Frontline Sunday 5 – Together we grow

This Sunday (14th August) we will be having the last of our Frontline Sundays. How are we equipped and encouraged to be the scattered church during our daily and weekly lives? Through the times we spend as gathered church. Mark will explore this further in our Sunday Service at 10-30am at MRBC.

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For Reflection & Discussion

Sermon reminder:
The sermon reminded us that we, as churches, help each other hold on to hope together by focusing on God, spurring one another to good works, and meeting together consistently. By drawing near to God, focusing on Jesus, we are renewed as we remind one another of our baptism vows – ‘our bodies being washed with pure water.’ We also spur one another to good works. The word that translates as ‘spur’ or ‘incite’ or ‘provoke’ is a strange word to link with ‘love and good works’ but its strength suggests the importance of helping one another live our faith on our frontlines. The writer to the Hebrews recognised that we can help one another by not allowing each other to give up – to keep the challenge before us and keep going. Our scattered and gathered lives are irrevocably connected. Together we remind one another of the core of our faith and its implications for the whole of life. Gathered church is where we are taught, guided, changed, challenged, equipped, encouraged, loved, and commissioned. Then our discipleship is lived out in our scattered frontline contexts.

1. The early church to whom Hebrews was written seem to have been tempted to stop meeting. Maybe their previous way of life seemed attractive again, maybe being out of step with society was getting difficult, or maybe they were just busy. When have you been tempted to give up on meeting together? What has kept you going? What is the best thing about gathering as Christians?

2. Take time to reflect on the Frontline Sundays series as a whole. What have you learnt about yourself? What have you learnt about one another? What have you been reminded of about God?

3. What has become clearer about the relationship between the gathered and scattered life of your church? What is more challenging now?

4. What stories have you shared with one another that have most encouraged you? Explore how you can continue encouraging one another.

5. Hebrews 10:24 encourages us to ‘to spur one another toward love and good deeds’. How could your Sunday gatherings keep linking with your Monday to Saturday lives?

6. What can you do as a group to ensure that you keep encouraging one another to be fruitful in your everyday lives?

7. What’s the one thing you don’t want to lose from this series?

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OPEN DOORS

You can find out more about Mehr’s story at https://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/latest-news/india-unshaken-faith/ . There are also further prayer points regarding persecution in India at https://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/latest-news/prayer-india-unshaken/ and you can also find a link on those pages about being involved more in the work of Open Doors including making a donation to their work.