2020 Vision Series: Who Am I?
[Various]
2020 Vision Series, Part 2: Who Am I?
Scripture and praying together (5 minutes)
Have one person read these instructions out loud to the group.
As a group you will be discussing potential changes to your Community. This could be an exciting conversation but it could also be one with disagreement. Have someone in the group slowly read James 3v17. Read it slowly a second time.
With that text in mind, have one person invite the Holy Spirit to speak and sit quietly for a few minutes listening for him. If someone feels something is from the Spirit, share it with the group. After a few minutes, have one person end this time praying together by asking the Spirit to guide and speak into your conversation as a group.
Discussion (30 minutes)
Your time together as a group is an opportunity to participate in what God is up to in your life, in each other’s lives, and in the group as a whole. But it takes effort and intentionality, which means it can be easier to drift into not putting in effort or being intentional. As a Community, discuss as a group a ritual to implement in order to remind everyone that your time as a group is a time to participate with God.
Some ideas for a ritual:
- Begin and end your time as a Community by having someone pray.
- Begin your time as a Community by reading a short Psalm (Ps. 100, 117, 150, etc.) or small section of Scripture (Col. 3v12-14, 1 Pt. 2v9-10, Heb. 10v23-25)
- Begin or end your time by taking Communion together.
- Begin your time by lighting a candle to signify the presence of the Spirit with you.
- Begin or end your time by singing a short song/hymn of praise.
As you discuss ideas as a group, remember that having a handful of good ideas is helpful. Rituals can become stale or rote over time and having alternate options for your ritual can help keep them useful. Remember, your goal in having a ritual is to remind yourselves to put in the effort and intentionality needed to participate in what God is doing in your time together.
A second part to this discussion is to talk through having one or two people step into being the prayer lead for your Community. This role is designed to help remind, facilitate, and encourage praying together as a Community. The person doesn’t have to be the most confident or experienced in prayer, but they do need to value prayer and be willing to speak up to stop the group in a given moment and encourage them to pray for a person or situation.
As a group, take a moment to bring to mind times in your lives where you felt compelled to pray for a person as they were sharing something, but you allowed the moment to pass without praying for the person. The prayer lead would be the person who would speak up in that moment before it passes and say, “hey, lets all pray together for this person.”
Discuss as a group anybody who might be already functioning in that role for the group. Ask if anyone would like to fill the role as well. With whatever person or people are willing, choose one or two to be the prayer leads (if there are two, they will be responsible for divvying up the role between them).
After you have a prayer lead in mind, talk about how this role could function for the group. When and how would you like the prayer lead to encourage everyone to pray? Would they be responsible for texting the group reminders about prayer requests? Would they be responsible to occasionally craft times of listening prayer when there is no Practice to do? Remember, the prayer lead doesn’t always have to be the one leading times of prayer, or the only person encouraging times of prayer. They are the ones taking on the responsibility to not allow those moments to pass by without praying.
Praying together (10 minutes)
Once you’ve worked through this discussion, take time to pray together. Have one person invite the Spirit to speak, and spend a few moments listening. If anyone has something that comes to mind that’s for the group, have them share it.
Take a few minutes to have a couple people pray over the prayer lead as well, asking on their behalf for wisdom and sensitivity to the leading of God’s Spirit in their new role for the group.
End your time of prayer by having one person thank God for his presence and work in the group during your time together.