1. In her sermon today, Christina taught about the contrast between Saul & David’s approaches to kingship, highlighting that Saul’s reign was desired by the people of Israel partially in response to the period of the Judges and its unpredictable uncertainty. 

Where in your life do you get to show leadership? To what extent is your own leadership style a reaction against undesirable periods or experiences in the past? What does that end up looking like? How well is it serving those you lead?

Considering the period of unpredictable political uncertainty in which we find ourselves, to what types of political and social leadership do you tend to be drawn? To what extent are themes & people that directly react to the current chaos appealing to you? Thinking outside of only those who hold political office, what else attracts you to a leader? What things matter most in their leadership? 

2. Christina also talked about the reality that all of us, though to differing degrees, hold power of some kind. She then asked, “What would it be like not to deflect power, but to instead reflect on how we use our power?” So, what would that be like? Spend a little time reflecting on that now, and share with the group.

She also prompted us to consider the opportunities we might have to act with and demonstrate hesed.

hesed (definition and review)

- Embedded in the very self-definition of YHWH

- Often translated love, kindness, mercy

- Other divine characteristics are “drawn” to it: truth, justice, faithfulness, compassion

- Often entails extravagant generosity that is not expected to be reciprocated

What opportunities do you have for demonstrating hesed in the various places in which you have power? How often and how do you take advantage of them? 

3. Christina also asked us to consider what might fill the pages of our own autobiographies and biographies if they were to be written. Know that no human is all good or all bad, and setting aside the big moments that tend to act as mile markers in life stories, what themes do you think would emerge about the way you lived and live your life, engage in the world, interact with others, and wield your power?

1. Early in today’s sermon, Tim said, “God prefers vulnerability to credentials and strength.” 

Reflect on this idea. In what ways do you see this reflected in the world today? Do you see it at all? In what ways is it contrary to many of our world’s prevailing values? 

Where do you see the outcomes of the ways in which we’ve valued strength &/or credentials? What do you think would shift in our culture if we consistently valued vulnerability over credentials and strength?

What do you feel more drawn to in others or in communities? Are there certain settings in which you’re drawn to credentials? Strength? What about vulnerability?

Lastly, reflect on yourself. How often do you open up to, own, or embrace your own vulnerability? Is it a stretch to conceive of your own vulnerability as an asset? 

How often do you try to deny, hide, or obliterate your vulnerability altogether? What do you think the impacts might be for you personally or for the world around you if you were to prefer your own vulnerability to strength or credentials? 

2. From the sermon: “the cycle keeps repeating: tyrants & fools seize the power & exploit the people as the seeds of their own destruction grow quietly, reliably, among the very people - they’ve decided to exploit…and they never see it coming..” 

What thoughts or feelings rise to the surface in response to this idea? What does it elicit in you? 

What does it mean in 2026? How does it fit into the reality of your existence in the midst of the “unprecedented times” in which we live today? 

3. Tim shared the following words from Rich Mullins. Read them aloud. 

"They would have us see ourselves as products ... something to be made, something to be used, and then something to be disposed of; used in their wars, used for their gains, and then set aside when we get in their way. 

Well, who are they? They are the few who sit at the top of the heap-dung heap though it is-and who say it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.

Well, I do not know that we can have a heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a Hell either. 

What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but believe that it means we are spiritual, that we are responsible, and that we are free ... that we are responsible to be free." 

What jumps out to you or resonates most? 

What do you think this last paragraph means? 

In what ways are we the “they” that’s referenced here? In what ways or settings do we dehumanize, objectify, commodify, and use others? 

What are the takeaways for you in this discussion?

1. Tim talked about Abraham’s story as the first draft of the Bible’s favorite story: the story of “a God who longs to lift up the brokenhearted.”

What surfaces as you think of this as God‘s favorite story? Where else do you see this story in the Bible? Where do you see this story beyond the confines of the scriptural canon? In history? In your family stories? In your own life?


2. Tim talked about the “peasant revolt model” of reading the stories of conquest in the book of Joshua, drawing attention to the sharp contrast this reading presents to the vision of divinely-sanctioned genocide which many of us grew up with. 

What do you think about the ideas of these different readings? What kind of exposure have you had to other ways of understanding this section of the Bible’s narrative? 

What surfaced for you as you listened, or surfaces for you now as you consider these various readings?  

How has the reading you have known up to this point impacted your faith? Would a new lens for these stories (if this is a new lens) make an impact? How so? How important does that feel?

3. Tim served up a question that he suggested we come back to throughout this summer‘s study of the Old Testament: what does it mean to serve the Lord? 

Share about your answer to that question at this present moment, and tell a bit about how it may have evolved over time.

1. Early in his sermon, Tim said “American Christianity has largely sentimentalized the New Testament; but you can’t do that with the Old Testament.”

What do you think it means to “sentimentalize the NT?” How prominent is that in your experience of Christianity? How aware of it have you been or are you now?

What things can you recognize and identify as impacts or outcomes of that sentimentalizing? How have those things impacted you and your life of faith?

