Friday 1 November 
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All Things New - Connect Groups

We invite you to follow along with us as we explore our new theme All Things New. You can use this material for group discussion or personal Bible study. Check out each week's section, watch the introductory video to each week's sub theme and read and reflect your way through this month's passages.

God is in the business of making all things new

Throughout the Bible, and across human history, and in this current age, God surprises us with new things. As Spring gathers pace, what are the new things that God is showing you in your life? In your community? In your corner of the Kingdom?

All this month we’re thinking about newness with God. We will explore the tension of how an eternal unchanging God can at the same time being doing new things. We will be asking what is ‘newness’ anyway? What does it mean to be new? Or to be made new?

God always gives us new opportunities. New ways to see, to understand. God’s love is new for you each day, it doesn’t go stale. It’s alive. It’s simultaneously ancient and new.

The Spirit is moving and all things are being made new. Even you.

So when we come to God with the things that are broken, God replies: It’s not written off, discarded, thrown aside, irredeemable. It can be made new.

Download the Discussion Questions as a PDF

These discussion questions adapt our monthly themes for small Connect Groups or personal Bible study (look up the All Things New Resource Pack PDF for more information on this month's theme). The questions are divided into 5 parts to correspond with the 5 weeks of the Daily Worship theme. They are offered as a guideline and there is no need to go through all the given questions in a single session, or in the following sequence. Feel free to pick and choose, or adapt to what interests you or your group.

Find out more on this month's theme: All Things New

What are Connect Groups? 

‘Connect Groups’ is the name we give to small informal gatherings who decide to meet together to explore the Bible alongside our monthly themes. These groups are independent and folk can simply set up their own Connect Group themselves, meeting together with friends and family on their own basis. In this time of Lockdowns when people can’t get together physically this material can still be used to meet together online.

Each month we produce a range of questions to adapt our themes for group discussion. The material is offered as a starting point and there is no need to go through all the questions.You can pick and choose, tailoring it to suit the needs and interests of your group. Each ‘Part’ could form the basis of a weekly roughly 90 minute meeting but you could break it up differently. Let us know if you would like to find out more about Connect Groups and different ways of linking into the Sanctuary First community.

We all come to the Bible with our own questions, insights and barriers. The guiding principle we have in writing these is to ask questions we don’t already know the answer to! Our hope is to facilitate open-ended discussions. Often the most valuable parts of group chats are the bits that go off on bizarre tangents. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Jesus knows a thing or two about bizarre tangents…

Need some advice on starting your own Connect Group? Get in touch.