Before the Session
Facilitator: In advance of the session
- Have the Bible Background Video ready to view.
- Review today’s scripture text and the session activities to help better facilitate the discussion.
- Encourage your group to listen to the Faithelement podcast ahead of the next session (Share the link via email or social media)
Context
Invite the group to sit silently and consider four definitions you are going to read to them. After each definition is read, have them take a minute to silently consider each of these questions before moving on to the next definition:
- In what ways have you experienced this kind of love?
- In what way have you shown this kind of love?
- In what ways has this kind of love affected your live
The four definitions are:
Greek Words for Love
Eros – Loving with passion that is usually sexual, but can be merely appreciating beauty.
Philos – A friendship between equals that involves affection and loyalty.
Storge – The natural love and empathy for your family and offspring.
Agape – Unconditional positive regard for others that wishes nothing but the best for them.
Upon concluding the final reflection, ask the group:
- What did you discover about yourself or others by doing this exercise?
- What kinds of things do you think make various forms of love easier or harder to either express or accept?
- In what ways does is authentic love an expression of power?
- What do expressions of God’s love for us, or ours for God, say about our relationship with God?
Content
Read aloud or play the Ephesians 3:14-21 video
Followed by the Bible Background Video
Then ask questions like these:
- Do you pray for big and specific or for general and small things?
- Why might a spiritually rich parent desire for their children to be spiritually disadvantaged?
- What do you think was the purpose behind praying for power for the Ephesians?
- In what ways might embracing God’s power to love us help us overcome some of life’s difficulties?
Closure
Ask the group to respond to these questions in one word or phrase:
- What is something that is bigger than you imagined it would be?
- When have you known for sure that you were in the presence of love?
- How big is God’s love, in terms of comparison? God’s love is more than _____.
- What is abundantly “more than you can ask or imagine” right now?
Pray together, using this prayer from Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber (Starts at 7:28):
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/
NOTE: Starts at 7:28
“So, my friends, I ask us this: If the power of the Gospel, the power of Christ crucified and risen is this strong – then I ask, is it not also strong enough to bring us to true repentance? Is it not strong enough to carry us as we look at ourselves and our country with stark honesty and fractured pride? I have no idea what dismantling racism even looks like and I remain suspicious of my own ego and desire to be seen as one of the good guys. But I stand before you and confess my belief that if the power of the Gospel, the Power of Christ crucified and risen is strong enough to be the source of Dr Martin Luther King’s work and strong enough to be the source of the hospitality they extended when they welcomed that young man into the Bible study and strong enough to be the source of their defiant forgiveness of the young man who stole their loved ones from them then it is strong enough to be the source of confession and repentance about white supremacy in our own hearts and in this nation of ours.
Let us pray: That your Gospel is more powerful than our hate, more powerful than our despair, more powerful than our pride, and more powerful than our delusions, we give you thanks O God.”
— Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber