When I was a freshman on the Furman baseball team, my job was to chalk the field before every home game. I think they chose me because there wasn’t much chance I’d get into the game that year. Nevertheless, I took the responsibility seriously, carefully outlining both batter’s boxes and making sure the white foul lines were arrow straight in the dirt each day.
During the years that followed, I passed on my passion for chalking to other freshmen. But for that entire first year, I knew my role on the team and tried to do it as well as I could.

Families aren’t exactly like baseball teams, but the importance of everyone knowing his or her responsibility remains. Wise house rules depend on healthy relationships and clear responsibilities.

This week, we will continue our Family Camp July by reading the second half of Colossians 3. There, Paul speaks specifically about our responsibilities for key family relationships. And what he has to say is actually much more significant than chalk lines on smooth dirt.

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SEE IT // BE IT

(WEEKLY COMMUNITY GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE)

DATE: July 9, 2017 House Relationships //

Scripture: Colossians 3:17-4:1

ARRIVAL / SOCIAL TIME 15-20 minutes
Spend the first 15 minutes or so of your time together catching up and socializing with one another. Also find time to catch up together on how the assignments from last week turned out.

SERMON REVIEW 5-10 minutes
This week we continued our Family Camp series called Our House Rules by discovering together how good house rules help us create healthy relationships. In this message Jon shared with us that according to Paul in Colossians 3:17-4:1, relationships are the most valuable and important things that we have. Connecting and living in healthy relationships means learning to love and treat each other the way God has loved and treated us. It means moving from selfishness to selflessness in every relationship of our lives.

THE MAIN THOUGHT  keep this in mind as you facilitate discussion.
House rules help us live in healthy relationships.

CHANGE

5 questions to help us GROW or SEE IT

1. What is your most valued possession? What is the most important thing that you have?
*Encourage each person to share what is most valued and important to them.
2. What does Paul say is the most important and valuable thing that we have? Where have you seen healthy relationships in your life? How does God show us the way to live in healthy and hopeful relationships?
*Review together Jon’s sermon and what Jon said was the most important thing in our lives (relationships). Talk about how God’s relationship toward us shows us how to live in relationship with each other.
3. What kinds of things get in the way of us having healthy relationships in our lives? (bitterness, anger, fear, etc.) Why do you think these things make relationships unhealthy? What kinds of things can we practice in our house to help us live as a healthy family?
*Ask each person to talk about a time that they were angry, bitter, fearful or upset and how those things started getting in the way of their relationship with another person. Then transition the conversation to talk about how encouraging each other, trusting one another and valuing each other can become healthy practices of your family.
4. What do you think it means to be selfless vs. being selfish? How did Jesus show us to do this? Where is one place that you have seen someone in our family be selfless this past week?
*Compare and contrast how Jesus acted in his relationships and how we sometimes act in our relationships. Then go around and have each person identify one example of someone in your family acting selflessly this past week.
5. How can our family practice good relationships with our friends and neighbors? What kinds of things can our family do to love these people well? By doing these things, how will we show Jesus to others?
*Brainstorm together how your family might love your friends and neighbors well. Choose one new thing to practice together with your friends and neighbors this week.

CHALLENGE

3 exercises to help us GO or BE IT (choose at least 1)

UP (Our relationship with God): Room Service

Read John 13:1-17 together as a family. Talk together about the way Jesus served his disciples in this passage even though He was their master. Reflect together on how this demonstrated Jesus’ love to his disciples. Then place each family member’s name in a hat and have each person draw out a name. Encourage your family members not to tell each other whose name each of them drew. Then challenge each family member to serve the person whose name he/she drew in at least one way this week.

IN (Our relationships with each other): Rule Ruckus

Give each person in your family a piece of paper and a pen. Have each person write down the one house rule that they love the most on one side of the piece of paper. Then have each person write down the one house rule they wish that they could change on the other side of the paper. Collect the pieces of paper without anyone putting his or her name on them and try to guess who wrote which paper as a family. Then talk about your house rules: why they are important and if any changes need to be made.

OUT (Our relationship with the world): Relational Focus

Choose one family in your neighborhood that you could do something nice for this week. Brainstorm as a family how you could show love to them by doing something special to encourage them together. Think of things like baking cookies, playing with them, having them over for dinner or to watch a movie, etc.