Hopefully after helping them see that sin has real consequences, it is time for the big one.

4. David’s one sin led to many. He had many opportunities to stop, but instead chose to keep sinning. All David had to do in order to avoid paying as big a price as he did was ARO. So as the last question, I would like to give everyone the opportunity to start restoration. Is there anything you need to acknowledge tonight?
Hope and pray some people acknowledge their sin tonight.

1. Maps give us directions in locations. In your own life, who or what do you go to for directions about decisions?
2. Do you make better decisions when you have a plan or “wing it”(no plan)? Share an example.
3. Do you have a plan about dating, sex, and marriage? What is your plan?
4. How can the Bible help you plan your life and make decisions?
5. What was Sampson’s mistake? What might have helped him avoid that mistake? (Judges 16:5-9,15-21)
6. Rehoboam asked for three days to make a decision. Was it a good idea for him to take time to think about his decision? Explain a time you had a tough decision that you needed time to think about. (1 Kings 12:4-5)
7. Rehoboam got good advice and bad advice. In the Bible story, How can he recognize the good advice from the bad advice? How can we recognize good advice? How can we recognize bad advice? (1 Kings 12:7-11)
8. What is an example from your life of Parents or someone older giving good advice?
9. How easy or difficult is it for you to ask for advice or guidance from a parent or older person? Are some topics easier to discuss than others?

 

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TNS 1/26/23

Small Group Discussions [Scott Burrill]

1. How does everyone feel about the idea of “friendship with God”? Is this a new concept? What stood out from tonight in the discussion or scriptures? Anything not make sense that they are still wrestling with?
2. As you can, check in on a personal level: did anyone start their relationship with God tonight? Start their friendship with God tonight? Or realize they need to re-start their friendship with God?
   1. If your group is ready/willing, go right into a health check with them on where they are at in their relationship with God
3. What keeps you from friendship with God? Or pulls you from your friendship with God?
4. What does a healthy friendship with God really look like?
   1. I mean it has to be more than I check some boxes each day by praying before meals and bed and reading a chapter in my Bible …
   2. Not just rules, but relationship … so what does this really look like?
   3. Does Jesus go with you where you go?
5. If y’all want to or as you have time: How are we feeling about the idea of obedience “earning” us friendship with God? Does your group need to, or want to, dive into the faith vs works discussion?
   1. If so, jump right into James 2:18-26 and see if this helps
   2. What does James say?
   3. Is “friendship” without deeds also dead?

 

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TNS 1/19/23

Small Group Discussions [Bret Smith]

Tonight, we are going to cover a tough, sensitive topic… “Calling Out a Friend.”

Most people don’t do well with confrontation or holding someone accountable for the sin in their life and falling away from Christ. We will try to tackle this topic using James 5:19-20 as the foundation of this truth.

We will cover from “Letting it Slide’ to “Taking Action” and closing with “How to Confront”. It’s not an easy subject to cover and I am assuming most of our students have never tackled anything like this in any depth.

The questions for tonight are pretty much open to which of these things your students want to talk about. I think it would be cool if, you as their Leader, could role-play this with your students.

1. Role-play any topic. Set the stage and walk them through what this looks like and how you perceive it being done.
2. Do we have friends we are comfortable sharing this type of accountability with?
3. Have you ever called out a friend for any of the topics covered?
4. Discuss with your small groups the correct way to accountability.

 

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TNS 1/12/23

Small Group Discussions [John Pedigo]

1. What is a valuable gift you have received in the last year?
2. What is a skill you have learned from a parent, friend or youtube? How have you used this skill to help others?
3. Jonathan gave David his right to the throne. Have you ever given something to someone which held incredibly meaningful value, or was difficult to give?
4. It is important to serve our friends faithfully. What is the best way we can serve our friends?
5. How can you best honor God in maintaining healthy friendships (read Colossians 3:12-14)?

 

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TNS 1/5/23

Small Group Discussions [Josiah Delgado]

1. Have everyone in the group make a list of 5 of your closest friends. In what ways do these friends influence you? For the better or worse?

2. Since our friends directly impact us, how should go about making friends in the future?
a. Are there friendships right now that need to change because of the negative influence they have on you?
b. Are there friendships you should deepen/strengthen because of the good influence they have?

