Mark Seekins - Malachi 1:6-2:9

1. What do you think of the description for, “You really should know better,” where it means “failing to use common sense or experience to avoid a predictable negative outcome?” Does this sum it up for you? What would you add?

2. Can you share an example of this from your own life/experience? What was the predictable negative outcome? How could you have avoided it?

3. Let’s talk about “giving less than our best.” What is your posture as you approach worship? Are you giving God your best or putting on a show? What is at the heart of your service to God? Are you trying to earn his love?

4. Let’s talk about “making the sacred common.” How is your heart? Has your relationship with Jesus become “transactional?” Have you taken all of this for granted? What if it was all taken away; what would be left of your relationship with Jesus or your ministry in this world?

5. Mark said, “It’s our responsibility to not only know better, but to live better, because we know the one who is better.” Do you agree with this statement? If so, what does it mean to live this out? If not, why not?

6. In response to this sermon, what is a strategic step you will take this week to live like you know better?

7. How can your small group pray for you?

Ryan Moffat - Malachi 1:1-5

1. What did God say to you through the word of God this week?

2. There’s a crisis of biblically shaped worldviews in our evangelical moment today. Where do you see that in church/Christianity? Where do you see that in your own development and thinking?

3. The first dispute is around: “How have you [God] loved us?” Israel expected God’s love to show up in very specific ways (comfort, peace and security from national enemies, blessing and prosperity). When these anticipated blessings didn’t deliver on their (Israels’) terms, they doubted the love of God. Map that on to your life today. How have your disappointments and broken dreams caused you to doubt the love of God?

4. Read 2 Timothy 1:9: “He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” How do you respond to this kind of love, this kind of grace, this kind of Gospel?

Ryan Moffat - 1 Corinthians 3:7-9, John 15:1-8

1. What did God say to you this week through the sermon?

2. What area of life are you persevering in to see fruit? What fruit are you hoping to see? What fruit do you think God is interested in producing during this time?

3. How are you cultivating a culture of “abiding in Christ” in a more structured and proactive way? What distractions do you need to remove so you can be more intentional and intimate with God?

4. What season are you personally in (tilling, weeding, seeding, reaping)? What about SCC? How can you and our Church be more fruitful for God’s purposes and mission?

Visit us in person on Sunday mornings at 8 or 10 a.m., 1300 W. McKenzie Highway, Sisters, OR. www.sisterschurch.com

Steve Stratos - Ephesians 2:1-10

1. What aspect of workmanship speaks to you more profoundly: Rhythm, Order, or Beauty?

2. How has this given you confidence in God’s purposes for your life?

3. How has this passage educated you to the meaning of salvation?

4. How have you been saved from the ways of the world? (Eph. 2:1-3)

5. What aspects of this passage can most help your walk with Christ?

Steve Stratos - Ephesians 6:10-20

1.How has this metaphor impacted you?

2. How have you let the enemy infiltrate your worldviews with his lies?

3. What are you doing to bring a greater sense of obedience to your walk with God?

4. Which of the devil’s strategies, temptations, or accusations do you struggle with the most?

5. Ask God to help you get a better fit for the armor He provides.

Ryan Moffat 2 Corinthians 15:11-21

1.What did God say to you through the sermon this week?

2. As you evaluate your motivation for ministry, what do you see? What motivates you to enter into God’s mission?

3. What’s keeping you from being an ambassador for Christ and announcing the good news that sins can be forgiven and people can have a new life (2 Corinthians 5:17)?

4. What would Sisters look like if we had 500-700 people actively, joyfully, lovingly, and wisely looking to “persuade” others into the Kingdom of God? Do you pray for that, long for that, and work towards that?

Dustin Smith Ephesians 5:8

1. How have you interpreted being “the light” in following Jesus prior to this morning? Has that been challenged?

2. If being the light is dependent on our union with Christ, what does it look like for you to be sustained by Christ?

3. What is your greatest challenge in being sustained by Jesus?

4. Have you ever experienced freedom in confessing sin? What did that do to you?

5. If you haven’t, take time now to read Romans 5:8 - consider God’s delight in you - that you may be urgent to confess the hidden areas of your life.

Steve Stratos 1 PETER 2:4,5,9

QUESTIONS:

1. Where have you experienced wanting to fit in?

2. Where has this desire created problems for you?

3. God has given you access into His presence by linking you with the greatest High Priest through faith. What are the benefits?

4. What aspect of priesthood do you most celebrate?

5. What spiritual sacrifices do you bring to God?

6. What does it mean to be holy?

Ryan Moffat 1 Timothy 3:15

Questions:

#1- When you see Paul push together these two metaphors (Family and institutional metaphors) why do you think that is significant?

#2- What metaphor are you more naturally drawn to (family/relational vs. institutional/doctrinal)? Why are you more drawn to that one? How does the other metaphor impact your thinking?

#3- How can you (and our Church) better live out being a healthy family? What would that look like?

#4- How can you (and our Church) better live out institutional stability and doctrinal faithfulness? What would compromise look like? How has doctrinal drift impacted the church?

#5- What is the Holy Spirit calling you to do to live out the vision of 1 Timothy 3:15?

Mark Seekins Ephesians 2:11-22

1. So which type of person are you? Do you wallow in the past? Look on it too fondly? Or do you focus more on the present or future?

2. What do you need to remember about your former self? Before Christ.

3. How will that increase your gratitude and obedience to God now and in the future? What does it mean to you that Christ now defines you?

4. What does it mean to you that you are now in Christ…part of something bigger? One new body in Christ. Do you see your part in the church this way?

5. How do we use our “privilege” in Christ to divide rather than unify?

6. When you consider the language of the temple (Ephesians 2:19-22), How can you see what you are becoming? What our church is becoming?

7. Have you thought much about how this “family” is forever? What implications does that have for how you participate in and interact with the body of Christ?

8. In response to this sermon, what is a strategic step you will take this week as part of the Temple of the Holy Spirit?

9. How can your small group pray for you?