WEEK THREE: GROW GROUP NOTES ‘STRETCHING YOUR IMAGINATION’ Using The Daring Faith Grow Group guide: • These notes are to help you to get the most out of this series. They are a guide though, and so feel free to adapt the format to meet the needs of your group. If your group is more mature and wants to dig deeper, consider using the Diving Deeper section or add additional Scripture and ask suitable questions. • The accompanying DVD has a short presentation from Rick Warren, discussing the theme for this week, and poising some questions and challenges to discuss afterwards as a group. If at all possible, watch through each session before you lead the group, so that you know how to facilitate responding to what is said, and what a relevant application looks like for your group’s needs. • Your goal as the leader is to bring the group into a stimulating discussion that helps the members recognise their needs for personal life change. Ultimately you want them to be willing to commit to change - to step into a life of Daring Faith - in a community where there is encouragement, challenge and accountability to the group. Suggestions for This Week’s Study • Icebreaker: Discuss an assignment (such as an art or creative project) that you had to create from scratch. How did it grow and develop from initial concept to final completion? • Goals: Understand that daring faith: the key to miracles – includes daring to imagine! Learn through God-inspired dreaming that: (1) Our imagination shapes our life, (2) Imagining is essential to living by faith, (3) Great lives are built around great dreams, (4) God’s dream for our lives is bigger than our dreams, (5) Doubt is the enemy of imagination, (6) God’s Spirit and God’s Word fuel our imaginations, (7) Growing our character will clarify our vision, and (8) If a dream is from God, it will be connected somehow to His church and plan for the world.
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WEEK THREE: GROW GROUP NOTES ‘STRETCHING YOUR IMAGINATION’
Using The Daring Faith Grow Group guide:
• These notes are to help you to get the most out of this series. They are a guide though, and so feel free to adapt the format to meet the needs of your group. If your group is more mature and wants to dig deeper, consider using the Diving Deeper section or add additional Scripture and ask suitable questions.
• The accompanying DVD has a short presentation from Rick Warren, discussing the theme for this week, and poising some questions and challenges to discuss afterwards as a group. If at all possible, watch through each session before you lead the group, so that you know how to facilitate responding to what is said, and what a relevant application looks like for your group’s needs.
• Your goal as the leader is to bring the group into a stimulating discussion that helps the members recognise their needs for personal life change. Ultimately you want them to be willing to commit to change - to step into a life of Daring Faith - in a community where there is encouragement, challenge and accountability to the group.
Suggestions for This Week’s Study
• Icebreaker: Discuss an assignment (such as an art or creative project) that you had to create from scratch. How did it grow and develop from initial concept to final completion?
• Goals: Understand that daring faith: the key to miracles – includes daring to imagine! Learn through God-inspired dreaming that: (1) Our imagination shapes our life, (2) Imagining is essential to living by faith, (3) Great lives are built around great dreams, (4) God’s dream for our lives is bigger than our dreams, (5) Doubt is the enemy of imagination, (6) God’s Spirit and God’s Word fuel our imaginations, (7) Growing our character will clarify our vision, and (8) If a dream is from God, it will be connected somehow to His church and plan for the world.
• Final Prayer: Heavenly Father, we confess that we have sometimes used our imaginations for
the wrong things. We want to use our imagination for faith in what we cannot yet see – what will last forever, as 2 Corinthians 4:18 says. Help us to refuel our imagination every day in your Spirit and Word. Help us to know your dream for our lives in history. We realize that we cannot do it alone, but that in Christ all things are possible! In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Open your group in prayer
Did you make any commitments or set any assignments during last week’s group? Have a review of these.
Where have you been most daring for Jesus this week? How was Sunday for you? Did you experience God’s presence in some way this week? Has your faith grown in some way this week?
“What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot see.” Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)
Daring faith: the key to miracles – includes daring to imagine! God-inspired dreaming often goes far beyond anything we could imagine! Through God-inspired dreaming, we learn that: (1) Our imagination shapes our life (2) Imagining is essential to living by faith (3) Great lives are built around great dreams (4) God’s dream for our lives is bigger than our dreams, (5) Doubt is the enemy of imagination, (6) God’s Spirit and God’s Word fuel our imaginations, (7) Growing our character will clarify our vision (8) If a dream is from God, it will be connected somehow to His church and plan for the world.
Questions for discussion: 1. Read Hebrews 11:1 above and share with the group a difficult time in your life where your faith
was essential in pulling you through it.
“We set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever.” 2 Corinthians 4:18 (NCV)
2. What have you focused on that is fogging your vision from imagining God’s possibilities for your life? By allowing the Holy Spirit to influence you, what could those everlasting possibilities be?
“May God enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see the hope that his calling holds for you.” Ephesians 1:18 (NJB)
3. God told Abraham when he was old and Sarah was beyond child-bearing years that he would be the father of nations. What simple messages has God shared with you that could be the fuel to ignite your imagination for a bigger dream?
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“God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by his Spirit working deeply
and gently within us.” Ephesians 3:20 (MSG) 4. What does Ephesians 3:20 above say about how God influences how you imagine or dream?
What does “by his Spirit working deeply and gently within us” mean in this scripture? Share your experience of God working within you; what were the results of this?
5. Read James 1:5-7 aloud in your group. What does this verse say about God sharing his wisdom and how our doubt can keep us from receiving it? Why is doubt the enemy of imagination – and even a dream killer? How has doubt had an impact on your dreams and on God’s dream for you?
6. Taking into consideration that the size of your God determines the size of your goals, read Mark 9:22-24 and share circumstances in your life in which you could use the father’s words in this scripture as a prayer. Having admitted any doubt, pray with your group believing that the Lord will help you.
Diving Deeper (optional)
1. Read Mark 8:35 and reflect on the following questions, your dreams, and what you see needs to be done in the world. Ask yourself: “What if…?” “Why not…?” “Why not me…?”
2. Reflecting on how you answered the questions above, and remembering that with God all things are possible, what are some ways you might live out God’s greater dreams for your life?
Watch the Daring Faith DVD, Session 3
Facilitate a discussion around the content - questions, scriptures, challenges, & applications - that Rick Warren raised in the video. What practical steps can each person take to build a life of daring faith this week?
Pray for these things, and pray for one another’s week ahead.
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