3. Being as honest as possible, how good of a friend do you think you are to those around you? In what ways can you become a better friend?

4. Do you reflect the life of Jesus in the way you pursue/care for your friends? Would others around consider you a follower of Christ? Why or why not?

 

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TNS 12/8/22

Small Group Discussions [Bo Edwards]

1.  Do you ever engage in your faith on an “intellectual” level? If so, how?
2. Do you feel as though knowing that we have real evidence for the authenticity of the gospels helps strengthen your faith? Why?
3. Are there other aspects or areas of the Christian faith that cause you to doubt? Are there other aspects of Christianity you would like to see evidence for and/or explained?

 

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TNS 12/1/22

Small Group Discussions [Eric Dye]

This week I [Eric] will be covering 12 names of Jesus using pictures of ornaments. Each name will be on the screen with an explanation. The focus will be how we can use these names in our prayer time, enhancing worship in our prayers.

I will be giving each of the students a 1-page “Christmas Ornaments” handout of these names. They can fill in the blank and add additional notes if they want. I have included a copy of this handout in this email.

Question/discussion:

• Were there any names where you haven’t considered in your time with God?  Did any surprise you?
• Which of the names resonate strongest with you in relating to Jesus?  Why?
• Does your prayer time currently include worship?  How does adding worship improve this time with God?

Exercise:
Take turns where each student verbalizes a short prayer using 2 of the names from this study. No pressure is intended, encourage them to try at least 1 and complement the effort. Remind them that prayer life can be improved with practice.

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TNS 11/17/22

Small Group Discussion Questions [Scott Burrill]

For the bible study section, I [Scott] wrote up two options. Chapter 9 is deep, it gets into predestination, and you may not want to do it or you may think they aren’t ready – Okay.

Chapter 12 & 13 is pretty straightforward, and is good to run through with your students on how to read it, study it, and apply passages of scripture. I broke it into three smaller sections and you can do 1, 2 or all 3 three of them as you see fit.

OPTION 1:

 

Romans 9

You could study this chapter for weeks in detail and still come up with new thoughts and concepts. For a single session with your group, I would recommend pointing towards this as your main idea:

Paul bumps right up into the idea of predestination in this passage. God, knowing in advance the heart of each person, elects certain people, hardens the hearts of some people, and has mercy on who he chooses to have mercy. Vs 22-24 ultimately points us to the idea that God exercises great patience, not immediately destroying those that will never accept him, in order that his glory be revealed to those that will. Deep theology, but this where this takes us.

I recommend doing verses 1-24 only. If your groups wants to keep going through the chapter, go for it. The rest of the chapter adds to the same ongoing discussion and provides more meat for the conversation, but you could have a good discussion using 1-24 only and it would be less overwhelming.

Read verses 1-24.

Spend 5-10 minutes or so making sure everyone understands the basic facts of what you read. Are there any words we need to define? Who are the jews and who are the gentiles? What is the current state when this letter was written for jews and for gentiles?

Background notes:

• The early church is now made up of gentiles as well as jews who converted to Christianity based on their belief in Jesus (i.e. Paul)
• Let them get into a discussion as it occurs around the Jews being God’s chosen people from the beginning and the covenant with God that is now being opened up to the gentiles.

Also worth noting is that the people really seemed to note that the jews that did not accept Jesus as their messiah are not saved. This might be easy for some, and it might be tough for some, but this is the meat of Paul’s passage here.

Once you get through background and definitions and facts, start digging into the passage to see what it means:

Take 5 verse sections and try and summarize them
…Or
Take 5 verse sections and ask students, what doesn’t make sense in this section?
…Or (you pick verses you think are complicated and ask them to explain them)

This option would look something like this:

• Vs 6 – The implication is that people would think the God’s word had failed, but Paul says it hasn’t. Why would they think it had? (because God promised the Jews salvation and then they were not saved – my opinion, but just an opinion)
• Vs 11 – you’ll need more than just this verse to answer it, but what argument is Paul making about “God’s purpose in election”?
  NOTE: I view this as a key part of this passage.
• Vs 6-21 – ask your group to look through these verses and using specific verses describe how they represent God’s plan/intent for specific individuals or groups.
• Vs 22-24 – ask the group to try and make sense of Paul’s description of how the ideas you see in verses 6-21 are played out and used by God.

