The other day, I made a case for revisiting your sermons in your midweek groups or bible study. You can read my reasons for suggesting that here. Having laid out my reasons for doing that, I thought it might be useful just to explain exactly how we do that in our context.

Obviously, everybody has heard what the passage means already (or, if they missed it, can access the sermon online and hear it to find out). This means we spend almost no time in our midweek groups thinking through what this passage means. The assumption is that we have already done that work and everyone in the group gets the key ideas in the passage and has a reasonable sense of what the passage is about.

Instead, we focus more on applicational questions. This usually takes a proposition/question format along the following lines:

• Proposition A: The passage said X and we saw that this meant Y
• Proposition B: What does Y mean for us in A, B or C specific circumstance to our context?

The whole session will usually have a two or three minute overview of the passage consisting of the main idea of the sermon and then a very quick summary of the three points. Once we have done that, we usually ask whether anybody has any questions, comments, observations or points they want clarifying from the sermon. We discuss these if there are any. We then consider 10-12 further application questions along the lines of the A-B format outlined above.

Of course, along with that basic format is a degree of flexibility and fluidity to the discussion. Frequently, the group leader may be asking clarifying questions to understand what is being said or to draw out further implications. Sometimes we are simply asked, ‘where is that in the text?’ or ‘what exactly do you mean by that?’ in order to root what is being said in the text itself, rather than our own ad hoc thoughts, and to ensure we don’t default to meaningless christianese but actually understand what we are saying.

Other times, the conversation takes an unexpected turn as people draw connections you hadn’t considered or that take the discussion down new avenues. Sometimes these are just unhelpful tangents and we want to stop ourselves being side-tracked by them. But they can often be helpful digressions into areas that are entirely relevant and helpful, even if they are not avenues we specifically thought about before. As with any participatory thing, this just requires wisdom as to whether to run with it or to pull conversation back to what is specifically relevant. Again, some of the clarifying questions above (where is that in the text? or, how did you get to that from this passage?) can help to pull things back to relevancy.

Rather than try to give a sense of what we do, I thought it might be helpful to put up the last set of notes from our most recent community group. If you really want to understand how this operates, it would pay to go and listen to the sermon in full first and then look at the below set of notes. You can listen to the relevant sermon here (the reading and sermon begin at 8:27).

When we meet together midweek, we re-read the full passage from Sunday. We then have our two-minute summary overview. We pray that the Lord would help us apply it helpfully. Then we jump into our community group questions. The last sermon was in Jeremiah 1:11-19. My community group notes were as follows:

Overview

The passage is all about the sovereignty of God

1. You can trust God’s Word will come to pass – just as the almond tree watches over spring, so God is watching over his word and causing it to flourish.
2. Outside of Jesus there is only judgement – the boiling pot spoke of God’s judgement on his people. If we abandon Jesus there will only be judgement for us.
3. The call to stand firm is undergirded by God himself – just as God sent Jeremiah with his Word and promised to fortify him, so God sends us with his Word and gives us all the strength that we need to do his work.

Questions

1. Any thoughts, questions, comments, feedback on the sermon?
2. Why should we be encouraged and comforted by the idea that God is watching over his Word?
3. Why do we sometimes not believe that God’s Word will flourish and come to pass? What causes us to not believe it fully some of the time?
4. Are there times we really do feel the certainty of God’s Word? How can we cultivate this sort of faith in God’s Word among ourselves?
5. Jeremiah presents God himself bringing judgement against his people. Does that change how we view our own suffering and attacks upon us? If so, how?
6. Why specifically did God bring this judgement on Judah? On that basis, what reasons might he bring a similar judgement upon us?
7. What does it look like in practice for us not really to trust in God but in other things? What would be the evidence we’ve put our trust elsewhere? What is the practical evidence we are being complacent in our relationship with God?
8. How does God both push and pull (encourages and challenges) Jeremiah to do the work he has given him to do? How might God both push and pull us to do the work he has given us to do?
9. In what ways is our mission similar to Jeremiah’s and in what way is our mission different from his?
10. In what ways are the challenges for us the same as for Jeremiah and in what ways are they different?
11. Why does knowing God is with us and strengthening us help us do the work he’s given us to do? What does it say about us if we won’t do that work?