Bethany Community Church

Colossians 1:9-14

Teacher: Pastor Joe Springer

Discussion Questions:

Pastor Nancy Eckardt

1.  When have you moved from a spectator of a group to a participant in the group?

2.  How have you seen societal norms creep into the church?  When has it been healthy?  Unhealthy?

3.  What do you see as your role in the body of Christ?

4.  If you came to worship realizing that isn’t about you, how would the service be different?

5.  How do you receive Christ’s expression of love to you as part of your bride?

6.  How do you carry the understanding that you are the bride of Christ into your context – work, school, home?

7.  How has your knowledge of God increased by being in conversation with others?

8.  When has frustration wit the church led you to a more mature love for and commitment to the church?  When have you walked away because of it?

9.  Can you think of an example when you have seen Christ reflected in another?

10.  We are the church, not just attenders of the church.  What would it look like if we as the church cultivated a culture of invitation?  How can you participate as an agent of invitation?

11.  What are barriers for you to become an agent of invitation?

12.  What step can you take to move toward invitation?

Sunday’s Bulletin

Discussion Questions

Pastor Nancy Eckardt

1. How do you see creation groaning?

2. How aware are you of the environment?  What has informed your awareness?

3. How are the issues of the environment an issue of justice?

4. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.”  How does creation cause you to respond?

5. How can creation invite people to God?

6. Read Genesis 1:27, 28.  What does God’s creation of and command to humans mean to us today?

7. In a culture where so often we live by the adage, gain maximum profit for minimum pay, what does “enough” look like to you?

8. How does “survival of the fittest” creep into your world view?  How does your worldview go against the grain of that phrase?

9. What does grief over the groaning of creation look like to you?

10. What is one thing you can do differently to better care for the earth?

11. How will you cultivate the way you see the world?

12. How can you become better informed?

Sunday’s Bulletin

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom

Discussion Questions

from Pastor Nancy Eckardt

1. When have you been led to worship God because of an encounter outside of worship or Bible study?
2. The beauty of the Lord is defined in the sermon as “the display of all that God is.”  What are some words that describe the beauty of the Lord?
3. How do you use all your senses in your encounters with God?
4. The Bible is filled with the beauty of the Lord.  Where do you see this?
5. Can you think of a time when the systematizing of your faith has blocked the beauty of our faith?
6. Can you think of a time when you could only respond, “I had no idea”?
7. What is an area of your life where your desire for control has gotten in the way of encountering the beauty of God?
8. What do you hope to receive from the sermon each week?  How does it arouse your senses?  How do you encounter God?
9. Can you think of a time when you experienced a distorted relationship with beauty, either to lust or to austerity?
10. Psalm 34:8 “ Taste and see that the Lord is good”
    1. How can you open yourself to God’s desire to reveal himself to you this week?
    2. What can you change in order to pay attention to what God wants to reveal to you this week?

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Teacher: Pastor Joe Springer, August 8, 2010.

Discussion Questions:
Pastor Nancy Eckardt

1. Where do you see justice, or the lack of justice in your context – at work? in your community?

2. In his sermon, Joe pointed out that the justice being addressed in Micah was social, rather than judicious; through Micah, God was calling his people to be socially conscious and to look for fairness for everyone. What makes it difficult to pursue fairness for everyone?

3. Where are your opportunities to use power? How do you use that power?

4. If the universal purpose of power was to empower others, how would things be different?

5. What areas of your life still need to be surrendered to God, so that they will bear witness to Christ’s work?

6. What would it take to move you out of being “pretty good” to becoming all Christ has for you?

7. What would it look like if you gave up the right to be right? What would make it difficult to do this?

8. Read Luke 11:39-40. How does the outside of your cup compare to the inside?

9. How has God been merciful to you?

10. How is mercy a part of your relationships with others?

11. How does your life reflect mercy and justice?

12. Read the Parable in Matthew 20 regarding the workers in the field. When have you been the one that worked the full day? How about the one that worked only part of the day? How has the mercy of God on your life impacted your treatment of others?

13. Can you name one area of your life where you would like to experiment giving over to God, to be an agent of his mercy and justice?

Sunday’s Bulletin

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, August 1, 2010.

Our calling is to represent God’s heart of love and justice for all people; we will do this by getting deeply involved in our city. Using this passage as a starting point, we discover three truths about our calling to redeem the city.

