START TALKING

What is something in your life that you experience that isn't hard to see it grow? Your kids? Your lawn? Your waistline?! What effort and what experience is required for it to grow, and as long as those two things are there the growth just naturally happens?

In whatever example you gave above, what would happen if effort and experience wasn't there? Would it still be able to grow? Would it still have the potential to grow, even if it wasn't?

START THINKING

Read Hebrews 5:7-10. What is this a summary of? How would you retell this in your own words? How can you see that this is told in a way that was especially relevant and understanding to those with a Jewish background? What model does this give us to follow when we talk to people about the Gospel?

Read Hebrews 5:11-13. What is keeping these new Christians from growing? What are the different obstacles that the writer of Hebrews points out? What does he equate growth to so that they (and we) see that growth is a natural result of being born, so long as the basic elements are there?

START SHARING

When you think about spiritual growth, what makes it seem difficult?

Hebrews 5:11-13 shows that effort and having daily, real-life experiences with Jesus are the missing pieces. When have you experienced spiritual growth because you took a step of effort or took a step to have an experience with Jesus? When have you had seasons that this wasn't happening, and what was keeping you from taking a step of effort or experience?

Read Hebrews 5:14. How have you grown through "constant use" of a truth, a discipline, or an experience with Jesus? Give a specific example! How much of this growth was reliant upon you working it out for yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you?

Now re-read Hebrews 5:12. Who has been a teacher to you? Not because they sat you down with a lesson plan and taught you like a teacher to a student. But because they walked alongside you and helped show you who Jesus is throughout your life. What are examples of how they helped you and taught you?

START DOING

Who in your life will learn from you as you take steps of effort and experience to grow in your faith? What are ways that you can be intentional to show them Jesus in every day life? How can you let the realities of life and the circumstances people face to be the way that you teach them about Jesus?

Read Hebrews 6:1. What is a step of effort you are going to take this week to move beyond the elementary things? What is a step of experience that you are going to take to follow Jesus?

What is a step that we can take as a micro church? How can we leverage our Easter event to take steps to grow and to be on mission?

START PRAYING

Pray for each other and the steps we committed to take. Ask God to give each of us boldness to take those steps and to convict us when find that we aren't following him. Ask Him to use each of us to multiply our faith to others as we grow to a place of maturity and naturally begin to produce fruit.