Bethany Community Church

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, October 25, 2009.

Discussion Questions:
Nancy Eckardt

1. In Acts 21:1, Luke describes their departure from Ephesus as “having torn ourselves away from them.” Can you think of a time when following God has caused you to be torn away from significant relationships?

2. “We need to look for the trajectory of God’s heart.” Where have you gained a greater understanding of God’s heart in the area of theology or spiritual formation? What process did you go through?

3. In what ways have you asked God to bless your plans, rather than submitting your plans to him?

4. How have you seen your need to submit “in little ways” over the past week?

5. When have you sensed God calling you to submit to him in a big way?

6. In Ephesians 1:11, Paul describes the end of the world as “the summing up of all things in Christ.” How do you see yourself participating today in “the summing up of all things in Christ?”

7. How have you made the invisible God visible in unexpected ways? What have you given up in order to live into what God has planned for you?

8. Can you describe a summer camp experience you had? What do you remember most? Can you remember the transition back to “real life?”

9. What have you learned about practices that you may have thought were required for salvation that you now realize are tradition or culture? How do you struggle with your relationship with the law?

10. Can you think of a time when you have given up your freedom to choose in order to encourage or identify with others? What was your reason for doing it? What was the result?

11. What area or issue in your life might God be challenging you to give up or change? What makes it difficult to let go?

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, October 18, 2009.

Discussion Questions:
Nancy Eckardt

In Acts 20, we find Paul moving from one place to another, not always to where he expected, and not always without risk to his life, but with the sole purpose of testifying to the gospel of the grace of God. And we are challenged to do the same.

1. How have you seen movement or transformation in your own life? Where do you see it now?

2. Can you think of how movement in your heart has caused movement vocationally or geographically or in some other more visible way?

3. Can you think of a time when God moved you into a place that didn’t seem familiar to you, but in retrospect was right where you belonged? What were some key steps in the process of coming to accept how God was using you?

4. Do you consider yourself quick to stay or quick to go? How have you been challenged outside your tendency one way or another, and what has been the result of that?

5. “Movement and journey are intended to be the ongoing story of our lives.” How does that sit with you? What is appealing about looking at life this way? What is unappealing?

6. How have you experienced God’s gifts in the midst of overwhelming challenges?

7. What areas of your life and experience right now seem foreign to you?

8. Acts 20:24 “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.” What does letting go of one’s life as Paul does here look like for you?

9. What does the way of death look like for you? To what might God be calling you to die, in order to step into resurrection life on the other side?

10. Who is accompanying you on your way of death? How do they help you? How do they hinder you?

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, October 11, 2009.

How can we gain an understanding of the need for both permeability and conviction? More important, how can we practice blending these two realities?

Discussion Questions:
Nancy Eckardt

Acts 18 – 19 Why Does “Good News” Bring Conflict? Sometimes because of our dogma and other times because we are holding onto lies that we need to let go of. Throughout our lives and experiences, we have many opportunities where we must discern if we should be permeable or penetrable.

1. Can you think of a time when your faith offended? When someone else’s faith offended? What happened? How did you respond?

2. Why do you think the good news of Christ is resisted? What do we have to lose? What do those around us have to lose?

3. Can you think of a time when something new has changed your status quo? How do you respond in times like this?

4. Why do you think people are more likely to unite against something than for something?

5. What does “Christ is your life” mean to you? Is this difficult for you to grasp? Easy? A relief? Does it seem narrow?

6. When was the last time you learned something new? How did you learn it? What difference has it made in your life?

7. Apollos was “seminary-trained” in the teachings of John the Baptist, but didn’t have the full gospel in Christ? Priscilla and Aquilla, untrained believers, took him aside and corrected his theology. How do you respond to correction? What makes it difficult or easy to accept correction?

8. Can you think of an example of someone who has a learning posture? How does it affect their approach to life and interaction with others?

9. Can you think a way of how your perspective or theology on a topic has changed over the years? How was that process for you? Did you lose friends? Make friends?

10. Is there an issue that you are struggling with right now? Do you see this as an opportunity for steadfastness or permeability? What are the costs involved for you and those around you? How are you working through it? How does John 8:31 help you in your process?

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, October 4, 2009.

Things have changed quickly over the past few days, as we’ve gone from sleeping on top of the sheets with the windows up, to closing up the house and tossing a down comforter on the bed! Just as quickly, it seems, we who are on staff are looking back at what was already a very busy summer as a time of relative leisure, compared with the pace of things at Bethany right now. New services, new locations, lots of new volunteers, and new students returning all mark the beginning of a mission-critical ministry year for Bethany.

I’m praying for several things, and I’m happy that you’ll be praying with me for each matter:

1. Staff transitions. We’ll be welcoming our Director of Small Groups later this month (an announcement will be made this Sunday regarding the “who” of this position), and we are continuing to look for a Director of Missions. Both of these matters fall under the category of staffing, and I ask that you’ll be praying with me for the transition of our new staff member, and that God will guide us to the right staff member for Missions.

2. Along these lines, I’d like to emphasize how important it will be for Bethany’s future for us to grow in our intentionality to be like Jesus, “the Word becoming flesh” in neighborhoods, including the Aurora corridor, if we’re to be effective in building a community that testifies of Jesus’ power to knock down walls of division. Pray that God will pour out His spirit on our church so that we might be captured more fully by God’s heart for our neighbors and city.

3. Pray for the many ministries that are beginning this month, such as MOPS and College Student Ministries, as well as those that began during the second half of September and are still in their early stages, such as the Alpha Course. Pray that the many classes that are occurring would collectively be used by God to shape us as a community and that individual lives will be challenged and equipped.

4. Pray for Nancy Eckardt and me as we begin planning winter events related to creating a rule of life community within Bethany: a group committed to the disciplines of Bible reading, prayer, service, and generosity.

5. There are many in our community continuing to feel the effects of the difficult economy. Pray that people will find work, and that, equally important, all of us will be teachable regarding how best to steward our resources according to God’s purposes.

6. As always, pray for marriages, knowing that there are couples who are being robbed of genuine intimacy through wrong choices and roadblocks. Ask that God would bring them the help they need.

7. We’re praying for leaders, as we ponder who it is that God would want to be the ministry leader for our new work in West Seattle. Pray that God would give us clarity regarding this matter.

Finally, in these very opportune and challenging times, it’s vital that we who are shepherding the church be people who are serving out from intimacy and rest in Christ, rather than compulsion, ambition, fear, or longings for human approval. The habits that nurture intimacy are often, when things get busy, the first to go. May our Lord keep us near to Him in the midst of all that is unfolding.

Thanks for standing with me in prayer.

Richard Dahlstrom