Where You Live — for June 30, 2013

By Dan Lentz

1. If your group doesn’t normally eat together, plan a meal for your group around this meeting. Plan a pitch-in meal or order pizza. During the meal ask group members to share their most memorable experience from the past week.

Read Ezra 3:1-7.

2. After being previously in exile and facing opposition, the Israelites benefited from returning to some old practices mentioned in these verses. Have you benefited spiritually from going back to some old practices you had left behind? Describe that experience.

3. How do we distinguish between lifeless traditions and life-giving activities?

4. Hopefully, we come to value the things that draw us closer to the Lord. Take time to talk about practices and experiences in the following areas of your life that you would fight to maintain:

• your personal life

• this small group

• your church

5. Form an old-fashioned prayer circle by standing and holding hands. Invite each group member to pray. If an individual chooses to pray silently, ask him or her to squeeze the hand of the next person in the circle when finished. Group members can pray their way around the circle multiple times if they choose. 

Dan Lentz works for the Small Group Network in Whitestown, Indiana.

For more small group ministry resources, visit www.smallgroups.com.