When we study scripture, I’d recommend that we try and learn something about us, something about God, or something new about what God desires for us. In this passage, with this main concept, I think we are going after learning more about the character of God and his plan for people. Ask the group to try and explain something new they learned, or are still working through, about the character of God.

OPTION 2:

 

Romans 12/13

• Option A: 12:3-8
• Option B: 12:9-21
• Option C: 13:1-7

You can do 1, 2 or all 3 of these sections with your group as you have time and attention span. I would encourage you to do them one at a time and follow the same structure going through them as this will give students a method/structure to do it on their own through the rest of the book.

1. Read the section
2. Remind everyone of the context (letter from Paul to both Jewish and Gentile Christians to a church that is not loved by either Rome or the Jews …etc.)
3. Define any words that the group doesn’t know
4. Look for specific phrases or verses that don’t make sense or could have multiple meanings and talk through them. (i.e – what does it mean to prophesy in accordance with your faith?)
5. What was the original recipient of the letter intended to take away from reading this section?
6. Does anything in this section challenge, change or deepen your understanding of God?
7. What would that application look like in your life today?

Each section should end with some version of question 7 as we’re looking for the students to apply this passage to their life, or question 6 as we’re looking for students to reflect on who God is.

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TNS 11/10/22

Small Group Discussion Questions [Bret Smith]

We will be discussing Romans 8. This chapter is full of the Spirit, and I want to make sure the students understand the difference in “No Condemnation”, “Flesh”, “Mind, Body, and Spirit” and “God’s Everlasting Love”.

I will be concentrating on verses 1-11, a small snippet from verses 26-27, and closing with verses 31-39. It is a lot to take in and I am going to try and get some feedback from the students. If you want to use the questions provided, please feel free. If you would rather take your students down a different path that is fine also.

• Where is the Spirit in your life?
  • Is he on a shelf, pulled off only when there are trials in your life, or is he the one leading you?
• Feeding the Spirit is critical in a Christians life.
  • Identify the how to feed it and what to feed it with. Try to get your students to commit to more than Thursday and Sunday through devotionals, commentaries, or study plans.
• The Spirit intercedes for us in our weakness (or during trials & tribulations) with groanings as mentioned in verses 26-27.
  • Has there been a time in your life when you felt this type of weakness and had no idea what to pray for?
• God’s love for us is everlasting, as stated in verses 31-39. It also lists a number of things in verse 35 that could possibly separate us from God. Verse 38-39 gives us a comprehensive list of items that can’t separate us from the love of God.
  • Go through these items and talk about them. If they are struggling with any of this refer back to verse 31 and provide reassurance that if God is for us, who can be against us.

 

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SUNDAY 11/6/22

Table Discussions Info [Bo Edwards]:

• The plan is to talk about how Jesus is our greatest teacher. I will open with a story about a teacher I had as a kid that I really liked, and how his class was different from any class I had ever seen.
• Then I’ll talk about how Jesus is our greatest teacher; how we use pretty much everything about him to teach us things — his actions, the way he responded to things, and the things he said, namely parables.
• I will then assign each group a parable, and they can take 15 minutes to come up with a way to act it out, similar to how Maddie told her story at the Clue event while Stephanie and Debbie acted it out.
• After acting it out, I am going to ask them what they believe the lesson behind the parable itself is.

The parables I have chosen are as follows:

• The Unforgiving servant  – Matthew 18:23-35
• The Tenant Farmers – Mark 12:1-12
• The Good Samaritan – Luke 10:29-37
• The Friend at Midnight – Luke 11:5-13
• The Rich Fool – Luke 12:13-21
• The Invited Guests – Luke 14:7-14
• The Rich Man and Lazarus – Luke 16:19-31
• The Pharisee and the Tax Collector – Luke 18:9-14(if we need extra table) The Lost Sheep – Matthew 18:10-14

I want to close in on that fact that if we follow Jesus’ teachings, we should look different to the outside world, much like the teacher’s class I was in was very different.

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TNS 11/3/22

Small Group Discussion Questions [John Pedigo]

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SUNDAY 10/30/22

Table Discussions [Bo Edwards]

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TNS 10/27/22

Small Group Discussion Questions [Josiah Delgado]

 

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TNS 10/20/22

Small Group Discussion Questions [Scott Burrill]