What’s At the Center
Acts 15
Brian Valley, Director of Youth Ministry, brianv@churchbcc.org
When it feels like everything around us is changing, the account in Acts 15 invites us to keep Jesus at the center.
- When we disagree
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When we change our minds
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Discussion Questions
Before questions, attempt to give the group a bit of a summary of the main points of the sermon and then choose a few questions that fit your group’s needs and style. We don’t intend for you to use all of these. Three to five questions may be a good number.
Have you ever navigated by compass? Share a favorite experience where you’ve used one.
Taking stock of your own life, perhaps through the lens of considering how the time in your last two weeks have been spent, how do you answer the key question of the sermon:
What or who is at the center of your life? Of your family?
What or who do you think is at the center of our church?
Jesus at the center is our key idea this week and in the story in Acts 15, we see how this is a vital truth in two particular and common situations. Keep this in mind as you read the entirety of Acts 15 aloud, taking turns around the group in each paragraph.
What do you notice about their process of weighting the testimony of what God is doing and weighing what scripture says (note: James’ quote from the prophet Amos)?
Pastor Brian reminds us that when there’s sharp dissension, much debate, many different opinions, we are to first look to Jesus.
Can you name areas of disagreement in your life, your community, in our city, our nation, our world, in our church?
How do you see yourself keeping Jesus as the center of our lives, our faith and community as we engage in relationship with one another across these areas of division?
Take a moment to pray as a group aloud that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven in response to the areas of division.
We are challenged this week to consider that discipleship in the way of Jesus will lead us to say “I am wrong” and that this is a “when, not if” situation. Is there something that you have felt changing in your understanding of the world/faith that (as the Apostle Paul modeled for us!) you can confess to the group?
Close this week with additional prayer that we might re-center on Jesus, allowing the three-in-one God, Father, Son Spirit to flood into our hearts and lives. Prayerfully ask “Would you be at the center of my life Lord Jesus?”