The Church in Community – Discussion Starters
1. Does the church have a role in the community?
Should the church be a deep and personal part of Christian life? What’s wrong with just trying to do good and be good and read the Bible and not have to associate with a church–much less the rest of the people of the community? What does your lesson guide say about our obligation to help meet the needs of the community? Do you want to multiply that impact? Read the poem in our lesson by Dwight Nelson describing how God works with us to win others for Him.
2. In the image of God
Does God’s image (appearance) fully reflect His nature and character? What about
God’s People
beautiful creatures such as the lion or the birds of the air? Do they possess aspects of the nature of God? As a people do we firmly believe that God created us in His image and not through evolution? We see traits such as caring for the young among the animal kingdom, but do those traits fully correspond with God’s love? How close to God were we at creation?
3. The fall and its aftermath
How sudden were the consequences of man’s fall to sin? What was the first thing Adam and Eve saw about themselves? Can you imagine human beings struggling to cover themselves with protection of nakedness from God? At this moment what became the driving force of everything they did or said or thought? Examine each step of the fall as found in your lesson guide in the perspective of what happened.
4. Enmity and atonement
God promises in Genesis 3: 14-15 to make the devil an absolute opponent to man. Should that be encouraging to us? How so? Can you imagine living your entire life in an enemy relationship with God–waking up in the morning to plan the evil you will do? Instead of allowing that gruesome partnership to continue unabated, what did God offer to His fallen human family? To us sin-saturated beings, what is the eternal and unmeasured value of atonement?
7. The restoring role in our church
Here God is, ruler of the universe, hurt to the quick by the damage sin and sinners have done to His precious world. What is His primary task at this time? With just a few “seconds” out of eternity left for us to live, what task does God delegate to us? Why? How can you and I defeat sin where it wages war against us? How can we bring healing to the sick and injured? How can we stop wars and bring peace? There is too much for us to do. So what can we do?
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We will have to pray for new vision and mindset, the Church is not just to entertain and leave just as you came in, but have to be a place for spiritual nourishment that will enable us to keep going in the community, to practice Jesus' method that will give us success.
Charity begins at home,we have to manifest true christianity among those who see us day in day out,it's not all about being good to only church members but with every humanity.christ died for every humanity
The message for restoration and reformation MUST be preached to all four winds and that three Angels message too. Am surprised that this message is not taken seriuosly by the church in this endtimes living, what are we waiting for and what do the church want to see that we then in endtimes? It is my plea that church members must be wakened to preach the message and it has beeen observed that some local pastors tend to discourage this to its sheeps by arguing that this message will lead into problems (persecution) why? The message is so clear so MUST be preached now.
The Gospel message must be lived to be effective. Too many of us the idea that we need to run a blistering comment on what others believe and how others live. Living Christianity with a changed heart is the most effective witness there is. Verbal preaching is totally ineffective if we do not reflect the love of Jesus into the hearts of others by the way we live and interact with people we work and socialise with every day. "By this shall all ment know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." That is a tough command.
Ezekiel chapter 33, there is a strong message to the remnant church. Jesus said "if thou love your life will lose it and thou not love your life will find it". Maurice, in my opinion you are right because a change has to start with the owner and how you are feeling about Christianity as well as understanding your stand in Christianity. But we are living in end-times......