September 20: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: John 13: 1–5
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet,drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
Act 2: 42–47
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
In Brooklyn As It Is In Heaven
Vision Series 2 | Formation x Tables
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
“The human spirit is an inescapable, fundamental aspect of every human being; and it takes on whatever character it has from the experiences and the choices that we have lived through or made in our past… The most despicable as well as the most admirable of persons have had a spiritual formation.”
— Dallas Willard
We don’t opt in or out of formation. It happens to all of us — family, wounds, friendships, stories, daily habits. They shape the spirit whether we notice or not.
The real Gospel isn’t a transaction to believe your way into heaven — it’s an invitation into a lifelong, relational union with Jesus, formed at His table and in His body.
American Christianity often reduces the Gospel to: believe in Jesus, get forgiven, go to heaven when you die. True as far as it goes — but it lets people become “Christian” without ever becoming a follower of Christ.
That reduction causes real damage:
It’s barely in the New Testament — you have to strip verses out of context to build it.
It produces people who are passionate about being Christian while mostly ignoring Christ.
It confuses outsiders, who watch professed believers act nothing like Jesus.
It leaves believers bored and fruitless — same old life, no love, joy, peace, patience.
A friend’s line captures it: Paul said to live is Christ and to die is gain. We’ve reversed it — to live is gain, to die is Christ. We live for ourselves and just expect Jesus to cover us at the end.
Jesus never opens with a prayer to say. He opens Mark’s Gospel announcing the Kingdom is here — repent, believe, reorient your whole life. Then He teaches it, demonstrates it, lives it, and invites others into it. And when He calls His first followers, He doesn’t say “pray this and don’t forget my name.” He says:
Follow me.
That’s apprenticeship — being with Him, becoming like Him, doing what He did. And when He commissions the disciples at the end, He doesn’t send them to collect converts. He sends them to make apprentices — baptizing them into the life of the Trinity, teaching them to obey everything He commanded.
This is deeply relational grace. It’s a shared life, not just a forgiven one. We’re invited into union with the Triune God — the same life the Father, Son, and Spirit have shared from before time.
And this union gets formed at the table. Jesus’s last, most formative night with His friends is a meal — where He gets up and washes their feet, showing them exactly what God’s love does: it takes the low place. Then the Spirit falls, the church is born, and they live it out — devoted to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, prayer, radical generosity, showing up at each other’s tables. They were being formed in community, not on their own.
You are being formed right now, whether you’re paying attention or not.
So — the invitations:
Be formed by the meal of Jesus.
Don’t go alone — commit to a group to grow with.
Practice hospitality — invite others to your table.
Practice the way of Jesus intentionally, or be pulled by the currents of culture.
Direct Quotes
To many in the West, a Christian is just someone who mentally ascribes to the bare bones of Christianity (a word never used in Scripture) and may or may not occasionally attend church.
— John Mark Comer
The word Christian is used only three times in the New Testament. To put that in perspective, the word disciple (or apprentice) is used 269 times, which comes as no surprise since the New Testament was written by apprentices of Jesus, for apprentices of Jesus.
— John Mark Comer
This is the gospel: God has drawn near to us in Jesus—us, we who are sinful, broken, wounded, mortal, dying, and incapable of self-saving… to draw us into His inner life, to heal us by immersing us within the fold of his Trinitarian love, and then to send us out into the world as agents of His love… This, then, is spiritual formation: the process of being formed into a person of self-giving love through deepening surrender to and union with the Trinity.
— John Mark Comer
Three Questions for Personal Application
Who or what has actually been forming your spirit lately? Not who you’d like to name, but the honest answer — the habits, screens, relationships, and stories shaping you day to day. .
Have you settled for believing in Jesus without following Him? Consider whether your faith has quietly become a belief you hold rather than a life you’re living with Him. Ask God to show you where “follow me” has gone unanswered.
Who’s at your table, and who is God inviting you to add? Think of one relationship where you could practice the kind of hospitality and foot washing love Jesus modeled. Ask Him for the courage to actually extend the invitation.
