Chapter One
SESSION 1
BECOMING
A WORSHIPER
I would love to stride into church on a Sunday morning with the joy of surrender
welling up from my inner being. It rarely happens. More often than
not, I've been driving a carful of kids while combing their hair and insisting
that they wolf down some breakfast. I am frequently late, so I rush, slightly
sweating, into the worship service. The first song helps me begin to corral my
thoughts and aim them in the general direction of God. I have to decide to
put everything else aside and make this time be about him. The song lyrics
remind me what my life is about-life together with my magnificent Lord. By
the third song, I'm aware that God is doing something in my heart. Peace fills
me. God's majesty transcends my life's chaotic details. I have become a
worshiper.
-Denise
CONNECTING WITH GOD'S FAMILY 15 min.
1. When have you had a great worship experience? (It's okay to
respond, "Never.") What made it great?
2. It's important for every group to agree on a set of shared values.
If your group doesn't already have an agreement (sometimes
called a covenant), turn to page 67. Even if you've been
together for some time and your values are clear, the Purpose-Driven
Group Agreement can help your group achieve greater
health and balance. We recommend that you especially consider
rotating group leadership, setting up spiritual partners, and introducing purpose teams into the group. Simply go over
the values and expectations listed in the agreement to be sure
everyone in the group understands and accepts them. Make
any necessary decisions about such issues as refreshments and
child care.
GROWING TO BE LIKE CHRIST 25 min.
Worship is central to our life together with God. Yet discussions
of worship often revolve around aesthetic taste. One person
likes hymns, another prefers praise songs, another goes for cutting-edge
music, and a fourth likes silence. Formal or informal, in a
church or on a mountaintop-we all have preferences. But the
words, the music, and the setting are secondary. Worship begins
with an attitude of our hearts before God. The apostle Paul describes
worship like this:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to
offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this
is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer
to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what
God's will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.
-Romans 12:1-2
3. Worship is motivated by an awareness of "God's mercy"
(verse 1). What is mercy?
How has God shown you mercy?
4. Worship begins as you "offer your bodies as living sacrifices."
What picture comes to mind when you imagine offering your
body in this way?
5. What does your body have to do with it? Why doesn't Paul say, "Offer your heart"?
6. Worship comes to fulfillment as you do what Paul describes in
verse 2. What does it look like when someone conforms to the
pattern of this world?
7. What are the signs that you are being "transformed by the
renewing of your mind"?
8. What is one area of pleasing God that Would be a new act of
worship for you?
9. What is the connection between the kind of worship you've
been discussing and the kind that goes on in a church building?
SURRENDERING YOUR LIFE FOR GOD'S PLEASURE 30 min.
Paul envisions worship as an all-day-long surrender to the will
of a merciful God. The acts we normally think of as worship-singing,
celebrating, and so on-are meant to train our hearts for
this all-day-long surrender. Praise prepares us for surrender.
Praise is acknowledging a good quality in something. We can
praise an actor for his talent, an athlete for her strength, a teacher
for his insights. Similarly, we can praise God for his good qualities-faithfulness,
justice, power, or wisdom. Worship goes beyond praise.
Worship is acknowledging someone or something as the ultimate
source of good, of life itself. Therefore, while people can deserve
praise, only God deserves worship. Praise acknowledges value; worship
says, "You have the highest value."
Another difference is that praise is a one-way compliment,
while worship is a two-way interaction. Worship happens when we
let God catch us up in the marvel of who he is, and we taste the
intimacy of eternal life together with God. Praising God is a way of
warming ourselves up for this worship connection that fuels our all-day-long
surrender.
10. The psalms are the song lyrics for Israel's worship. You can use
the psalms' words to expand your praise vocabulary. Read the
following psalm aloud in unison. Afterward, allow some time
for group members to offer their own words of praise to God in
response to the psalm. Pick phrases from the psalm that are
especially meaningful to you, and expand on them.
Come, let us sing/or joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
-Psalm 95:1-7
11. You're more likely to spend your day in an attitude of worship
if you spend a few minutes thinking about God and listening
to God. Reading a portion of the Bible will help you do this.
On page 81 you'll find a list of brief passages for daily devotions-five
per week for the six weeks of this study. If you've
never spent daily time with God, this is an easy way to begin.
Would you consider taking on this habit for the duration of
this study? See page 84 for a sample journal page that you can
use as a guide for your daily devotions.
If you're already consistent in daily devotions, consider
acquiring the habit of Scripture memory. Six memory verses
are provided on page 80-one verse per week. Would you consider
accepting the challenge to memorize one verse per week
and hide God's Word in your heart? We urge you to pair up
with another person for encouragement and accountability.
12. Allow everyone to answer this question: "How can we pray for
you this week?"
Take some time to pray for these requests. Anyone who
isn't used to praying aloud should feel free to offer prayers in
silence.
SHARING YOUR LIFE MISSION EVERY DAY 15 min.
13. You probably know someone who would appreciate being
invited to join your small group. Pull an open chair into the
circle. This chair represents someone you could invite to join
your group.
Who could that person be? Think about family members, friends, neighbors, parents of your kids' friends, church members, coworkers, and the persons who share your hobbies. Take
a moment now to prayerfully list one or two names, and then
share the names with your group.
____________________ ___________________
NAME NAME
Commit to
* making the call this week. Why not?-over 50 percent of
those invited to a small group say yes! You may even want
to invite him or her to ride with you.
* calling your church office to get the names of new members,and inviting new members who live near you to visit
your group.
* serving your group by praying for and welcoming new
people to your group.
STUDY NOTES
Mercy. Mercy is receiving better treatment than we deserve. Paul has
spent eleven chapters in his letter to the Romans detailing how God has
shown us mercy. The more aware we are that God has been incredibly merciful
in rescuing us from the consequences of our folly, the more motivated we
will be to offer our lives to him. The more blasé we are, thinking that we
aren't that bad and that life owes us a pain-free existence, the less motivated
we will be.
Bodies. Our mouths that speak encouragement or gossip, our hands that
build or destroy, our eyes that watch children at play or movies on television,
our ears that listen, our brains that think, our feet that set out on our destination,
our sexual desires, our ambitions, our health, our physical appearance, our
manly strength, our pregnant or empty wombs. The members of the culture of
Paul's day were inclined to think that only the soul was of interest to the gods,
but Paul insisted that worship cannot be merely inward and mystical.
Living sacrifices. Paul's original readers were familiar with the daily sight
of a priest placing a living animal on an altar, killing it, and doing various ritual
things with the meat and blood. Some rites (such as those of the goddess
Cybele in Ephesus) involved the offering of human body parts. The worship
of Jesus Christ sweeps all this away but replaces it with a self-offering that is
no less drastic.
Conform. To allow a fallen human culture to force us into its mold. To
care more about what others think than about what God thinks. To reflect
the current signs of the times rather than the character of God's kingdom.
Transformed. The Greek for this word gives us our word metamorphosis,
the process of being changed from one "form" to another. God wants to break
us out of the world's mold so that we can become very different kinds of persons
in the mold of Jesus Christ. The key to being transformed is allowing
God's Word to renew our minds and to unfog our perceptions of reality.
For Further Study on this topic, read Revelation 15:4; Psalm 2:11;
Joshua 24:14-18.
Weekly Memory Verse: Romans 12:1
The Purpose-Driven Life Reading Plan: Day 8
