Opening
Icebreaker question: If you had to live in a different era (i.e. not the 21st century), when would it be?
Prayer
BREATHING IN THE CREATOR
Preparation: I will allow my spirit to rest a little and consider where I am going and for what purpose. I make a gesture of reverence and humility. I read the prayer texts.
Prayer Text: The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life – Job 33:4.
Opening Prayer: I ask for the grace to direct my whole self toward the Creator.
Desire: I desire to breathe in the Creator.
Prayer: I become aware of my breath passing through my nostrils. For five minutes, I feel and focus on the sensation of my breath flowing in and out of my nostrils.
Then I imagine, with each breath that I breathe out, that all the trees, plants, and flowers respond by breathing in. When they breathe out to offer oxygen, I breathe in. For five minutes I remain with this awareness of my breathing in and plants breathing out, of my breathing out and plants breathing in.
So I experience the rhythm of creation and creature breathing to live.
Now I imagine the same relationship between Creator and creature, God and myself. God breathes the Spirit into me, and I breathe out to renew the face of the earth. God breathes the Spirit into me, and I am re-created. I breathe the Spirit out to recreate life in my relationships, home, work, etc. I do this for five minutes.
So I experience the rhythm of Creator and creature breathing to renew the face of earth.
Conversation: I ask the Creator for the virtues or graces for which I
feel the greatest need.
[from the Australian National First Spiritual Exercises Team]
Discussion
List and describe what communities you are involved in during your daily life.
Why do you attend church? What are you looking for when you attend service, cell, or other fellowship events?
Share about a person at church who has influenced you to be more Christ-like.
Passage
Philippians 2: 1-11
Imitating Christ’s Humility
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Discussion, cont’d
Do you feel like you are “like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind” with the church? When do you feel like you embody this unity, and when do you find it difficult?
Think about the people in your life you regularly encounter. Picture how Christ would treat each of them. How might the way you treat them, or how might the relationship change if you sought to emulate Christ in that relationship? (*note, doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad or difficult relationship–consider how even good relationships might be made more deeper or more loving).
Reflect on verse 8. Confess where you need to be more humble, and pray for one another.