This plan is designed to have a Nurturer guide the study, feel free to have other cell members support any of the sections as part of nurturing. All instructions are identified for Nurturer. A separate document (cell content) is meant to be shared.
This cell plan is based on the sermon shared on Sunday, January 19th, 2025.
Prepare Ahead
- Read Cell Vision Statement
- Meditate on Mark 12:41-44
- Link to sharable version for members: Cell Content
Opening
Nurturer: If there are new members today joining for the first time ask everyone to share something about themselves.
- Note: Has it been a while since your cell has reviewed the cell vision statement? Review it together at: Cell Based Ministry
Icebreaker: When was a time you really wanted to buy or do something but couldn’t afford it?
Worship
In addition to the regular musical/prayer/reading worship section, we will be incorporating a bible reading section
Ask: How was your bible reading in the last 2 weeks, share something from your readings with the group!
Note: If sharing is scarce and always the same people, can start a rotation schedule
Go into musical worship if someone is scheduled. Continue to ask if members of the cell are willing to lead this portion in the future.
Please pray for the group to begin the study.
Word + Imaginative Prayer
Mark 12:41-44
The Widow’s Offering
41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
Imaginative Prayer Exercise
Nurturer: Today, for the passing portion of the plan, we are inviting the cell to listen to the passage while doing the Imaginative Prayer Exercise. This is similar to Lectio but more focused on just the reading of the passage part. The purpose is not to study the passage but to immerse yourself in the passage. The reflection questions are meant as guides and not for sharing.
Briefly explain what imaginative prayer is and what it accomplishes, then read through the steps of imaginative prayer for today’s passage.
Note: Please feel free to summarize and/or paraphrase the below explanation, copied from Larry Warner’s Journey with Jesus: Discovering the Spiritual Exervises of Saint Ignatius.
Imaginative Prayer:
- Imaginative prayer helps us experience the story and personally hear, see and touch Jesus. In imaginative prayer, God speaks personally and powerfully. It involves using our God-given imagination to hear from and experience God and truth in a deeply forming way. It helps us move from external head knowledge of God to an internalized, deeper knowing of God.
- The Bible is written imaginatively because we are imaginative. Dramatic biblical imagery exists to help us enter into the living Word of God, to gaze upon the Lord, to look beyond the seen to the unseen (2 Cor 4:18) and to fully embrace the truth that in God we live, move and have our being.
Support: Read through the passage slowly twice, then invite the group to spend some time to meditate through the passage and journal their reflections.
Steps for Imaginative Prayer (adapted from Larry Warner’s Journey with Jesus):
- Get quiet in yourself and focus on openness to God. Find a place and a posture that will allow you to meditate. Relax your body. Slow your breathing. At the same time, be in prayer, asking God for guidance using the following prompts
- Imagine yourself as a participant in the story, an onlooker from afar as the events take place. Begin by noticing the details in the story. What do you see? Smell? Feel? Hear? Taste? Think? Watch the situation as it unfolds. Listen to what is said.
- What do you notice about Jesus as he watches the offerings being made in the temple? What about when he speaks to his disciples?
- What do you notice about the disciples, the other temple-goers, the widow?
- How do you imagine the widow feels as she goes up to offer her two copper coins?
Discussion
Nurturer: Review the sermon with the group and ask if there’s anything that stood out, then go through the discussion questions. Ask the following questions, the goal is to facilitate conversation, not a Q&A, this section doesn’t have to have everyone share their personal thoughts but try to get everyone in the conversation. In order to allow for deeper discussion, consider breaking the group up into smaller groups to allow more space for sharing.
Sermon/Teaching Summary
- How does Jesus look at giving?
- Heart: love for God, not the amount of money
- Faith: that a loving God will provide–do you truly believe that tomorrow, God will provide?
- The intertwining of heart and faith
- Matthew 6:21: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
- Philippians 4:19: And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
- Matthew 6:31-33: So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
- God loves a cheerful giver
- 2 Corinthians 9:6-8: Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
- Malachi 3:10: Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
Main Reflection & Response:
- What blessings and gifts has God given to you? Of these, which are you intentionally giving back to the Lord?
- Where are you hesitant to test God’s provision for you?
- How can you seek opportunities to change your heart and grow your trust in God?
Follow up questions:
- What are you tightly holding closely to you that you don’t want to give? (money, ambitions, fears, hatred, lusts, etc)
- What two coins do we need to/want to give to Him?
- How can you give time to God this week intentionally?
Witness
- Grad transition:
- Every year, some of our post-secondary students will graduate and be ready to transition into adult zone. As part of the transition, the intention is to have each cell pray and invite grads into their cells (as individuals, not as a group)
- Timeline:
- June – Confirmed list of graduates
- June – August: Adult Zone outreach period, pray over and invite graduates to cell and out of cell activities
- September: Official transition
- When June comes, the graduate coordinator will have more details to help each cell support the graduates.
- Today: Start praying for our graduates. Is there a particular graduate that you already have a connection with that you want to invite to your cell in the upcoming summer?
- Bible Reading:
- This year, we will be going through a 2 year bible reading plan together. Access to plan at gcgcny.link/readbible. Use this to share regularly in your cell about what you’re hearing from God.
- Ask your cells:
- English congregation is planning to have a day conference early spring next year (April/May), it is still preliminary and we want to get a sense of what people are looking for and whether they’re willing to help with the event:
- Some details for now:
- The conference will be a day event
- It will be for everyone in English and the focus will be around the 5 pillars of our church
- A mix of equipping, visioning and fellowshipping.
- Some details for now:
- English congregation is planning to have a day conference early spring next year (April/May), it is still preliminary and we want to get a sense of what people are looking for and whether they’re willing to help with the event:
- Cell Teams
- Thinking about joining the cell team? Talk to your nurturer!
- Summary of new Cell Roles: Document Link
- More Details and Sign up forms: https://gcgcny.link/adultzone
- Thinking about joining the cell team? Talk to your nurturer!
- Cell Outreach Process
- Gather a group cell members to go and get to know people/person that we are hoping to bring into the cell.
- Existing Relationships
- Share the details with the cell group and pray for the outreaching process
- Cell Request List
- The cell request list is for people without direct connections to anyone in cell right now, pray regularly for the list to see if God is moving you to reach out of any of them
- Existing Relationships
- As relationships establish with others in the cell (outside of the cell setting), share with them the purpose of cell groups (leverage vision statement) and invite them in.
- Gather a group cell members to go and get to know people/person that we are hoping to bring into the cell.