2. The phrase “the Canaanites” acts almost as a shorthand representation for the many smaller kingdoms that operated in the region at the time. These kingdoms operated in the mode of something Brueggemann called the “Royal Consciousness: a culture of domination, consumption, and social control where the few live extravagantly…at the cost of many.”

Common objects of worship in these cultures were Baal & Asherah. Baal was the rain and storm god, while Asherah was believed to have power over childbirth and family concerns. The Israelites, as noted in Judges 3:7, don’t last long before they lapse into servitude of these two gods.

In the cultural & historical contexts of Judges, Baal & Asherah could be understood as objects that were worshipped in attempts to avoid the threats of chaos & barrenness. These two themes have shown up repeatedly in our study of the first Old Testament books.

Where, in our own modern cultural context, do you see the same perpetual specters of chaos & barrenness? What does each look like in 2026’s America?

How do people today try to escape these modern iterations of chaos &/or barrenness? To what extent do you see that dynamic at play within our world today?

To what extent is that dynamic at play in you and your life? What things do you pursue as hopeful saviors from these timeless threats? Where do you tend to (consciously or unconsciously) look for rescue or safety in the face of them?

3. Tim described a pattern that is present in Judges; it’s a cycle that starts with loss of memory resulting in ideological capture.

Where can you identify these first parts of the pattern in a more contemporary context?

After reviewing the full cycle, how relatable or resonant does this pattern seem today? Does it hold true? Where might you call out additional nuance or variation?

Tim said that though this pattern is often referred to as the “sin cycle,” it is, instead, a Redemption Cycle. He added that “failure is the engine of every redemption story.”

What do you think about this framing? Where does it hold up? Where might you feel curious about gaps?

How might you conceive of yourself within its stages, especially in light of the things you identified in question 2 as places you may turn for safety in the face of chaos and/or barrenness?

1. In his sermon, Tim expressed that, in Jesus’ time, Jewish religion had become what all religions — all moral systems & political movements — tend to become over time: more an ideology than a sacred religion. 

What’s it  like for you to think about YOUR religion like this? How much do you think your experience of your faith is ideological? or influenced by ideology? How has that aspect of your faith experience evolved over time? How does it feel to consider that question?

2. Tim said, of the earliest Christians, that they didn’t abandon their religion, they just adapted it. What’s your response to the idea of adapting your religion? 

What do you think drives the adaptation & evolution of religion? What do you know about what’s driven the adaptation and evolution of Christianity?

What do you think should drive it? Where might you see similar forces at work in today’s church? How and where is it adapting? How do you feel about it?

How do you see your role in the evolution of the church today?How do you see your role in that adaptation? 

3. How do you respond to the idea that the church is like a walking wall? How do you understand the metaphor in regard, not only our deconstruction of the church’s past, but also to the reconstruction of the present? 

In all likelihood, there will come a time when future Christians will work to deconstruct the things that, at present, we are building with the stones of our religion and church. How do you respond to the idea that the things we’re building together, in the largest sense, will be due for deconstruction by a future version of the church? What feelings arise for you? What thoughts? If there is resistance to that idea, share about it. 

1. How have you thought about the ascension up to this point in your life of faith? Have you thought much about it? Where does (or has) it fit in to your overall sense of the gospels’ story? What kinds of question and curiosity does it bring up for you? 

2. In her sermon, Mandy said, “we live, like the disciples, in the space between blessing & fulfillment.” How does this statement resonate for you right now? How real does it feel? How does it fit in with your own experiences of the ebbs and flows of hope?

3. Mandy also talked about the church as a place that “becomes a place where heaven & earth still meet.”

How does this idea sit with you? Does this feel like a far away, theoretical idea? like a real and consistently present reality? Something in between? Depends on the day?

If you have had an experience during which the church felt like a place where heaven and earth still met, what was it like? What made it such an experience? When was the last time? What factors do you think set the conditions for that kind of experience? 

1. Tim defined ideology & described both the way it functions in our lives and the ways in which Jesus worked to break down its hold over people. He taught that the purpose of ideology is to mask the alienation we feel from God, self, others, and creation.  

He then began the following sentence, which was ended by the slide below. He said, “The Jesus way to be emancipated from full ideological capture is to…” (see slide).

To what extent do you see yourself as someone who has been or is captured by ideologies? How do you feel about the idea of your own alienation from God, yourself, others, and creation? In what ways can you see interplay between your experiences of ideologies and how you relate (or have related) to your own feelings of alienation?

2. Tim taught that, through Jesus, God was establishing a new way of being human. He’s promising that love, as a way of life, will connect us to God. 

What does it look like to live in the way of love? Where does that approach to life show up most conspicuously? Where does it have the biggest impact? And on whom?

Does living in the way of love (as you’ve just described and defined it) feel like whatever you expect connecting to God to feel like? If so, how so? If not, why not?

3. As he closed his sermon, Tim said, “My whole hope is in this. I want this for me; I want this for you.” 

What do you think the idea of someone’s “whole hope [being] in this” conveys? To what extent is that statement true for you personally? How does that show up in your life? When you feel more divided, what things tend to crowd into that list of things in which you place your hope?