The God Experiment Week 3

Welcome to Week Three of The God Experiment! During these 12-weeks, we are personally testing the extreme nature of God and talking about it with others.  Building on Pastor Josh’s weekend message, we will be unpacking his content and taking it further. Feel free to use this guide or change it to fit the dynamics of your unique huddle. Reminder: While people can journey at their own pace, Monday (January 17) starts Week Three of The God Experiment. Pastor Josh will be teaching on the weekends and huddles will be written on this schedule. 

Icebreaker: Getting the conversation started. 

  1. In your daily readings, do you have any “ah-ha” moments, questions, or challenges to what you’ve been reading? Maybe share something you wrote in the “Seek and Simmer”section for this week – pages 63 & 64. 
  2. Optional: Need something lighter to open your huddle? Try this…Pastor Josh opened this weekend’s message joking about the funny things he does as an external processor. Are you more of an internal processor (“decide now/talk later”) or an external processor (“talk now/decide later”)?

Focus Questions: Going deeper together.  

  1. On Sunday, we ended the service by pressing into praise to unlock more of God’s presence in our lives. How was this experience for you? After Sunday’s service, has God unlocked anything new in you or in your life?  (Note: If you are leading a huddle of not-yet believers or non-Lakelanders, consider asking this: One aspect that will set us up for this week is the claim that thankfulness is a powerful doorway to experience even greater things in life? Do you agree or disagree? How have you experienced this?)
  2. Pastor Josh taught us this weekend that “Praise (thanksgiving) will be one of the fastest ways to experience God’s presence or activity in your life” and also “If you want the supernatural things of God, you have to obey and believe supernaturally.” Share about a time when you intentionally pursued praise/thanksgiving. 
  3. Is there a situation in your life where you find it difficult to pursue praise and thanksgiving? Why do you think that is? Share more about that if you are comfortable.  
  4. Turn to Psalm 145. (Hint: Ask for volunteers to help read the chapter)
  5. Pick two or three of these questions to work through as a group: (1) What do you like about this passage? (2) What is confusing about this passage? (3) What does this passage say about God? (4) What does it say about us/humanity? (5) How do we obey this passage? (6) Who else needs to hear this passage?
  6. Pastor Josh challenged us to flavor our journey this week with thanksgiving and praise to break open our awareness of His presence. Close your group in a prayer experience. This could be a group prayer or you can listen to worship music as people write down things they are thankful to God for. Debrief this experience together. 

Final Challenge: Praise and be thankful this week. Keep watching for what God will unlock in your life. 

Close by praying for one another and gathering names/contact information for your weekly report.