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First Love

By Amber | November 19, 2008

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

-Revelation 2:4

I fell in love with Jesus at the tender age of five. With as much Bible knowledge as my little mind could understand, I knew Jesus loved me and I wanted to love Him back.

In kindergarten I had uncharacteristic boldness when talking about Jesus. I happily raised my hand to suggest “Jesus” as a “J” word when we got to that letter in the alphabet.  I raised my hand again to correct the teacher in her spelling of the beloved name!  (She had tried to put two s’s in the middle: Jessus.)

Another time in the same year, my friend came over to play one day and ended up begrudgingly helping my family unpack from a recent move.  I encouraged her that maybe we would get a treat from the prize box.  She replied, “Yeah, cross your fingers.”  Having never heard that expression, I was confused and said, “No, we should pray about it.” She had never heard that before, and by the end of the day she had fallen in love with Jesus as well.  We never did get that treat from the prize box, though…

My passion for Jesus has never died, but there have been times in my life when Jesus’ rebuke was meant for me personally.  Getting out of those dry times of lackluster love has always started with sheer discipline.  Just as Pastor Dave mentioned on Sunday, “if you want to love your car, wash it every day.”  Setting aside significant, uninterrupted, daily time with God has been the key to bringing vitality back into my relationship with Jesus every time I wander.

It feels like work at first.  It feels almost hypocritical, like you’re just going through the motions.  But when we stick to it, our hearts begin to realize where our treasure really lies.  If you’re in that place of lost passion, I join Pastor Dave and Jesus Himself in urging you to “do the deeds you did at first.”

If you are already burning with passion for Jesus, go further.  The message was not given mainly to individuals, but to a group of believers.  Does your small group have the passion of first love for Jesus? Do even know what that would look like in your group?  As leaders, brainstorm ways to foster this kind of love for Jesus within your group. What do the deeds of first love look like for a group?

Topics: Inspire, Small Groups, revelation | No Comments »

Core Discipleship Feedback

By Amber | November 12, 2008

As I mentioned in my first post, one of my main roles right now is developing the Core Discipleship Curriculum for small groups at Bethel. Now that many of you are in the middle of the first module, I’d like to know how it’s going.  Please post your comments below.

What do you as leaders think of the lessons? Do you like the format? Content? Length? Do you appreciate the leader’s guide, or have you even used it?

What does your small group think of it? Are they doing the homework fairly regularly or is it just overwhelming? Do the questions generate good discussion or act as springboards for important conversations?

Have you seen any growth in your small group members? Are the lesson objectives being met? Do you think these are important objectives to be focusing on?

I have one suggestion that I don’t think is in the leader’s guide: start putting together a list of accountability questions for your group members to ask each other in smaller circles of two or three. Each one has made commitments to be regularly hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on the Word. Don’t let those be forgotten as you move onto another topic in the second module.

BTW, the second module is titled God: Who is He and What’s so Great about Him? It is due out at the end of November. There may be a lag time of a week or so between modules, for which we apologize. Plan ahead to study sermon questions or have a social night that week.

Topics: Small Groups, communicate | No Comments »


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