask them to focus on a particular Bible verse that inspires them, and shape their mission statement around that scripture. • Take time in your group session or over the next week to complete your personal mission statements. During the next session, group members will have the opportunity to discuss the statements they have written and share why they are important to them.
Closing (5 minutes) God calls us into community by sharing our joys and concerns together in prayer and supporting one another in our walks with Christ. As we share testimony and stories of our lives, let us listen to where God is working within our community and how we can build each other up in Christian love. • Share joys and concerns with one another. • Close in prayer, either by inviting a group member to pray or by using the prayer provided below. Closing Prayer God, we thank you that you allow us to play a part in the mission you have given to the church. We admit that many times, we would rather say, “Send someone else!” instead of answering your call. Help us to recognize our own gifts for ministry, even as we remember that you are the source of all those gifts. Inspire us to follow the mission statements we have created for ourselves, so that we might experience the joy of following your call. Amen.