These questions are connected to the message, “A Revolution Hiding in Plain Sight (The Lord’s Prayer) Part 2,” from Feb. 13, 2022. You can watch it here.
Dive In: There are few, if any, passages more familiar than The Lord’s Prayer. This is one that is particularly helpful to read in a few different translations (e.g. The Message, N. T. Wright’s The New Testament for Everyone, Contemporary English Version, Amplified Bible, The Living Bible).
Reflect:
- As you read the prayer in a variety of translations (YouVersion & Biblegateway apps offer countless different translations), what differences do you notice between them?
- What from the sermon was new, insightful, challenging, or shocking to you? Discuss. How might it impact your day-to- day life? Your praying? Any other areas of your life?
- Do you tend to have ‘spiritual’ and ‘material/physical’ categories for life — those activities and practices that are, or seem, more sacred than others? What difference would it make in your every day, to see ALL of life as sacred?
- Why is it critical that we don’t spiritualize the Kingdom of God but recognize that it has tangible implications? How do we hold in tension the reality that the Kingdom of God is both now and future?
- Why is this prayer a prayer of hope?
- How is it a prayer that is:
- a vision for life as God intends it,
- a call to action,
- a cry from the marginalized,
- a challenge to the privileged,
- an ultimatum to the halls of power,
- and an invitation to be all in?
Act on it:
- As a group, try praying this prayer one line at a time and pause long enough after each line to reflect on the ways that the Holy Spirit is challenging or encouraging you in that.
- Every day this week pray only one section of the Lord’s Prayer, starting with “Father.” Dwell in that one word/phrase, allowing it to be a template for the rest of your praying.