Missio Dei: WK 5 - GROUP GUIDE

MISSIO DEI | WEEK 5 - Until He Returns

INTRODUCTION: The following is a guide to help facilitate discussion between you and the person you’re studying with or with your Connect Group. Feel free to add, subtract, or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Spirit to lead in all things.

OPEN:  How do you imagine the return of Jesus to this earth? Use your imagination. What do you see? Hear? Feel? 

SCRIPTURE READING
Read together: Matthew 24:14, Revelation 7:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Micah 6:8, James 2:14-17, Revelation 22: 12-13, 20

Jesus has given us a job to do until he returns, and it involves all of us to all of us for all of Him.

HEAD: Explore the Text

1. Share any wisdom, insights, or thoughts you received just from listening to the text, allowing the Holy Spirit to lead.
2. In our modern world, with technology, do you think there are lots of places and people that haven’t yet heard the gospel? Are there people who live in 1st world countries who you think haven’t heard? Explain your answer.
3. If there are people from every nation, tribe and language in heaven, why do so many faith traditions think only they will be saved?
4. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul tells us that Christ gave us a task to do (verse 18-19). What is the task and how do we go about accomplishing it?
5. What does it mean to you that God is making his appeal through us? He could have chosen anyway, but he chose us.
6. How do you reconcile the idea of faith and works when it comes to salvation? Does one of them save you? Why are they both “required”?
7. Revelation 22 was written close to 2,000 years ago. So what do you think Jesus meant by “coming soon”?

HEART: Personal Reflection

1. Describe what you think evangelism is? How might you and I learn to live evangelistically, instead of just doing evangelism?
2. So many have been hurt by the church, or those professing to follow Christ but not acting anything like him. What does the ministry of reconciliation look like to the hurt, the traumatized, or even the tired of religion folks?
3. Which comes first in the life of a follower for Jesus, faith or works? Explain.
4. Who are some of the people from the many nations and tribes that you look forward to meeting, talking to, learning from, when we gather in heaven?

HANDS: Practice This Week
Spiritual Practice: Living Word

• St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Speak the gospel always; when necessary, use words.”
• This week, seek to find ways to be a blessing, to share Jesus, and to participate in the ministry of reconciliation without saying a word. This can be super challenging for us task-oriented people, so spend time in prayer each day, asking God for help to know how to do this, opening your eyes to see the opportunities, then GO and be his witnesses in all the world.

Invite the group to check in next week about their experience.

FINISH WELL: Bring It Home

1. Who is someone in your circle of influence that you know needs God’s ministry of reconciliation? What’s one thing you can do this week, for them, to help them know God loves them and is thinking about them?
2. Jesus is both coming soon, and already here thru his Holy Spirit. How do we live, today, celebrating the God who is with us now, while looking forward to the God who is coming soon?

CLOSING SCRIPTURE (Leader or Participant Reads):
9 After saying this, [JESUS] was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. 10 As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!” …[SO GO AND]… “be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:9-11, 8b, NLT)