September 20: Vision Series 2 | Formation x Tables
September 13: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Luke 23: 44–46
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Luke 24: 28-35
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
Acts 4: 29-31
Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
In Brooklyn As It Is In Heaven
Vision Series 1 | Presence x Altars
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
One of the first people we ever baptized was Emerson. He’d left TGC — back when we still met in the evenings — biking off to watch the series finale of Lost with friends. On the way, God overwhelmed him. He pulled his bike over, right there on the street, and surrendered his heart to Jesus.
The curtain has been torn. God’s presence is no longer sealed off in a room — it’s ours to seek, every day, in the ordinary places of our lives.
Trinity Grace turned 17 this week. Baptisms. Freedom from addiction. Marriages restored. Neighbors fed, rent paid, gardens grown out of abandoned lots. Mistakes too — ego, impatience, seasons of talking about prayer more than praying. Through all of it, God kept speaking. Break through will come in hospitality. Breathe. Pray. Prune. You are acquainted with grief, but anointed with joy.
Every September we pause to remember who God has called us to be. In 2009, our first Sunday, we prayed Moses’s prayer: if your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. In 2019 God clarified our vision — Presence, Formation, and Love. In 2024, turning 15, that became Altars, Tables, and Gardens. Places we seek God. Places we grow together. Places we sow love.
Three stories carry us there.
The curtain torn. When Jesus died, the temple curtain — the barrier that kept God’s holiness safely apart from an unholy people — tore in two. God’s presence was no longer confined to an inner room. It was loosed into the world.
The road to Emmaus. Two grieving disciples walk seven miles home, certain it’s over. Jesus walks with them before they recognize Him. Jesus might be with you before you even know it. Their hearts burned before their eyes opened.
The wait that became fire. The disciples don’t rush to the streets after seeing the risen Jesus — they wait. Then the presence that once filled a temple room fills a prayer meeting instead. Acts 2. Acts 4. A shaken room, a bold church, a Gospel that spreads because people got near to God first.
The presence of God didn’t just give the early church a nice feeling — it gave them courage in the way of love.
We can meet God anywhere now. But we still build altars — intentional places to seek Him: the bread and the cup, prayer with other believers, worship, the face of a neighbor in need.
Complacency is deadly to spiritual growth. If deep longing for God feels far off, start there. Ask for it.
Let’s receive the gift Christ has won for us. Let’s seek His presence — starting now.
Direct Quotes
God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole lives there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed… At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for his redeemed children to push into conscious awareness of His presence.
— A.W. Tozer
The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when we are aware of His presence… If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.
— A.W. Tozer
Three Questions for Personal Application
How do you seek God’s presence? Think honestly about your week — where does seeking God actually show up? Not the ideal version, the real one. Is there a rhythm you could return to, or start?
How might God be reaching out to you right now? Before you rush past this, sit with it. A conversation, a burning heart, an unexplained nudge — where has God possibly already been walking beside you, unrecognized?
What distractions are keeping you from saying yes to God? Name them specifically, not generally. What would it look like to put one aside this week, on purpose, to make room?
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
— Luke 24:32
September 13: Vision Series 1 | Presence x Altars
September 21: Vision Series | What Our Moment Calls For - A Church Fully Equipped and Built Up In Love
September 14: Vision Series | A Display of God's Wisdom
September 7: Vision Series | The Grace of the Trinity
September 22: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: John 15: 1-16
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Vision Sundays | Love | Gardens
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
What’s one thing you have done that you are proud of and that has taken a long time to accomplish?
Name a person who has served or invested an extraordinary amount in your life
What about that person’s love are you grateful for?
Gardens
“I think this is the best-known story in the world because it’s everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear. The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind.”
– East of Eden
Lee goes on....
“One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world—and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. The human is the only guilty animal. Now wait! Therefore I think this old and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul.”
