Family

• Because we all come from a family of some kind (for better or worse), and live out our lives in relationship with others, what is both rewarding and challenging about living in a family?

• Can you name an occasion where things in your family got really difficult? 

• Can you name an occasion where your family really came through for you?

• We're looking at living life in the family of God this week, and what we see is Jesus' insistence again and again on the importance of his followers seeing each other as their family.

• Why do you think Jesus and his followers took on the term 'family' as one of their primary metaphors to describe the Church?

• Since the early Jesus-community faced opposition and sometimes open hostility from the Roman culture, they desperately needed each other. Do you feel that same sense of urgency, desperation, and need in the modern world we live in?

• We talked on Sunday morning about having to work for this kind of family. We looked at the story of John Mark shared in 1 Peter 5:13, Acts 13; Acts 15; and Colossians 4. Recognizing the struggle to maintain the unity of the early church, what surprises you about this? What stands out to you about this story?

• Read the Fruit of the Spirit passage (Galatians 5:22-6:4). What stands out to you? What do you notice? 

• Lastly, the only way we can be this radically loving and humble in our relationships with others is by recognizing that all we need we already have in Jesus. Peace in the Biblical imagination comes from Jesus, and then extends into our relationships with others. What does peace look like in your life? What does it look like to express that into your community?

• Jesus risked it all on his friends, his family. He didn't leave a book or a constitution; be left a family. Why do you think this was his strategy? 

• How should your community express living in the family of God together this semester?