Small Group Notes for 20th July 2025
N.B. Sermon can be heard via our website and YouTube channel and the Paper Service version is on our website.
Read and Reflect: Revelation 21:1-8 & John 11:21-27
Questions:
This week we have 5 baptisms at 9.30 and baptism as a sign of new and resurrection life will the theme of the sermon. The questions reflect this theme. You might, either also, or instead, focus on the passages which continue the theme of the previous week and our future hope.
If you use the passages you may want to firstly consider again the previous week’s questions (see below), and whether there are further encouragements or challenges. And then reflecting on the passages consider their purpose in scripture and their encouragements and challenges.
Questions: (there are a lot this week – pick carefully the most appropriate for your group.
- Have we been baptised, if so, what did it mean then and what does it mean to us today?
- Baptism is a sign of cleansing – how cleansed do we feel? Are there things we need to be free of the shame and guilt of? (See Romans 8, especially vs 1 and 33-34.)
- Baptism is a sign that we are born again – as we were born ‘through water’ the first time. In what ways are our lives new, or different from before our baptism or the world around us?
- If we are ‘born again’ we are part of a new family. What does it mean to us that we have a Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit who lives in us, and a spiritual (church) family?
- Baptism is a sign that we have risen to eternal life – what difference does this make to our thinking and daily living?
- In baptism we put on ‘new’ clothes after we’ve been baptised – what clothes do we need help putting on? See Romans 13:14, Ephesians 4:22-24 and Colossians 3:12-14.
- Jesus commands us to go and make disciples, baptising them, and teaching them to obey every instruction he’s given (see Matthew 28:18-20).
- Why was baptising so important?
- How are doing in this command? Pray for ourselves and for those we may be able to ‘go’ and help become disciples.
Last week's questions:
Read and Reflect: Hebrews 11:13-16 and John 14:1-7
Questions:
- What does home mean to us? Is it a place, a feeling? Where is it and who is it?
- In the ‘lost’ stories in Luke 15, Jesus searches to bring us home, the Holy Spirits brings light to help us see our lostness, and the Father runs to meet us.
- What’s our experience of God helping us home to him?
- How do we experience God as being ‘home’? (See Psalm 90:1 and 1 John 4:16)
- How much are we looking forward to being fully at home with God upon our death? (See Philippians 1:21, 1 Corinthians 13:12; and Revelation 21:1-6)
- How do we invest today for tomorrow, and which ‘home’ is it we’re mostly investing in? (See Matthew 6:25-33, and 1 Corinthians 3:12-15)
- Everyone needs to find home. What questions could we ask our friends and neighbours to prompt their questions about the future, enabling us to share our hope. (See 1 Peter 3:15)
- Pray for opportunities this week.