Forward Leader Guide: A Small Group Journey Toward a Full Life in Christ - Softcover

Name: Forward Leader Guide: A Small Group Journey Toward a Full Life in Christ
Author: Cunningham, Nick
ISBN: 9781501837470

Cunningham, Nick

9781501837470: Forward Leader Guide: A Small Group Journey Toward a Full Life in Christ

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501837478 ISBN 13: 9781501837470

Verlag: Abingdon Press, 2017

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Designed for use with the Forward Participant Book and video, the leader guide helps leaders facilitate a small group using Forward curriculum. It contains instructions on how to use the interactive participant book and video in each session, as well as additional teaching content from the author.Forward is a seven-session small group study based on the virtues lifted up in 2 Peter 1:3-11: moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, affection for others, and love. Readers will discover the importance of actively pursuing a godly life, not just resisting sin but fully embracing the life of goodness and love that Christ offers us. In Forward, the first sequel to the One curriculum, author Nick Cunningham leads Christ-centered small groups to take the next step in faith together, pushing one another forward to grow in faith, knowledge, and actions consistent with a Christian life.As a sequel to Cunningham's study One: A Small Group Journey Toward Life-Changing Community, Forward follows the same format, including a participant book with teaching content and interactive elements; a leader guide; and video. Small groups that have not previously used One will enjoy Forward as a guide for developing Christian virtues with the support and partnership of others.

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�ber die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nick Cunningham is the Adult Discipleship Director at Mt. Horeb United Methodist Church in Lexington, South Carolina. He previously served as the teaching pastor at Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio. He is pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at United Theological Seminary. Nick and his wife, Lindsey, live in Lexington, South Carolina with their three children, Rowan, Gwen, and Selma.

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Forward Leader Guide

A Small Group Journey Toward a Full Life in Christ

By Nick Cunningham

Abingdon Press

Introduction, 
Goodness, 
Knowledge, 
Self-Control, 
Perseverance, 
Godliness, 
Mutual Affection, 
Love,

CHAPTER 1

Session 1

Goodness

PREPARATION

As you prepare for your first session, read through the session plan and descriptions of each activity and discussion to familiarize yourself with them. You might wish to mark the pages in the participant book that are referenced, to help you find them quickly. View the video for this session in advance as well, noting any key ideas that you want to be sure to point out.

Gather the following materials and have them on hand for your group meeting: First, each member of your group will need a copy of the Forward participant book. If everyone does not already have a copy, bring enough copies for each person. They will take these home and bring them back to each session. It may also be a good idea to have one or two extra copies on hand in case someone forgets his or her participant book.

Second, bring enough pens or pencils for each person in your group to have one. They should respond to the questions in the participant book before you meet, but having some on hand will allow them to make notes during your discussion. And everyone will need to write their Forward Goals at the end of your group meeting.

Third, have a few Bibles available in case you need to look something up. Usually, the passages that you discuss will be printed in the Forward participant book, but you may discover that you'd like to look up others as well.

Fourth, set up a DVD player or computer with a TV or projector and screen for viewing the video. Come to your meeting space early enough to set this up before your fellow group members arrive, so that you can greet them as they get there.

The Three Questions

(15 minutes)

Introduce the Three Questions.

Say: At the beginning of each session, we're each going to answer one of three questions:

1. What are you grateful for?

2. What are you anxious about?

3. What are you learning?

Say: These questions are designed to help us talk to one another about our spiritual lives. They push us to identify areas of our lives where we experience blessing or see God; areas where we feel stress, tension, or fear; and areas where we are growing and changing. These are not intended as ice-breakers or small talk. Rather, they are opportunities for us to get to know one another more deeply. Here is a brief description from author Nick Cunningham about the role of the three questions:

Read aloud this short explanation of the questions from the One study, or invite a fellow group member to read it out loud:

A Word About Those Three Questions

Jesus' prayer in John 17 wasn't that his followers would spend an hour and some change sitting shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of strangers, but that we would be brought to complete unity. What Jesus had in mind wasn't some distanced association based on proximity but a oneness that is the result of sharing our lives with one another.

I have to wonder: How prepared are you to do that? Not in terms of your willingness (we will get to that later), but more so in your awareness. You can't share what you don't know. How aware are you of your life — namely where God is and what God is up to in you, around you, and through you?

That's what these questions are here for. Asking them of yourself on a regular basis is one way in which you can grow in your awareness of the work God is doing and the work God still needs to do in you.

I want to encourage you not just to wrestle with them once a week when you are asked to answer them, but to ruminate on them daily. This isn't about answering a question correctly on a pop quiz. It is about developing a practice of awareness, growing in intimacy with God, and opening ourselves up to one another.

I also want to challenge you to move past vague generalities. If you are grateful for your job, be more specific. What is it about your job you are grateful for? Dig a little deeper. The goal is to open our eyes to the presence of a very real God and to become more and more aware of the life that we are living. One of the ways this happens is by doing the hard work of looking for the answers to these questions in the details of our everyday lives.

During this session, ask everyone to answer one of the Three Questions, and then move on to the next person. Spend no more than fifteen minutes on these questions.

Watch the Video

(10 minutes)

After everyone has answered one of the Three Questions, play the video for this session titled "Goodness." Invite your group members to summarize what they saw, ask questions, and identify key ideas that stood out to them. Explain that they should keep the video as well as the chapter from the participant book in mind throughout the discussions in the rest of your meeting.

Study 2 Peter 1:3-11

(15 minutes)

Typically, we will reserve a good bit of time for you and the group to come up with Forward Goals, but for this session we will spend more time up front setting up how the rest of the study will work.

Invite everyone to turn to pages 12–13 in the Forward participant book and find the Scripture passage 2 Peter 1:3-11. Ask group members to read through the passage at least twice on their own, answering the questions that are provided in the participant book. Allow time for individuals to work on this, then spend the rest of your time sharing your responses with one another.

Spend approximately fifteen minutes total on this activity.

Group Discussion

(20 minutes)

Spend twenty minutes discussing the questions below, asking your fellow group members to draw upon the responses they've written in the Forward participant book. In the upcoming weeks, it will be important to save enough time at the end to establish Forward Goals. But for this week identifying your maturity gaps is an important action step, and these discussion questions are designed to help you do that.

Ask: What from this chapter resonated with you? What challenged you, and what encouraged you? As you ask this question, remind everyone about the importance of being both challenged and encouraged, as described on page 25 of the Forward participant book.

Ask a volunteer to read the following quotation from pages 16-17 of Forward:

You see, the gospel doesn't begin as something that we do. Of course, it does involve what we do, but it doesn't start as something that we do. The gospel begins as a life-giving announcement about what God has already done. In light of this we ought to be in the habit of preaching the gospel to ourselves every single day, a thousand times a day if need be. In a way, moving forward actually begins with regularly going backward: back to the cross, back to the gospel, back to the saving love of God and the life-altering truth of what Jesus has made available to us. Of course we are called to move forward, to grow, to become more than we have been. But if we aren't living from the inside out and if we aren't constantly grounding ourselves in the gospel, then we will never make it because whatever power is moving us...

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