Christ Community Downtown
The Sower - 9:00 & ON-DEMAND
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our Monday lives. These prompts have been designed to help Community Groups grow in their relationship with God, with one another, and with their neighbors. Please know that these questions are meant to be a resource to you. You do not have to follow them verbatim or get through them all. We trust you to know your group and to ask the questions based on your group needs.
1) What stood out to you in the sermon?
2) In Luke 8:15, Jesus says that people who are “good soil” hold fast to His word with an honest heart, and they bear fruit with patience. How have you seen the importance of patience in connection to personal growth?
3) The sermon discussed cultivating faith that lasts and how that requires ‘grit.’ Share an experience in your faith journey where ‘grittiness’ and ‘holding fast’ to God’s word helped God’s word to grow more deeply into your life.
4) What might you need to cut back or cut out of your life to hear God’s word more clearly so that you become someone who ‘stays with Jesus until the end’ as the women in Luke 8:2-3 were described in this week’s message.
Luke 8:1-15 ESV
Title: The Sower
Scripture: Luke 8:1-15
Speaker: Gabe Coyle, GabeC@ChristCommunityKC.org
>> We expect everything to be quick
>> Nothing worthwhile is quick
>> How do we cultivate a faith that lasts?
“A parable is an extended metaphor and as such it is nota delivery system for an idea but a house in which the reader/listener is invited to take up residence.” - Kenneth Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels
>> Three reasons people don’t give Jesus the time:
- Some aren’t open to anyone else
- Some aren’t willing to go further than the hype
- Some aren’t willing to let go
>> Crucial to Lasting Faith:
- Grit
“passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years, or even decades” - Angela Lee Duckworth, Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance
“a long obedience in the same direction.” - Eugene Peterson
>> Crucial to Lasting Faith:
- Grit
- A Collective