Small Group Study: Life’s Healing Choices Week 2

Life’s Healing Choices

 
Week Two—Session 2
 
Letting Go and Coming Clean
 
Focus of the Group—to hear one another’s stories! Part of sharing who you are and sharing some of your life experience. The good, the bad and not so pretty. This is the beginning of taking the steps to Let Go and Come Clean!
 
Start off your group by letting everyone gather and catch up. Grab your groups attention by starting off with Glory Sightings or sharing some highs and lows from the week. Whichever method works better for you and your group.
 
Let the group know that today we are going to focus on stories and hopefully hearing one another’s stories. The Healing Choices we are focusing on are “Letting Go and Coming Clean.” We hope today that some of us will be willing to share our story. So lets get the ball rolling with that….
 
Materials needed: Paper, pens/pencils
1. Opening questions:
a. Growing up…what was your favorite thing (toy, item, etc) that you could not separate with? (If this isn’t getting anywhere ask about someone’s kids…what are they attached to…or brother, etc)
b. So today…what is the thing that is hard for you to let go of? Specifically, if you were going to be stranded on a desert island with two nouns (person, thing) what would it be.
c. If you could only grab one thing (not person) out of the house and the house was on fire what would you grab and why?
 
2. Very rarely does God call us to “hold on to things.” Instead God calls us to “let go.” What is something in your life that you have had a hard time letting go of and trusting God? Or is there something where God has called you to let go of something and you were able to let go of it?
 
3. On Sunday we talked about things that keep us from Letting Go and trusting God. Some of those are PRIDE, Guilt, fear, worry, and doubt. Can you think of other things that keep us from letting go and trusting God?
 
4. Out of Pride, guilt, fear, worry, doubt and other stuff you listed which one is your biggest struggle.
 
5. Letting go in the immediate can mean that we lose something or even that we fall for a while before we get our feet under us. We know that God takes our hand but we still struggle with “what if God doesn’t.” Have there been times in your life when you have tried to “shake free from God’s grasp” like Derek talked about in his story on Sunday?
 
6. The fourth principle in CR is “coming clean.” Sharing our stories…good and bad with people we trust, God and ourselves. No worries…we aren’t going to ask you to air all your dirty laundry, but we do want to hear some of our stories today around the following topics. Could you share:
 How did you first start following Christ or become a Christian?
 When are sometimes in your life where you have felt very close to God…mountain top experiences?
 When have been some times in your life where you have felt distant from God….maybe “valley experiences?”
 What times of your life have provided the most personal and spiritual growth?
 
7. (try to spend most of your time on question 6 hearing people’s stories) Wow, it is great to hear one another’s stories. What does it do for our group to hear the stories from one another’s lives?
 
8. Letting Go and Coming Clean is something that takes a lot of trust in God and others. It is also about letting go of our will and trusting God’s will for our lives. READ JEREMIAH 29:11-13 and Matthew 11:28-30. Do these verses ring true in your Christian life? IF so how? If not, why not?
 
9. We talked Sunday about when we ask for forgiveness from sin we are forgiven INSTANTLY, FREELY and COMPLETELY. As a Christian, do you feel “that forgiven?” And how do we not take advantage of that forgiveness and continue doing what we are asking forgiveness for?
 
10. Not only are we called to “come clean” to God and he will forgive us, but we are also called to come clean to someone else? What characteristics are needed in a person that we share our hurts, habits and hangs up with?
 
11. Do you have a person like that in your life? Could you tell us about that person?
 
12. We also talked about the need of a team or cord of three in our lives…US, GOD, People of God. It’s all about being real with ourselves, God and others. We even talk about that at River City as TRUE COMMUNITY. Which “cord” do you struggle with….being real/forgiving yourself, trusting God/Trusting inGod’s forgiveness, sharing/trusting others?
 
For our prayer time today feel free to mention general prayer requests (my sick grandma, etc), but also which are could we pray for you about in the cord of three? Can we pray for you that you would trust GOD….YOURSELF…or OTHERS MORE?
 

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