– East of Eden
Whatever our understanding of the world or our lives we have to grapple with some explanation for why we fall back into the same patterns and struggles and anxieties and violences or aching search
“In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”
– C.S. LEWIS
Is there a love that could heal everything?
Creation and redemption are the movements of God Who has love at the very center of God’s Being
Julian Barnes said, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”
From Eden to the New Jerusalem - we begin in a garden with a tree in the middle and the last pictures are of a city with a garden in the center and the tree of life for the healing of the nations.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
– John 15: 1-5
Out of love grows fruitfulness
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
– John 15
Church, our vision is PRESENCE, FORMATION, and LOVE
It is their story - BE WITH GOD, BECOME LIKE JESUS, LIVE A LIFE OF LOVE BY THE SPIRIT
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
– John 15
Our vision is love, because God’s Vision is love.
The fruit of God’s Kingdom grows in love. That is the Garden.
God is the Gardener, but He has asked us to join in.
Here is our call.
Abide in the Love of God
Contend for Love in Your Closest Relationships
Work the Gardens of Love in Our City
We can only pass on what we have received.
We sow seeds of love where we can
We tend what we can see in the gardens where we see the things of God growing
What does your garden look like?
Your home, your building, your block?
What tending of that garden is needed?
What one place can you love and serve consistently this fall?
Parents:
What gardens of love and care can you invite your kids to participate in?
Where can you serve the city or church together as a family?
What habits do you want to create for your family?
For ideas on how to show hospitality through the Good Neighbor Collaborations, email Patricia Manwaring at patricia@trinitygracechurch.com
September 22: Love | Gardens
September 15: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Luke 22: 7-34
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
“Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.
He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!” They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.
A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdomand sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Vision Sundays | Formation | Tables
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Describe one of the most memorable meals you’ve ever had and why it was so memorable.
Imagine yourself at the end of your life, looking back and asking yourself what matted most in your brief time on earth.
ALTARS
We are answering the question, “What matters most?”
Jesus himself, when asked to summarize, said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”
We are spending a few weeks this fall asking what is most important for us as a church. What is our VISION?
PRESENCE - FORMATION - LOVE
That we are called to make this a priority as a church family, as people…to…
Be with God
Become like Jesus
Live by the Spirit
ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS
We believe God is inviting us to…
Build Altars - places where we are seeking God’s presence and mark that God has met with us
Set Tables - places of welcome, friendship, hospitality, where we are formed in community
Tend Gardens - sow seeds of love, tend places where good things are growing, seek the fruit of the Kingdom of God
“If you can read the gospels without getting hungry, you are not paying attention.”
– Arthur Boers
In Luke 5 Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at Levis house.
In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed at the home of Simon the Pharisee during a meal.
In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.
In Luke 10 Jesus eats at the home of Mary and Martha.
In Luke 11 Jesus condemns the Pharisees and teachers of the lay at a meal.
In Luke 14 Jesus is at a meal when he urges people to invite the poor to their meals rather than their friends.
In Luke 19 Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zachaeus.
In Luke 22 we have this account we heard today of the Last Supper.
In Luke 24 the risen Christ has a meal with the two disciples in Emmaus, and the later eats fish with the disciples in Jerusalem - thats where PETER is restored after his predicted denial
”The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10;45); “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost: (Luke 19:10); “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.” (Luke 7 v 34.)
Tim Chester points out in his book A Meal with Jesus …
“The first two are statements of purpose. Why did Jesus come? He came to serve, to give his life as a ransom, to seek and save the lost. The third is a statement of method. How was he going to do this? He came eating and drinking.”
– TIM CHESTER
THE SACRAMENT IS A MEAL
“The blend of celebration and betrayal in the scene at supper is preparing us for the blend of triumph and tragedy in the crucifixion itself. Jesus accomplishes his true mission by being falsely accused. He achieves his divine vocation by submitting to the punishment that others had deserved. As God took the arrogant opposition of Pharaoh in Egypt and made it serve his own ends in the spectacular rescue of his people, so now, through this one man at supper with his friends, we see God doing the same thing. When the powers of evil do their worst, and crucify the one who brings God’s salvation, God uses that very event to defeat those powers.
