Food For Thought for the week of September 6, 2020 PDF VERSION
Food for Thought
For the week of September 6, 2020
(Questions and Scriptures for further study & discussion)
NOTE TO LEADERS: Please sign your Community Group up for the upcoming Prayer Walk! Watch for upcoming email for our CG Kick-Off in just three weeks! Our Kick-Off will be virtual, fun, encouraging, and prepare you for this year’s Community Group!
WHAT’S YOUR HIGHLIGHT?
Looking back at your notes from this week’s teaching, was there anything you heard for the first time or something that caught your attention, challenged or confused you?
YOUR STORY
1. This week JJ said, “When you go through something difficult allow it to birth something good in you.” What is something good that has been birthed in you since Covid-19?
2. The responses people have when they face challenges, uncertainty and suffering can vary greatly. What are some ways you’ve noticed the people around you responding to difficult circumstances?
Do you think people’s responses differ if what they are going through is self-inflicted suffering as opposed to suffering that is outside of their control? If so, how?
DIGGING DEEPER
1. Christian author C. S. Lewis reflects what we heard this weekend about suffering when he wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” How have you seen the truth of this quote reflected in your experience?
How might the following passages help us understand the role of suffering in our lives and the attitude God wants us to have toward our suffering?
James 1:2-4 New International Version (NIV) 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Hebrews 5:7-8 New International Version (NIV) 7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.
1 Peter 1:6-7 New International Version (NIV) 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Romans 5:3-5 New International Version (NIV) 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Based on the above passages, what is most challenging for you to accept about hardship?
Is there someone in your life who has gone through great difficulty and lived out the truths taught in these passages regarding suffering?
2. Psalms provide a great model for us on how to pray when we’re suffering due to difficult circumstances. In light of what we’re all currently going through, jot down one or two thoughts about yourself or others under each of the elements.
Description of a present need (How is this affecting you or others?)
Call for help (What would you like God to do for you or others?)
Commitment to praise (What is true about God that you can praise Him for?)
Reflection on who God is (What aspects of God’s character are most important to you in the midst of this?)
Now use those thoughts to express your own prayer to God.
TAKING IT HOME
1. Take some time to think through the last few months of 2020. Can you think of any spiritual goals you’d like to work on as the result of your time in suffering? How can the group pray for you this week?
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Community Prayer Walk – Friday, September 11, from 7-8 p.m.
As STF continues to plan to re-gather on campus, we invite you to join for the STF Community Prayer Walk. Please use the SignUpGenius link below to register for a prayer group which will meet outside at one of the three campus locations. We are looking forward to walking through the neighborhoods around our campuses on that day and praying over our community. Thank you for continuing to play a mission-critical role on the STF Prayer Team. Sign Up
Marriage Night – September 12, 2020 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.
Marriage Night is a one-night event for married and engaged couples to laugh and learn as they hear from marriage experts and discover how to honor God through their relationship. This is a perfect opportunity to gather with other couples in your community group to learn and grow together as you strengthen your marriages. Tickets are available for $30 per community group, or $30 per couple if you and your spouse watch on your own. Click below to register to attend Marriage Night. Register
WE ARE SO EXCITED TO GATHER TOGETHER IN PERSON AGAIN STARTING SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13!
WE WILL HAVE TWO 1-HOUR SERVICES AT THE BALLAST POINT CAMPUS, BEGINNING AT 9 AND 11 AM.
Women’s Bible Study – Sept. 14, 7:00pm – Nov 16, 2020 8:45pm OR September 15, 9:30am – Nov. 17, 2020 11:15am
Join us this fall for Jen Wilkin’s “Better,” her latest 10-session study of the book of Hebrews! Jen Wilkin explores how God “provided something better for us” in the person of Jesus Christ. Hebrews calls us to fix our gaze instead on the resurrected Christ as we run the race set before us. In Him alone, we have hope and salvation … He alone is better. Register
Sept 15th from 6-7 p.m.
Zoom for our Disaster Relief training in partnership with Florida Baptist Disaster Relief!
If you want to get a head start on the certification process, you can complete your background check and registration. Please click here to get to the links you need: More Info