11th March 2012

Cell Questions Faith, Hope and Love

We are starting a short series on Faith, Hope and Love looking at our call to respond to Gods Mission. This short series links in with what the Bishop of Southwark (here a couple of weeks ago) was sharing about in his call to Mission to the whole diocese. In Sundays sermon we looked at the area of Faith. Hebrews says (Heb 11:1) Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. When Springfield was first planted those who planted it believed that God was calling them to make an impact for the sake of Gods Kingdom; they had not seen the results but they trusted in God to lead them. As was shared on Sunday (through the leaflet handed out PS If you dont have one then they are available from the Church Centre or next Sunday!) we have seen that this vision more and more coming to be. We then looked at the story of the Woman at the Well in John chapter 4 and looked at some of the key aspects of it (and especially to do with faith): 1. Jesus takes himself out of the accepted comfort zones. This woman was an outcast (coming in the middle of the day rather than in the morning or the evening), she was a Samaritan (the Jews and Samaritans were great enemies) and she was a woman. These were all reasons why it would be expected that Jesus would avoid her. He doesnt he talks to her. 2. Secondly, Jesus asks her to serve Him. He asks her to give Him a drink of water. We need to stop seeing everyone as someone that we have to serve, sometimes we need to go humbly and find that they can serve us and therefore that there is more ability to trust one another. It happened with our planting on Roundshaw that God swung open the gates so much more because we were approached to plant on Roundshaw even though we wanted to! 3. Jesus has prophetic insight into her life. We can often find that as we are involved in Gods Mission that He gives us insight into what we should do and how we should do something. Sometimes we can get the feeling or the idea that we should do something and it can have much more significance than we can realize. 4. Jesus points her to Himself. Ultimately that is what we are about we point people to Jesus. Read John 4: 5-42 1. What figure most encouraged you about the leaflet that was handed out on Sunday (if you dont have one make sure that there are some there for the cell!)? 2. When do you feel out of your comfort zone? How does it make you feel? Are there some people that you find it difficult to accept or to serve?

3. What is the greatest risk you have taken for God in the past year? What happened? 4. How has your cell group helped you to grow in faith?