Build & Bless - Part 1
Hello church! Welcome to our vision series for 2022: Build & Bless. We are excited about what God is doing through our church and are expectant for all that is to come this year.
In this session we cover 2 key themes: our intimacy with God, and worshipping God through the use of our gifts. There are moments for discussion after each section, questions will appear on screen and you can pause the video to allow the group a chance to talk. Resume the video when you are ready to move to the next section. However if you would prefer to just read through the notes you can find those the bottom of the page.
Discussion Questions:
Are you more a ‘Mary’ or are you more a ‘Martha’?
What might you need to change practically in order to move you spiritually?
What gifts has God given you? How can you use those to build the church?
What could ‘old-school faithfulness’ look like in your life?
Thank you for taking the time to go through this content with your group, we pray that it is a great blessing to you.
Notes:
Thank you for taking the time to go through this content. We are excited for the vision God has given us as a church this year, both for what it means corporately but also for us personally.
God’s mission for the church has always been (and always will be) the Great Commission, which we find in Matthew 28:19:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20 NIV
This was Jesus final exhortation to his disciples before he ascended into heaven. This is what he had been preparing them for, to go out and reach people with the good news of the gospel. That commission is still the same for us today.
As followers of Jesus - as disciples - we are called to make more disciples.
And we do this by living out the greatest commandment:
Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
Matthew 22:36-39 NLT
Our mission is the Great Commission - outworked through the Greatest Commandment. To love God, and love people.
So Build & Bless is how we outwork those practically through our lives.
Build being the ‘WHAT’ and Bless being the ‘HOW’. What are we called to do through the Great Commission? Build God’s Church. And how are we called to do that? By loving people and being a blessing to them.
But our ‘doing’, our ‘building’ and even our ‘blessing’, need to come from a revelation of God’s love for us.
On February 6th Carl spoke on the story of Mary & Martha. Read the story together:
As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.” But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42 NLT
Essentially we see two postures here. We have Martha who is so distracted by all of the work that needed doing, albeit good work, that she never actually spent any time with Jesus. And then we see Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus wanting to spend as much time with him as possible while he was there.
And the key takeaway from the story is that both is better. Our working for the King, needs to come first from a place of intimacy with the King.
We work from intimacy, not instead of intimacy.
So in light of that here are some questions to discuss in your group:
Place yourself in this story: are you more ‘Mary’, or are you more ‘Martha’? And if you’re comfortable, be honest and share where your intimacy with God is at currently.
To follow on from that: what might you need to change practically to shift you spiritually? This could be habits, routines, devotional times etc.
Discussion time
Now it’s time to start talking about Build, specifically around the use of our gifts.
Carl mentioned in his message that you don’t just attend this church, you have been called here to build it. You have been called here for such a time as this. You’re not just a person on a seat, you are a valuable part of this family. And the church is God’s vessel for the expansion of His kingdom.
So for us at Life Church, it’s personal. We take ownership. This means we use our gifts, our time, our finance, our prayers, whatever else is needed to build God’s church.
We’re all in. And we can be all in because when our work comes from our intimacy God, then we work with an ‘I want to’ posture, not an ‘I have to’.
God has blessed you gifts, you are wired uniquely for purpose. God has given you gifts and talents for you to use to outwork His plan for your life. They are for the marketplace, but they are also to build His Church.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.
1 Corinthians 12:4-7 NLT
We each have a gift so we can help each other. We are blessed to be a blessing.
When we receive a gift (which we all have as we just read) then we are blessed. We become a blessing when we give that gift away in service to others. So we don’t just hold onto our gifts, we use them in a way that blesses the people around us. When we use that gift to bless others and build the church, it becomes worship to the author of those gifts.
Final discussion questions:
What gifts has God given you? And how could you use those to build the church? (If you are doing that already then share that with the group).
Carl mentioned in his message that he felt we need to get back to some ‘old-school faithfulness’. The faithfulness that says I’m willing to use my gift whenever and wherever is needed. What could ‘old-school faithfulness’ look like for you?
As discussion wraps up take some time to pray for each other in relation to what has been shared.
Thank you and God bless!