Exploring Faith through Small Groups at Neighbors
Here’s a peek into Neighbors Small Groups recently.
2/6/23 Neighbors High School Small Group Questions
Start with highs and lows.
Tonight we’re going to talk about the gift of us all being unique individuals and why it’s hard to not fall into comparison at times or pull each other down. Read below a few reflections that highlight our differences are good and how we can continue to discover and offer our own gifts.
1 Peter 4:10-11 “God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.”
Romans 12:5 “So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.”
“All we have to do is discover our own gift, even if it’s just one thing, and use it for the good of all.” - Richard Rohr (author)
Where or with whom do you feel safe and free to be your authentic self?
How can it be difficult for you to embrace what makes you unique or different (is it family, friends, school, social media, something else?)
What are 3 unique things you are good at or are gifted in?
Take turns, in a circle, and each person shares with the person to the left of them 1 unique thing they admire about them.
Take prayer requests and pray together to end.
4/20/23 Neighbors College Small Groups
Read this passage together:
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been discussing many aspects of Christian faith: God, Jesus, the Bible, community etc. In our conversations we’ve discovered that each of us has a different perspective and set of experiences related to faith and different “answers” to the difficult questions of life.
How might this passage give us guidance as we explore our individual perspectives on faith?
How might this passage help us engage with the diverse perspectives of faith we encounter?
How might this passage give us guidance on creating a community of faith?
What parts of the passage feel particularly poignant or noteworthy to you?
What results do you think would come from seeking to live aligned with this passage?