Introduction and Ice Breaker
What habits (healthy or harmful) have you picked up in the last 8 months during the pandemic that has become a new normal for you?
Themes to Consider
Benefitting from the American dream and not having to utterly rely on Jesus for our very life.
JESUS DOESNT HAVE TO BE MY EVERYTHING BECAUSE I HAVE SO MUCH ELSE
‘THE WAY YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING AT THE WORLD IS OFF’
God seems passionately committed to involving people in what He is doing in the world.
But the tension is that over and over again people fail to be a representation of God
Worship - keeps at bay the rot of pride
Forgiveness - keeps relationships from spoiling
Integrity - protects us from the rot of deception or self-deception
Mercy - keeps out the rot of greed and abuse of power
Laughter and Endurance - Shared Joy and Shared Pain
Discussion Questions
What is the nature of the distinctive role the church is called to play in our society?
How have you perceived the church lose its distinctiveness in our world?
Consider your own life and it’s distinctiveness.
What areas are God highlighting where you have Lost your distinctiveness?
What cause you to confirm rather than stand out?
Guided Prayer
O Sovereign Lord, bring forth your Kingdom on this earth. Grow in your people a deep longing to be the salt of the earth, to preserve and enhance the freshness of Christ’s call to a life of trust in You. Free us from the fear, apathy, and self-indulgence that keep us from sharing the flavor of life in your Kingdom.
Response: Lord, hear our prayer.
O Sovereign Lord, bring forth your Kingdom of Justice. We lift our voices and submit to you all who lead governments of this world, in this country, and in our Community; may they be just, merciful, compassionate, and honorable in their lives and work.
Response: Lord, hear our prayer.
O Sovereign Lord, bring forth your Kingdom of Mercy. We lift our voices on behalf of the sick and infirm, the weak and the downtrodden, the anxious and fearful. We pray especially for those suffering from COVID-19 and all the first responders and front line workers. May your mercy, compassion, and steadfast truth pour like a balm over our city.
Response: Lord, hear our prayer.
O Sovereign Lord, bring forth your Kingdom of Peace. We long for the completeness that only you can bring. We lift our voices on behalf of our church leaders and their families: for Caleb, Josh, and David, for Michael, Elisa, Armistead, and Danielle. May their homes be sanctuaries of your peace. Protect them from the hand of the evil one.
Response: Lord, hear our prayer.
O Sovereign Lord, bring forth the City of God. Like the prophets of old, we long for a heavenly country—for the City you have prepared for us. We lift our voices for the members of this body, Trinity Grace Church, for those in Brooklyn, and those spread across the country. While we are scattered, may you satisfy our needs and strengthen us in the land. May our lives radiate your love to those we meet.
Response: We ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord of Glory, and the Holy Spirit, who together with you are One God, forever and ever. Amen.
Supplemental Content
The year 2020 has been kind to Turchin, for many of the same reasons it has been hell for the rest of us. Cities on fire, elected leaders endorsing violence, homicides surging—to a normal American, these are apocalyptic signs. To Turchin, they indicate that his models, which incorporate thousands of years of data about human history, are working. (“Not all of human history,” he corrected me once. “Just the last one 10,000 years.”) He has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an “age of discord,” civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced. In 2010, he predicted that the unrest would get serious around 2020, and that it wouldn’t let up until those social and political trends reversed. Havoc at the level of the late 1960s and early ’70s is the best-case scenario; all-out civil war is the worst. The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general population; and a government that can’t cover its financial positions… For my own sake, there are few thinkers whom I am more eager to see proved wrong. —Graeme Wood
So we must see from our heart that: Blessed are the physically repulsive, Blessed are those who smell bad, The twisted, misshapen, deformed, The too big, too little, too loud, the bald, the fat, and the old—For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus. Then there are the “seriously” crushed ones: The flunk-outs and drop-outs and burned-outs. The broke and the broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV-positive and herpes- ridden. The brain-damaged, the incurably ill. The barren and the pregnant too-many-times or at the wrong time. The overemployed, the underemployed, the unemployed. The unemployable. The swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced. The parents with children living or the street, the children with parents not dying in the “rest” home. The lonely, the incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved or emotionally dead. And on and on and on. Is it true that “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal? It is true! That is precisely the gospel of heaven’s availability that comes to us through the Beatitudes. And you don’t have to wait until you’re dead. Jesus offers to all such people as these the present blessedness of the present kingdom—regardless of circumstances. The condition of life sought for by human beings through the ages is attained in the quietly transforming friendship of Jesus. —Dallas Willard
