ST NICOLAS, NEWBURY
HOME GROUP QUESTIONS
PURPOSE-DRIVEN CHURCH - SESSION 4
INTRODUCTION
From God's point of view, the job of the church is to transform people so that they reflect the life of Jesus. I've found it helpful to think about this in five areas:
1) helping people connect with God to the point where they are able to say that 'God is my heavenly Father'; it's about helping people to become Christians.
2) helping people to worship - to place God at the centre of their lives and keep him there.
3) helping people to belong - to become a member of the Christian family, able both to give and to receive support as they take on the family likeness.
4) helping people to grow - to put down deep roots and become mature in their faith.
5) helping people to serve - to develop and use all their God-given gifts for the benefit of others so that the life of Jesus is reflected in his world.
These five areas of church life reflect the priorities set out in Rick Warren's 'The Purpose-Driven Church', a book which has proved very effective in helping churches all over the world. One of Rick's key points in all this is that a healthy church includes each of these five features held in balance: "Church growth is the natural result of church health. But church health can only occur when our message is biblical and our mission is balanced. Each of the five New Testament purposes of the church must be in equilibrium with the others for health to occur".
4: HELPING PEOPLE TO GROW
This is the fourth in a series of five studies designed to help us look at each of these purposes of the church in turn.
1. What characteristics do you think mark someone out as a mature Christian?
2. What clues about this do we pick up from the following Bible passages: Luke 8:11-15; Ephesians 4:11-16; Philippians 3:8-16; Colossians 4:12; Hebrews 5:11-6:3?
3. Imagine that you have the task of creating 'spiritual compost' to bring about Christian growth to maturity. What ingredients would you choose? Why? Some pointers from the Bible might be John 8:31-32; Luke 15:7-8; Luke 14:33 and John 13:34-35.
4. 'Train yourself to be godly' (1 Timothy 4:7) or, to quote from a paraphrase by J B Phillips, 'Take the time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit'. If someone asked you how exactly to do this, what would you say?
5. Here's a quote from Rick Warren: "Many sincere Christians spend their entire lives earnestly searching for an experience, a conference, a revival, a book, a tape, or a single truth that will instantly transform them into a mature believer. Their search is futile." Does your own experience support this? Why is it that spiritual maturity takes time to develop?
6. Read Hebrews 10:24-25. What do you make of Rick Warren's assertion that "relationships... are absolutely essential for Christian growth"? Why is this? In what ways have you found this to be the case?
7. If you had to pick just a couple of things for us to start doing or seek to do better in the area of helping people to grow spiritually through our life together at St Nicolas, what would they be? Please make a note of your suggestions so that they can be passed to the SPEAR team.
8. Spend some time praying for this aspect of our life at St Nicolas and for the decisions we need to take about the future.
David Stone
22 May 2008