Many of us love Jesus, and have made Him the centre of our lives, but we still experience anxiety, fear and discouragement in our lives. This week we start our new summer series, “Beneath the Surface: Following Jesus into Mental and Emotional Wholeness” with Ken Dyck, founder and executive director of Freedom Session. Ken will be helping us to dive into the important topic of mental health, and how we, as followers of Jesus, can experience healing for ourselves and help others.

This week, we’ll begin this journey of exploration – thinking about the challenges that can get in the way of our flourishing. We’ll consider what scripture has to tell us about the life that God has for us and the steps we can take to deal with our inner lives in light of His truth. Join us as we begin to enter into a life of freedom.

Small Group Discussion Guide

On Your Own Exercise

This week we’ll look at the most foundational relationship of our lives – our relationship with our heavenly Father. God made us, and because of that fact, we are the objects of His unchanging affection.

God reveals Himself to people who genuinely seek Him through Jesus, and through Jesus our desire for a relationship with the Father is possible. This week we will think about how we receive the love God pours out on us and how we can enter into a deeper relationship with Him.

Small Group Discussion Guide

On Your Own Exercise

This week we’re continuing our series “Beneath the Surface: Following Jesus into Mental and Emotional Wholeness.” We’ll be taking a look at the life of Joseph from Genesis 37-44 and then focus on chapter 45.

Throughout his life, Joseph experienced significant trauma at the hands of people he should have been able to trust. God helped and healed Joseph in the areas where he had experienced trauma and used him incredibly to show the goodness of God to his family and many other people. This week, we’ll consider how we can follow in Joseph’s footsteps – finding a healthy resolution to our trauma.

Small Group Discussion Guide

On Your Own Exercise

In Matthew 18, the disciple Peter approaches Jesus to ask Him about forgiving others. Peter approaches Jesus with the assumption that there are limits to forgiveness – one person can only forgive so much. In response, Jesus tells Peter a story that provides an insight into God’s forgiveness and makes it clear that there are no boundaries on forgiveness.

This week we pick up our series, “Beneath the Surface: Following Jesus into Mental and Emotional Wholeness” by digging into Jesus’ teaching and learning how we can begin to understand what God has done for us in Jesus and begin to apply the forgiveness we have received to the people around us.

Small Group Discussion Guide

On Your Own Exercise

Unresolved conflict takes up a tremendous amount of mental and emotional energy. Our culture often advises us that in conflict situations, it is best to dissolve the relationship. This is a temporary solution at best that leaves us with emotional wreckage. In Matthew 5, Jesus makes it clear that being reconciled with the people around us is vitally important in our walk with Him.

Luke 19 describes an encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus. Because of his meeting with the Lord, and as a result of the interest and concern Jesus had for him, Zacchaeus committed to making things right with anyone he had harmed. Making things right with others is an essential part of being set free and being made whole.

Small Group Discussion Guide

On Your Own Exercise

Dale Carnegie once said that, “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Our name is the word for who we are, it is the symbol of our identity. In Scripture, names have huge significance because they provide such a critical clue to who we are. Think of names like Abraham, Isaac, or the most important name of all – Emmanuel - that spoke to who the person was and how they would act in the world.

Most of us carry around names beyond the one we were given when we were born. Some are good, and some are not so good. These are things we believe about ourselves based on what we’ve experienced or what we’ve been told. This week we will wrap up our summer series with a message entitled In Search of a New Name and will look at how God will give us an identity rooted in the work and righteousness of Jesus.

Small Group Discussion Guide

On Your Own Exercise