We who, daily, weekly or however often, come together to obey Jesus’ command, to break bread and drink wine in his memory, find ourselves drawn into that salvation, that healing life. The powers may still rage, like Pharaoh and his army pursuing the Egyptians after Passover. But they have been defeated, and rescue is secure.”
– NT WRIGHT
We grow through BREAKTHROUGHS and HABITS
What tables can you set?
What invitations can you extend?
Where are you committed to showing up every day? Every week?
What are your practices and habits of formation?
Parents:
What table habits can you create that will immerse your kids in the value of hospitality?
Which non-married person/s could you invite over for a meal to welcome them and give the family time to hang out with?
How can your family show hospitality to the vulnerable and or under-resourced?
For ideas on how to show hospitality through the Good Neighbor Collaborations, email Patricia Manwaringat patricia@trinitygracechurch.com
September 15: Formation | Tables
September 8: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Genesis 3: 8-9
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walkingin the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Revelation 21: 2-3
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Vision Sundays | Pressnce | Altars
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
What aspects or traditions do you like most about the fall?
What are you personally excited about this Fall?
The world we live in keeps us perpetually in An Imminent Frame
What urgent language in our world can you recall?
The thing we lose is TRANSCENDENCE
What matter most?
So many opinions about what matters most.
And we wanted to take these few weeks at the beginning of the fall as to celebrate 15 years and move into all that God has next for us to center in on what is most important for Trinity Grace.
At our 10 year anniversary as a church GOD spoke some words to us. Simplified the expression of our vision. It wasn’t utterly new, but it was a sharpening of what we had been living.
PRESENCE. FORMATION. LOVE
Be with God. Become like Jesus. Live by the Spirit
MAKE ALTARS - places of God’s revealed presence
SET TABLES - places of friendship, hospitality and love
TEND GARDENS - places where the things of the Kingdom grow.
ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS
These are places of a presence, formation, and love. They are spaces we build and set apart, we set up and host, we sow seeds and join in cultivation.
Places to consecrate and seek God's face. (prayer events becoming a prayer culture)
Places to gather and be formed in hospitality and love. (discipleship in groups and specific equipping, growth in hospitality)
Places where good things grow, things of the Kingdom, seeds becoming fruit. (seeds of service, love, partnership, growing and harvesting for others)
This begins with God’s Presence
Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
– Exodus 33
This is our prayer - God your presence is what matters most and if we have come to place where that isn’t the case will you renew our hearts and minds.
The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His Presence. On our part there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work it is to show us the Father and the Son. If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.
– A.W. Tozer
Importance of presence throughout scripture…
In Eden, it is the loss of a sense of God’s presence that we look on at in sadness as Adam and Eve hide in fear from the God they walked with the cool of the evening.
And the restoration of our union with God in that way weaves through the whole story
Jacob wrestling with God at Bethel and making an Altar to mark where he had met and wrestled with God
Moses in his tent of meeting, as a precursor to the tabenacle - a place to speak and be spoken to by God as a friend
David - longing to make a place - a house for God - and you can take a deep dive studying David’s tabernacle as a place where he sang and worshipped and ached and celebrated in prayer, writing Psalms, marked by and making God’s presence
Jesus - could have prayed anywhere - but he had a custom of drawing away, early in the morning, late the evening, drawing away to be with the Father - he had places, gardens, groves of trees where he went AS HIS CUSTOM WAS - he also also gathered to worship with his neighbors - making altars and sanctuaries in time and place.
and the final picture we are given in Revelation is a PRESENCE picture, a marker of where God is with his people, an altar in the text…
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
– Revelation 21:2-3
What is MOST important to you this Fall? What Matters MOST?
Where do you 3want God to meet with you?
What parts of your life do you want to consecrate to Jesus?
How can you make time to be with Jesus?
