Open In Prayer
Begin your gathering by praying together – taking some intentional time to invite the Holy Spirit into your gathering. Lead your Community into the evening with a non-anxious and joyful spirit.
Below is an optional liturgy you could pray:
In a culture that proclaims the anthem song of anxiety, we choose now to resist hurry. As we take this moment to breathe and to be, we are reminded of the abiding presence of Christ, who is seated among us and yet also seated on His throne as our conquering King. We thank you, God, that You desire to be with us. We ask that as we gather together, You would lead us in delighting in You and growing in friendship with one another. Amen.
Around The Table & Reflect On Last Gathering’s Practice
This is space during your gathering to share a meal, build relationships, and enjoy one another.
Leader Note: Encourage everyone to begin a session on Aro if they have not already as you prepare to be digitally disconnected and relationally present.
You may consider taking a few minutes to do an emotional health check-in with your Community, creating space for each person to answer the question: “What are three words you’d use to describe your week?”
As you’re around the table, invite your Community to reflect on their experience preparing to share their faith story utilizing the structure provided.
What did God highlight to you as a result of reflecting on your story in this specific structure?
What was a point of tension or challenge as you divided your life in decades? Was there any unexpected processing you engaged in as a result of the emotions that arose?
Share Your Story
The focus of our February gatherings is to share our faith stories. We received a handout at our last gathering that provided a clear structure that will guide us as we share.
Remember, our Community will rise and fall on the level of transparency and honesty each of us is willing to give. This process won’t work if we try to keep up appearances and squeaky-clean images at the expense of being real. Many times, God seems to do great work when we bear our souls to one another, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly.
We ask that everyone shares for 10 minutes or less. The goal here is not to share everything that has ever happened to us, but to communicate the key events, how we saw God within them, and the emotions, feelings, and beliefs in conjunction with the details of events.
To help keep us accountable, we may find it necessary for someone to set a timer…not out of a desire to rush anyone, but just to ensure that there’s space in our two February gatherings for everyone’s story to be heard.
For Our Next Gathering: Solitude / False Self Reflection Practice
Leader Note: Please pass out the handouts to your Community before explaining directions.
We’re currently in a series as a church called The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self. We’ve been learning during our Sunday gatherings about how knowing God and knowing ourselves are deeply intertwined.
We can only know true love when we approach God as we truly are. Our false self, the identity born in each of us out of fear instead of love, is an illusion. Our God is real and can only transform the real us.
Before our next gathering, we’re going to practice silence & solitude and utilize the False Self Reflection as a guide during that time.
This will require planning as we set aside time to sit in solitude with our authentic self and God. We should expect some resistance to this practice. It will involve processing some potentially unexamined parts of ourselves. Further, solitude can just feel difficult, especially when we’re used to our busy and noisy world.
Family Guide Resource
Leader Note: This section is only applicable to parents. If your Ethos Community does not have any individuals who have young children, feel free to bypass this section.
Our vision is that every person — adult and child – would be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did. With that in mind, we want to be intentional to resource parents as they model following Jesus to their children. Our first Family Guide focuses on engaging in a conversation with your kids about why you have committed to an Ethos Community and how they, too, can practice community in their lives.
We invite you to spend some time walking through the Family Guide found at: ethosoh.com/guide.
End in Prayer
Before you conclude, spend some time as a Community praying for one another.
Below is an optional liturgy you could pray:
Lord Jesus, There is no greater prayer than yours — make us one as you are one, in devotion, in living, in love. Amen.