Week 4 | Experience New Life
Summary of this week’s material: Everyone’s on a journey towards Christ. In this message, we reflect on baptism, one of the milestones along that journey.
How to use it: After watching/listening to this week’s message, from February 27, 2022, use the questions to go deeper into the message, with your group…or on your own. The questions will introduce you to the topic, reflect content from the sermon, go ‘Beyond the Message’, & get you thinking about practical applications for your life.
1) Recall a journey that you have gone on and share some of the milestones (people, places, events) from that journey.
2) Our spiritual journey has milestone moments, too, where we tend to experience new life in, around, and beyond us. Share a story of a new life moment that you experienced or heard of.
3) What stands out to you as the most compelling insight from this week’s sermon?
4) Pastor Mark offered the following definition of baptism: A Christian ordinance involving water that publicly symbolizes a believer’s identity with Jesus.
a) From your knowledge, or through a Google search, what is an ordinance?
b) What are the two ordinances that we participate in at West Meadows? (*hint~ read Matthew 28:19-20 & Luke 22:19)
5) If you were baptized, by what mode were you baptized? What were the three reasons Pastor Mark stated to baptize by immersion? (*hint~ what does the Greek word for baptize literally mean? & read Matthew 3:16 & Romans 6:3-4)
6) Some people are under the misunderstanding that baptism is necessary for salvation. Read Ephesians 2:8-9 and discuss what these verses point out.
7) There seems to be a modern Western understanding that baptism is optional, yet this mentality is almost unheard of in other parts of the world…even in religiously closed, hostile nations. Reflect on this statement. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
8) If you have been baptized, how can you retain or regain the significance of that moment? If you haven’t been baptized, what may be stopping you?
For those interested in baptism, contact Pastor Mark at mark@westmeadows.org or call the church office.
