March 22, 2009
Opening:
Your five + minutes for announcements at the start of your meeting are INVALUABLE to keep people informed and involved. Tell them what’s coming up, recruit new volunteers, and involve them in serving within your group.
We’d actually like you to do things a bit differently at this meeting. One of the reasons we love groups meeting in homes is that this provides a natural connection to our neighborhoods.
Our hope is that our Connection Groups become our primary source for community outreach and service. Let’s talk about this tonight.
Digging Deeper:
Take a few minutes and brainstorm some outreach ideas for Easter-
* Is there a project you can take on?
* A family you can help?
* An agency you can volunteer with?
Give the following challenge: Whom can you invite to Connections this Easter?
What will it take to get your neighbor, a co-worker, a friend to church this Easter? Maybe all they need is a heart felt invitation? Maybe bringing them a meal would show them you really do care?
Easter is a natural season for reaching out to our community. If you get folks to Connections April 5 and 12 you can promise them an amazing service. We’ll also be handing out gifts to everyone who joins us. Not only that, but every new visitor who gives us their contact information also receives a gift card in the mail. So be assured- when you invite folks to Connections, we will go out of our way to show them our appreciation and love.
Closing:
Ask everyone in the group to think about who that person(s) will be. Share names and pray for them by name. Tell them you'll be asking for updates at in the coming weeks.
If you have time- talk about sex! Read 1 Corinthians 6 & 7
12"Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13"Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
18Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
1Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. 2But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.