This guide was created to facilitate a DNA group's dive into our sermon series on Proverbs.
Discover
Take a few moments to discuss what you just learned from CJ Bergman's sermon and read Proverbs 4:20-23. Here are a few questions to facilitate your discussion as a group.
Q: What is a water well like (for example in a town or farm)? Why are they important? What happens if they are poisoned, damaged, or neglected?
Q: Proverbs 4 says our hearts are a wellspring of life and we should guard them? How is our heart like a wellspring? What happens when it’s poisoned or unhealthy? What about when your heart is flourishing and thriving?
Q: If our hearts truly are the wellspring of our lives? How should we guard and examine them?
If we don’t learn how to bring our hearts before God and examine what’s really going on inside of ourselves, we’ll close ourselves off to one another and to God. We’ll stop loving one another. This is one of the biggest challenges to the Church in America today: we don’t pay attention to our hearts. We are often content to we drive forward with good, solid, heady theology and not pay attention to what’s going on inside of us and we live isolated with festering wounds.
Nurture:
Therefore, let’s turn inward toward our own heart and beliefs. Explore how and why we care for our souls.
Ray Ortlund says, ““Life does not flow from the outside, in. It flows from the inside, out.” The way we live is a direct reflection of what we believe and what is going on in our hearts.
Q: What is currently “coming out” of your life? What does that reveal what you believe and what is going on inside your soul?
Q: How do you need to deal with your own heart? (Your motives, attitudes, wounds, desires, passions, discouragements, etc.)
Act:
Spend these final moments exploring the practical implications on your community and city. Essentially we’re asking: how will we care for our souls?
Q: What would it be like to live in a community where everyone was aware of what was going on in their own hearts?
Q: What are the barriers to making space for our hearts?
Q: How could we encourage and support each other in caring for our hearts?