Kingdomtide: The Desert Week 3

COMMUNITY GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE:

STEP 1- Ice Breaker

Help people to loosen up and share. It will be helpful if someone is new to go around and do names and have each person share about a question and share a bit about themselves. CLICK HERE for ice breaker questions ideas.

Scriptures from Sunday:

Acts 17:26-28- “From one man God created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him (reach out for him) and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his children (offspring).’”

Exodus 2:1-10- “Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it.6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

Exodus 2:11-25- 11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. 16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.17 Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

18 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” 19 They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” 20 “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.22 Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

(Group Leader Note: Use the Learning/Living Circle to guide your discussion and application of the content. Try your best to keep the “learning” and “living” focus balanced. You use this model moving clockwise around the circle. The goal is working towards practical and personal life application.)

STEP 2- Take Time For Learning through Observation, Reflection & Discussion

(Group Leader Note: These are set questions meant to spur conversation. It may be helpful to watch/listen to the message together if people did not have a chance to listen on their own time.)

Read through the main scripture together from Sunday’s message.

• What stuck out to you as meaningful, confusing, impactful and/or important?
• What might this message and portion of scripture relate to in your life or our cultural moment?

STEP 3- Take Time To Process

• Is anyone willing to share some thoughts, questions or curiosities about what you sense God speaking to you about through the message and scripture? 
• Is there a need for deeper reflection or observation? What might be some ways to dig deeper, if necessary?

STEP 4- Work Towards Application

• What area of life is God working in through this? (Inner, Outer & Other Life Map)
• What might God be asking of me in this? What is my response?
• What might be a practical application or action step to take over this next week?

STEP 5- Prayer 

Please don’t skip prayer!! Cut the discussion short if needed to pray for one another. Try one of these options, don’t be afraid to mix it up.

• Have people split into groups of 2-3 to share prayer needs and pray for each other.
• Share requests as a group and pray for one another. Assign requests to people that are comfortable with praying and go around the circle praying for each others needs.
• Meditation with silence and stillness- A short scripture, word or phrase to focus your group. A time of silence and stillness, set a timer for 5 minutes if you want. Close the time with a prayer for your group.
• Develop someone in your group as the Prayer Coordinator. Have them write down prayer needs, ask them to pray for those needs during the week, have them send a list to the group to keep in prayer, go through the list regularly to celebrate answered prayers and check off or add on prayers.