Outlined below you’ll find additional content and engagement opportunities for our study of Galatians. These will be updated each week on Thursdays and will be a study companion to the current week’s message. It will include questions for self-reflection, bible verse references as well as activities to illustrate the concepts for kids and families. We hope this will be an added blessing in your week.
Welcome to the final week of our Baseline Weekly Connection. Before you dive into the questions below make sure you’ve watched this week’s sermon. We’ve added a link to this week’s sermon above.
Read through Galatians 4:6, 5:17, and 5:21
Questions: Glenn outlined a way to remind ourselves to walk in the spirit. There are three practical things he shared we can focus on this week: own your part, ask the Spirit to remind you of the beautiful things you see in another person, and ask Christ to help you find ways to treat them with specific acts of kindness.
How can you own your part in showing kindness to others?
What beautiful things do you see in another? Ask God to help you see another person for who they are and not through the narrative you’ve created.
What acts of kindness can you show to others this week?
This Week: Practice kindness by constantly building others up with joy. This is what walking with the Spirit means.
Activity for Kids and Families:
In the main service this past week, Glenn talked about the importance of kindness, which is one of the fruits of the spirit. Showing kindness is one of the ways we can walk with the spirit and be more like Jesus.
To help illustrate this concept, gather the following supplies:
Balloons
Toilet Paper Rolls
Duct Tape
Washi Tape
Hole Punch*
Colorful Paper*
*Instead of making confetti this way, you can also purchase some ready-made. You can also use small pom-poms instead.
Take a balloon and tie a knot in the end. Cut off the rounded part of the balloon and stretch it over an end of the toilet paper roll. Secure the cut end of the balloon around the toilet paper roll by wrapping duct tape around it. Decorate with washi tape, markers, or crayons to make your confetti popper colorful! Fill the toilet paper roll with your confetti or small pom-poms and pull back on the knotted end of the balloon. Let go and watch your confetti fly! Confetti gets everywhere, doesn’t it? It goes further than we expect and spreads color all over! This is exactly what kindness does when we focus on the importance of being kind to everyone. It shows people how much we love and care about them. Just like Jesus loves and cares about us! We can practice kindness like we’re confetti poppers of joy everywhere we go.
Read through Galatians 5
Summary: Embracing life with Christ means following the loving thing to do. If we pursue that in every situation – how can we go wrong? We need to get to know what Jesus has already said, reflect on what we know that we’re not living out, and actively love others as we love ourselves.
Questions:
The more you walk with and trust in the Spirit – the more you will experience the truth, beauty, and freedom that you have. How do we walk that path? Here are some practical questions to explore:
Have you familiarized yourself with what Jesus has already said? Is there something that has happened in your life already that you can apply?
What do you already know that you’re not acting on right now? As you trust Him in that area of your life – He can use that for another purpose and situation. Is there something you haven’t engaged in yet?
What would loving the other as yourself look like?
Ask some trustworthy Christ-followers what they think. If you don’t know how to move forward, find someone who is walking with the Holy Spirit like you’re striving to do and ask them if they can speak into the situation you’re facing.
This Week: Be the person for other people that is safe and honest and unconditional in your love and offer that to others. There’s something in your walk with Christ that could be very helpful to them as they could be helpful to you. Embrace your freedom, let your aim be love, and live out a path of walking with the Spirit and trusting Jesus.
Activity for Kids and Families:
In the main service this past week, Glenn talked about living life by walking in faith and trusting God. What does that mean?
To help illustrate this concept, gather the following supplies:
A plastic zip-top sandwich bag filled with water
Several sharp pencils
Someone who is willing to trust you
Hold the water-filled bag over your child’s head and ask if they have faith that they won’t get wet. Then, take one of the sharpened pencils and stab it all the way through the bag. (It’s best to practice this beforehand because it works best to poke through the bag as quickly as possible.) Then, proceed to keep asking if they have faith that they won’t get wet as you stab the bag with more pencils. You can ask: Do you have faith in me? Do you trust that I won’t spill this entire bag of water on your head? What if I put another hole through the bag? Do you still believe me? After adding several pencils to the bag and asking those questions, ask: Did you get wet? It seems impossible, doesn’t it? Trusting me at this moment makes no sense. However, here is a bag filled with water and holes in it and it’s not leaking.
