Introduction // 10 minutes
Spend the first moments of your time together this week recapping the holidays
Leader Note: Be on the look out for stories that connect to this weeks topic of relationships. Chances are the majority of your group members spent time with family. Listen for examples of challenging family dynamics to help set up your discussion.
Observation // 15 minutes
Read Genesis 1:26-28, 2:7-9
What do we share in common with God?
Sample Answers May Include…
- The ability to create (v 1:26, 28)
- Capacity for relationships. “Let us make…” is a reference to the persons of the trinity (v 1:26)
- Image and likeness, carry His nature and ability to reflect His glory (v 1:26)
- Authority and rule over creation (v1: 26,28)
- Created out of and for relationship (v 1:27)
- Man and woman are given relationship as a partnership to exercise rule and express creativity (v 1:27-28)
- Not only created by God but carries of His life (v 2:7)
- In carrying God’s life we are thinking, rational, able to evaluate life’s purpose and morality (v 2:8-9)
Leader Note: Lead your group to see that the foundational commonality between humans and God is that we are His image bears. All that God is; loving, creative, self-giving, holy ect… we carry because His life is in us. We not only carry these things but we are called to express them, especially through our relationships.
Understanding // 15 minutes
What does it look like when people display the image of God in their relationships?
Sample Answers May Include…
- We’re self giving, put others before ourselves
- Partner with one another, caring for what we have been entrusted with
- The relationship will be rooted in love and sacrifice
- Produces good things, it’s life giving for all involved
What does it look like when they don’t?
Sample Answers May Include…
- Abuse, self-seeking
- Self-promoting
- Fails to consider the other persons concerns and needs
- Uses people for own agenda
- It’s draining and not life giving
- Lack of trust, full of suspicion
Application // 20 minutes
Where in your relationships do you struggle to display God’s image?
Leader Note: Use care in asking this question as the other party on the receiving end of the person’s struggles may be in the room. Now is not the time to counsel or solve. Simply let the person take inventory and wrestle with the question then ask the follow up Application Question below.
What could it look like to be free from those things?
Leader Note: The first step for many is too allow for vulnerability in our relationships. When we become vulnerable we often become more honest with our selves and with others. Honesty and vulnerability lead to trust and increases our willingness to live sacrificially in relationship with others.
Live It Out // 5 minutes
What if God’s image became more visible in our relationships? What might the impact be?
Commentary: Our world is starving for something different. With brokenness and self-fishiness becoming the norm in relationships dream together about the possibility of allowing your relationships to become one of the greatest and most effective testimonies for God’s grace and presence in our world.