Discussion Questions
Pastor Nancy Eckardt

1. How is the setting in which you grew up different from the setting you are in now? Are you drawn more to the city or the rural areas, or suburbia?

2. What does it mean to you that God loves the city more than the “trees?” What areas of the city are you drawn to?

3. God says to Jonah, “Should I not have compassion on Ninevah?” How would you answer God’s question, “Should I not have compassion on Seattle?”

4. In the text from Isaiah 60, the prophet envisions a city that has a material quality, not just a spiritualized existence. What does that look like to you?

5. How do you balance the physical and spiritual dimensions as a reflection of the abundant life that Christ promises us? How do you keep one dimension from overshadowing the other?

6. What are some ways that you are bringing order out of chaos and in so doing displaying the image of God? How are you doing this in the name of Christ?

7. Where do you see brokenness in your community? Where do you see it in your approach to work and/or other areas of your life?

8. What keeps you from sharing sacrificially together for the common good?

9. “Bear more pain than you inflict.” Can you name an area of your life where you can apply this challenge?

Sunday’s Bulletin

Discussion Questions:

What’s the longest time you have lived in the same location?

Do you like to be settled or do you tend ot be more of a wanderer?

What does the promised land look like to you?  What are you waiting for in order to be ready to experience life?

What do you think your barrier is to your being fruitful where you are?

What is your relationship with the community in which you live?

How do you contribute to the welfare of your community?

What makes it difficult to get involved in your community?

If you were asked how to pray for the neighborhood in which you live,  what would you say?

What is something you could do to bless your neighborhood, your community, or the community in and around Bethany?  What will it take for you to do that?

Teacher: Pastor Earl Radford, July 18, 2010.

For young children, life happens at home—it’s where they can freely express themselves.

Sermon Power Point Presentation

Sunday’s Bulletin

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, July 11, 2010.

Genesis 37-43
God’s redemptive power is most visible in our capacity to love. Through the story of Judah’s transformation, we learn to view experiences and relationships as the great teachers in our lives. By the end of the story, nothing has changed in the family of origin, but Judah has changed. How did he change?

Discussion Questions:
Pastor Nancy Eckardt
1. What is something you have been proud about? How has pride been a barrier in relationships?

2. Can you describe a time of famine in your life? What impact did it have on your life and faith?

3. When have you satisfied a deep desire for God with something shallow? At what point did you realize it wouldn’t satisfy?

4. In Psalm 73:25 the psalmist writes, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.” When have you resonated with these words? How true are they for you today?

5. In the story of Judah, when they first came before Joseph, they were hungry, but blind to sin. (Gen. 42: 10,11). Can you think of a time when you were hungry, and at the same time need to be confronted with sin in your life?

6. Is there unconfessed sin in your life that haunts you? What keeps you from confessing? What are you doing to avoid confession?

7. Can you think of a difficult situation in your life where you need to own up to your responsibility in the matter? What steps can you take to make things right? What makes it difficult?

8. Can you think of something that God has taught you from a difficult situation?

9. How important is it for you to have Christ’s character formed in you?

10. How do you take steps to incorporate what you hear on Sunday into your life Monday through Saturday? What makes it difficult?

11. Where have you seen expansion in your capacity to love? Toward a particular individual? A group of people? A stranger?

12. How has famine, discipline, and love transformed you?

13. What may God be using right now to transform you? How can you take steps to come to a place of transformation?

Sunday’s Bulletin

Teacher: Pastor Phil Maulding, July 4, 2010.

Discussion Questions:
Pastor Nancy Eckardt

1. In John 8:34, Jesus says that everyone who sins is a slave to sin.  How do you see this in your life?
2. What do you do to protect yourself from the truth?
3. What choices in your life have you become a slave to?
4. What makes it difficult to confess to God?  To others?
5. Where do you experience freedom in your life?
6. Where do you wish you could experience Christ’s freedom?  How could taking on Christ’s life help you in this area?
7. What truths of Christ serve as the source of your faith?
8. How does your fullness in Christ reflect in your outward life?

Sunday’s Bulletin

Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, June 27, 2010.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll see how God’s redemptive work begins in the human heart and spirals out from there—affecting whole persons, families, neighborhoods, cultures, nations, the world, and the cosmos. This is the story God is writing. The fundamental question for us is this: Are we in God’s story?

Sunday’s Bulletin