Trusting God is a bit like trusting that you wouldn’t get wet even with a bag of water over you’re head. No matter what happens and how many pencils get poked through our life, we can trust that God loves and cares for us and He has a plan.
Important tip: Too many pencils will add mass to the bag and the pressure might be too much for the zip-top so be cautious.
Read through Galatians 4
Summary: Paul reminds us once again to re-center our lives on Jesus, remember who Jesus says we are, and make our spiritual example to others in how we live our daily lives.
Questions:
How do we handle this tension in our own lives of differing perspectives on faith and spirituality?
How would you engage with the people in your life that question you in a way that might make you feel spiritually inadequate?
If we intentionally practice living out of our status as children of God’s promise, how does that change how we approach life?
This Week: Besides recentering our lives in who Jesus says we are – we should practice breaking the cycle of arguing theological points with others that will only guide us to anxiety and fear instead of loving God more. It’s ok to set boundaries in your spiritual life if you’re walking with Jesus and letting faith and your relationship with Him guide you.
Activity for Kids and Families:
On Sunday, in the main service, Glenn talked about living out of who Jesus says we are – loved and blessed children of God’s promise. We are sons and daughters of God so we are also co-heirs to His kingdom too.
If you were the king or queen of a country, what is the first thing you would do? What would your kingdom look like?
Gather the following supplies:
A piece of paper
Crayons/markers
Come up with a name for your kingdom
Create a logo or flag for your new country
Kings and queens make laws and enforce them. Some kings and queens will do whatever it takes to have all the power. Make a list of rules for your kingdom and then talk about what it would look like to live under those rules. Here are some examples: we shall always have dessert before dinner, my bedtime shall be 11:00 p.m. or my little brother/sister has to pick up my messes. Discuss why these rules make sense or how difficult it would be to live under all these rules if they were enforced on others. Try living by your set of rules for a day! Did the rules you created just make you happy? Were they hard for others to live by? Did it make their lives better?
Thankfully, God doesn’t rule that way. Our God is a peaceful God. God sent Jesus to make peace. As co-heirs of God’s kingdom, we should try to live peacefully with others always showing them that Jesus loves them as much as He loves us.
Read through 1 Corinthians 13:11, Galatians 3:10-12, Galatians 3:22-27
Don’t treat the Bible as a rule book. Being spiritually mature means following Jesus in faith – not checking off a list of do’s and don’ts.
Questions:
What are the problems with reading the Bible like a rule book?
Does putting your faith in Jesus ever feel uncertain to you? What makes it easier? What makes it more difficult?
On Sunday Glenn shared that when we put our faith in Jesus we move from being a spiritual child to a spiritual adult – what do you think he meant by this? And what would that look like in your everyday life?
Adulting is hard because you become responsible for the decisions you make – what was a time in life you wish there was an easy answer but had to take a step of faith for yourself?
This Week: Knowing that Jesus is with you and trusting that God wants the best for you – take steps of faith this week by being open to the dynamic relationship God wants with you and see where life takes you by relying on Him.
Activity for Kids and Families:
In the main service on Sunday, Glenn talked about not using the Bible as a book full of rules to follow and instead relying on our relationship with Jesus to be our guide and take steps of faith with Him.
To illustrate this you can gather the following supplies:
Family/Friends
Unbreakable object/toy
Have one person choose an object and hide it. Have a second person choose a direction and take steps. As that person is taking steps have the person who hid the object call out “getting warmer” or “getting colder” depending on the direction of the hidden object. When the object is found, switch roles! You can ask these questions after you play: Was it difficult to take that first step? Did you know where you were going? What were your feelings when you found the object? Taking steps toward the object is like listening to Jesus when you make decisions through faith. You just have to start taking steps and make sure you’re open to listening for the direction you need to go. This is the faith journey we get to have with Jesus in our lives every day.
