Launch Kit
Conversation 3
Our identity and our mission is clear. Now what?
“How do I live it out?”
“How do we live it out together?”
“Can we really be disciples and missionaries like this?”
Answer these today in your conversation together.
⚙️ Supplies needed: Refer back to your Names + Faces board or document. It’s helpful to have your specific “who” in mind as you talk “how” we will engage them.
Today’s Conversation
Gospel Influence
💡 Bottom Line
God calls us all to live as His family of servant missionaries. We all become enlisted in His service and His mission. While we cannot control how others respond to us, we can control our proximity and how we display the Gospel to them.
📜 Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:1
TIP: Will someone look up 2 Cor 5:17? Read until 6:1 for the full picture.
🙋 Ask a Question
TIP: What ministry has God assigned to us? / What does this text call us — “we are [blank] for Christ”?
💡Explain
God makes His appeal to non-Christians through us
His appeal is to be reconciled to God
🙋 Ask: can we force them to respond?
TIP: No! We cannot. The goal here is to get the group talking about what we can and cannot control.
💬 Discuss Together
TIP: What can we control, change, or influence? How can we best make God’s appeal to them?
⏭️ Next, we will be intentional to influence them towards the Gospel.
In a Picture
We all do things like eat, celebrate, work, and rest (or recreate).
Non-christians all do these too!
Mission is right here
We can do these things with Gospel purpose
Our GC can do these things together and on purpose
Re-orient around the Gospel
💡 Bottom Line
Our everyday lives can take on a Gospel purpose or pattern — individually, as a family, and as a GC, we can become intentional about using meals, celebrations, work, and recreation in order to share stories, bless others, or listen to their stories.
📌 Think of our Names + Faces: is there room in your/our calendar to be God’s ambassador in their lives?
TIP: Consider staying here to explore where the room is, where it isn’t, and why that is.
🙋 Ask a Question
TIP: How can our everyday life reflect a Kingdom purpose? How can our everyday lives be shaped by Gospel patterns?
🖍️ Write it all Down
TIP: Don’t deal in the abstract — have everyone write down their actual calendar on the attached PDF. Mark what needs to start, stop, or continue in order to be intentional about the Gospel.
💡 Clarifying “Story, Bless, Listen”
TIP: These are new concepts which will be increasingly discussed in the future, so they don’t need to explained in full yet. Below is a brief explainer.
Story is how we understand life and the stories we tell about our lives. As Christians, we understand life in light of God’s story and increasingly see our lives changed by His story. Our goal is to help others also understand their life in light of God’s story and see their life story changed too.
Bless is how God’s story with us starts (Gen. 12): we have been blessed to be a blessing. In a world where everyone is a consumer and nothing is free, we want to be gift-givers who do to others as our Father has done toward us. The ultimate gift or blessing is to give someone Jesus (Gal. 3).
Listen is how we learn peoples’ stories and ways to bless them specifically. We want to be slower to speak, quicker to listen. As we do, we will hear ways God’s story could intersect with their story or reimagine and change it. We cannot speak Gospel truths well without hearing their Gospel needs first.
Pause to Discuss
What are we learning as we discuss this? What is God showing you about yourself, our mission, or the people around us?
What do we need to do right now? What simple actions or changes can we make to be more “gospel intentional” this week? How about long-term as a GC?
What “celebrations” or moments could we join in in our community? (The things they are already doing, in the places they are going; we join in.)
What ways could we include others in our everyday activities? (Parts of our week that other GC members could participate in to display Gospel-oriented family; think kids’ sports, weekend hikes, meals together, etc.)
“
What would our GC look like, feel like, or sound like if we really re-oriented our lives together around gospel purposes?
Commitment
💡 Bottom Line
Re-orient intentionally around the Gospel. Set clear ways you will “GC together” sustainably and sketch the next 30 days as an example for yourselves to start from.
🫱🏻🫲🏾 Let’s get clear on:
Hosting: Whose home(s) will we gather in? Will we rotate homes? (Who/when) What will a host be responsible for? (Meal, main course only, lead conversation, or simply a space to gather)
Food: How will we eat together? How will share the load of meal prep? Meal clean-up? (Divide and conquer courses vs. sides; own a night - all details; glassware vs. plastic plates)
Kids: How will kids play a part? Can kids help prep or clean up? Will we discuss content during a meal (captive audience) or expect them to stick around after? Do we need someone to supervise the kids or can they be in a separate, safe place? How can we rotate and share this so that it is sustainable / not always the same person responsible?
Communication: How will we do the necessary planning for each week? Who will communicate the plan and how? (Group chat, text, email, etc.)
🙏 Pray Together: seal the commitment
Take Home
Pray for our names + faces
Stick to what you sketched on your calendar (oriented around the Gospel)
Practice the basics of blessing others and listening to their stories (see the guide for help)
>>
Come prepared for our next conversation!
Include the Kids!
⚙️ Suggested tools: paper; crayons or markers
🫱🏻🫲🏾 How to help: older kids help younger kids; all GC members can help too — the more involved, the better! GC members can help give examples.
❓ What about…if kids give “bad answers”? Affirm the good, adjust what’s wrong, add what’s missing.
💡 Bottom Line
We’ve learned that the Gospel is how God offers to save every man, woman, and child through Jesus.
We’ve learned that when we believe the Gospel, He saves us and shows us how to live like Him. He also shows us who to share that with. But now the question is how.
Today, we’re going to find out how.
🖍️ Draw a Plate + Favorite Food
TIP: “Can everyone draw a plate for food and put your favorite food on the plate?” … Follow up, engage the group: “what did you draw?”
🙋 Ask a Question
TIP: When we sit down to eat, we of course eat food. But what else do we do when we eat together? (Tell stories, share about our day)
🖍️ Draw a Crown
TIP: Can you draw a crown above your plate? We draw the crown to represent Jesus’ Kingdom. How do you think Jesus eats with people?
💡 Explain: Jesus ate, listened, & told stories
TIP: Jesus ate with all kinds of people. It let Him slow down, share with other people, and listen to them. He would hear their stories and their questions, then respond with His own stories about what God is like! (Remember His stories called parables? The Kingdom of heaven is like a dinner party…like a woman looking for a coin…etc.) We want to do the same thing.
🙏 Pray together
TIP: Let’s pray together…