Tour 7-Small Group Discussion

We talked about engaging with truth and recalled Jesus before Pilate

We are in the epoch of Engagement

We are going to build deep relationships, engaging with grace, wisdom and truth

We looked at our key verses in 1 Pet 3; 2 Tim 2 & Col 4 (redeeming the kairos moment)

We talked about seasoning our speech with salt

We are to speak the truth in love; truth and love go together

We speak truth for the true good of the other, not to win or gain power; it’s not a prize-fight

We speak truth through wisdom and grace in the context of a relationship

We talked about the danger of being a “faithful” witness when it is mostly about me and not the other

We revisited the implications of understanding that truth is not the endgame and how we might act if we think truth IS the endgame

Building a relationship of trust allows us to speak truth in a culture of skeptics

The purpose of truth is bound up in true agape love, seeking their shalom

We talked about how speaking truth may be exciting to some and frightening to others

The former may have a tendency to speak truth without love, the other will have a tendency to fall for the notion that love means not speaking truth

We heard the gong again with respect to speaking truth without love

We talked about the easy way out is to speak truth without love or to love without truth

We listened to the story Rosaria Champagne Butterfield and Ken and Floy Smith

We heard her say that what happened to her was “500-plus meals” at Ken and Floy Smith’s house

We asked the question, if we had lived next door to Dr. Rosaria Champagne, would we have had her over for one meal, or would we have even spoken once with her

We saw Rosaria’s quote: “Ken was wise to know that he could only speak truth as deep as our relationship could stand”

We heard Rosaria say: “I lived in rebellion for years and years and then the Lord sent a neighbor to come and get me”

We asked the question “Do we think that God can do the same thing through us”

We reminded ourselves that we have everything we need to do this: the Spirit of God, the word of God, the fellowship of believers

We walked through the vision, noting that Ken and Floy did each one

We found that Ken Smith never asked Rosaria to go to church, because their objective was to build a deep relationship with her

We talked about the big elephant in the room: evangelism and our role vs God’s role

We talked about how to keep our desire from becoming our agenda, our script, with our neighbor

We asked the question: “If we knew for sure that our neighbor would never come to Christ, are we free now not to love them?”

We talked about seeking to build a deep relationship with no agenda

We heard about a couple that had been building a relationship with neighbors and how that was destroyed in one act by another couple

We talked about God being the one who has to grant repentance

We referenced a book “I Once Was Lost” and that of the 2000 people they interviewed that had come to Christ, every one of them went through the first step of entering into a significant relationship with a Christian

We heard the story of Ludmila, in Prague, and contemplated that we are ambassadors and what it would be like if we were to put a plaque on our homes that said “Embassy of the Kingdom of Heaven”