Read through Galatians 2:11-20
Each of us has the opportunity to recalibrate our lives to center on Jesus and what the good news of living life secure in Him means.
Questions:
Is your identity based on your reputation or your relationship with Jesus? Do you place greater weight on how others view you or how God sees you?
If the real you came to church on a Sunday – would you cease to belong? What are some ways you can drop the mask and be the real you?
This Week: Think about one of the three areas Ryan offered this week as ways we often drift off-center: managing our reputation, people-pleasing, or being influenced into thinking of things in such a way that we doubt our own beliefs. Which one of these is causing us to drift off-center and how can we recalibrate and correct it?
Pray that God will show you ways to pursue that this week while realizing our identity is secure in our relationship with Jesus. “My reputation is secure in Jesus who loves me. The gospel is for me and the good news is mine. Help me not to lose alignment with that truth and steer me back on track.”
Here are some practical ways to recalibrate around each day, month, or year:
Begin each day with a prayer and a small step for the day to center your day around Jesus to be with you.
At the end of each month, approach the next with an attitude of anticipation on basing your life around nothing more than Christ. Make a plan or a goal of something to achieve with Christ individually or something you want with your family. Include your family in the process.
When you come to the end of a year and see what Christ has done in your life and through you, it can anchor you with a sense of confidence moving forward into the next year.
Activity for Kids and Families:
On Sunday, in main service, Ryan talked about how sometimes we listen to outside voices instead of simply following Jesus. Use the following activity to practically show how we can center our lives on Jesus and just focus on living by his voice and influence. Gather the following supplies:
Family or friends
Bandana/scarf
Masking tape/painters tape
Find some masking tape or painter’s tape and make a crazy path on the floor. You can create straight lines, turns, angles, etc. When your obstacle course is complete, choose a family member to blindfold with the bandana. Have them stand at the starting point of your tape line obstacle course. Have another individual stand at the ending point of the course. Once the blindfold is in place, spin them around a few times. Have the person at the end of the course begin to call out directions to the blindfolded person to guide them through the lines and help them stay on course. While they’re walking, have other family members call out in opposite directions and try to steer them off course.
After completing the course, take turns in being the direction giver versus the blindfolded person. You can ask each other these questions: Was it difficult to hear the one person giving accurate directions? Was it challenging to stay on course? Were you able to block out the other voices and just focus on one? Listening to Jesus and staying on course in life is like that. Life can have lots of obstacles and things in the way, but if we focus on Jesus’ voice we can get through anything because He can help us if we stay centered on Him.
Read Galatians 1:6-11 and Mark 1:14-15
Questions:
How can you change the way you think about your life in order to better live like the good news is something you trust on daily basis?
What are the areas in your life where, despite knowing Jesus is enough, you don’t always live that way?
For kids: On Sunday, in the main service, Glenn talked about the good news. What makes Jesus such good news for people?
This week: Pray for God to work in you and through you to focus on living like the good news is real and true for you and that you can trust it.
Activity for Kids and Families:
Gather the following supplies to help illustrate how Jesus was the good news for everyone!
1 backpack
5-6 midsize rocks
1 balloon
Go grab a backpack, find some rocks, place those rocks in the backpack, and take turns carrying them. It’s heavy, isn’t it? Life without Jesus can feel like that. It’s harder to walk. You get tired easily. Now, take the rocks out of the backpack, blow up a balloon, and put it inside the backpack instead. Try carrying it around again. It’s really light compared to the rocks right? It’s so much easier to walk and you don’t even feel the balloon there – right? That’s what Jesus did. He is the good news that switched out our heavy rocks for a lightweight balloon. That’s what He does in our lives every day. When you try to carry things by yourself – they can be heavy. The good news is that every day Jesus helps us and makes things not so heavy anymore.
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