Greg Surratt and Josh Surratt Founding Pastor and Teaching Pastor Seacoast Church
Copyright © 2013 by Greg Surratt and Josh Surratt for Make Room: Creating Space for God to Work.
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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotes are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright 1973, 1978, and 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishing House. All rights reserved. Copyright and use of the curriculum template is retained by Brett Eastman. Permission for use is given to Seacoast Church, Mt. Pleasant, SC in all forms of distribution.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Foreword by Chris Hodges Introduction to Make Room Using this Workbook Outline for Each Session SESSION ONE – Make Room for God SESSION TWO – Make Room for Relationships SESSION THREE – Make Room for a Miracle SESSION FOUR – Make Room for Rest SESSION FIVE – Make Room for Generosity SESSION SIX – Make Room for Mission
5 6 8 9 14 28 40 52 64 74
Appendix Frequently Asked Questions Small Group Agreement Small Group Calendar Purpose Team Roles Spiritual Partners’ Check-In Page Small Group Roster Circles of Life Memory Verses Prayer and Praise Report
86 89 90 91 93 94 95 96 97
Small Group Leaders Hosting an Open House Leading for the First Time Small Group Leadership 101 (Top Ten Ideas)
98 99 100
About The Authors Greg Surratt and Josh Surratt Biographies
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Wouldn’t you agree that all of us have been impacted by the people in our life? Good or bad, all of us can look back over our life and see how our life story has been impacted by people. Just over twelve years ago I was a young associate pastor at a great church in Louisiana with a dream to plant my own church. I knew very little about church planting and didn’t have the resources I needed to do it right. I was scared and overintroduced me to Greg Surratt.
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Honestly, meeting Greg was one of the best things that ever happened to me. He became a mentor to me in the area of church planting and our launch budget. Even after we started the church, he assured me the difference if needed. Twelve years later, Church of the Highlands has reached thousands of people. And what he did for me twelve years ago, we have been able to do for over 300 other church planters in a church planting organization we started together called ARC, the Association of Related Churches. I had a lot of potential that would have never been discovered or realized had it not been for the friendship I have with Greg. That’s how God works. He puts us together in relationships so that we can do more than we could have ever done on our own. But for so many of us, that’s not our story. Instead, many of us have had relationships that have been the greatest source of pain in our lives. And even though it’s not the right thing to do, it’s only natural that we guard our hearts from ever being hurt again by shutting people out. Some even have shut God out.
FOREWORD
And that’s why I’m glad you’re reading this book and reading it in a small group setting. Because it’s time to let God in again. And if real life change is going to happen, God will use relationships with others to do it. All you need to do is take the risk, open your heart again, and let God move. It’s time to make room.
Chris Hodges Founding Pastor, Church of the Highlands Birmingham, Alabama
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Hey gang! You’re going to watch and hear us say a number of times in the weeks to come that we are very glad you have decided venture into a small group of any kind, so let us tell you right from work in your life by deciding to get with a few others and learn, live, and grow together. Welcome! One of the great things about preparing and teaching this series for both of us was a healthy re-examination of our own lives in relation to making room for God to work. Believe us, this is a process that you never get done with, and we’re on the journey with you.
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Another conviction that has come to us related to this series is God not only wants us to make room for Him in our lives; He wants us to make room for Him in our small groups, in our church, and our community. Over the next few weeks we will be talking about Making Room for God in our lives. Then we will look at other areas where we should Make Room: for God, for Relationships, for a Miracle, for Rest, for Generosity and for Mission. Realize that each time your group meets, you’re creating space for God to work. We all know (or should know) we can’t make God move, but we can Make Room for God to move. We can create space and invite God to work. We can open the door and invite Him in. Can you imagine what God might do if we did this as church, if you did this as a small group, or if you decided to walk it out personally? We would take ground in the Kingdom! Lives would be changed! Our community would be transformed!
INTRODUCTION Make Room
We’ve really enjoyed preparing these sessions and we’re looking forward to spending the next few weeks with you and want to thank you up front for your time. We believe your discussions throughout Make Room could potentially be among the most powerful you’ve your life. But you’ll have to decide that six weeks from now. For this moment, we hope you enjoy your time together, creating space for God to work.
Greg and Josh Surratt
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OUTLINE OF EACH SESSION
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USING THIS WORKBOOK (Stuff to Help You Have a Great Small Group Experience!)
1 Notice in the Table of Contents there are three sections: (1)
Sessions; (2) Appendix; and (3) Small Group Leaders. Familiarize yourself with the Appendix parts. Some of them will be used in the sessions themselves.
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If you are leading or co-leading a small group, the section for Small Group Leaders will give you some hard-learned experiences of others that will encourage you and help you avoid many common obstacles to effective small group leadership.
3 Use this workbook as a guide, not a straightjacket. If the group
responds to the lesson in an unexpected but honest way, go with that. If you think of a better question than the next one in the lesson, ask it. Take to heart the insights included in the Frequently Asked Questions pages and the Small Group Leaders section.
Most people want to live a life that is orderly, meaningful, and satisfying, but few achieve this by themselves. And most small groups struggle to balance all of God’s purposes in their meetings. Groups tend to overemphasize one of the various reasons for meeting. Rarely is there a healthy balance that includes teaching, evangelism, ministry, practical exercises, and worship. That’s why we’ve included all of these elements in this study so you can live a healthy, balanced spiritual life over time. A typical group session for Make Room will include the following:
THEME. The lessons we will learn during Make Room are best illustrated in the lives of real people. Each session’s teaching will include
4 Enjoy your small group experience.
for that session in their lives.
5 Now read the Outline for Each Session on the next pages so that
COMING TOGETHER.
The foundation for spiritual growth is an intimate connection with
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God and his family. A few people who really know you and who earn your trust provide a place to experience the life Jesus invites you to live. This section of each session typically offers you two options. You can get to know your whole group by using the icebreaker question(s), or you can check in with one or two group members—your spiritual partner(s)—for a deeper connection and encouragement in your spiritual journey. As your group begins, use the Small Group Agreement, Small Group Calendar, and Purpose Team Roles to help your group see how everyone has a part in making a small group come to life. As the group develops intimacy, use the Spiritual Partner’s Check-In Page and the Prayer and Praise Report to keep the group connected.
LEARNING TOGETHER / DVD TEACHING SEGMENT. Serving as a companion to the Make Room small group discussion book is the Make Room video teaching. This DVD is designed to combine teaching segments from your pastors along with leadership insights and personal stories of life change. Using the teaching video will add value to this 6-week commitment of doing life together and discovering how walking with Christ changes everything.
(NOTE: Questions with a * indicate the crucial ones to use if time is short)
GROWING TOGETHER. Here is where you will process as a group the teaching you heard and saw. The focus won’t be on accumulating information but on how we should live in light of the Word of God. We want to help you apply the insights from Scripture practically, creatively, and from your heart as well as your head. At the end of the day, allowing the timeless truths from God’s Word to transform our lives in Christ is our greatest aim.
DEEPER BIBLE STUDY. If you have time and want to dig deeper into more Bible passages about the topic at hand, we’ve provided additional passages and questions. Your group may choose to do study homework ahead of each meeting in order to cover more biblical material. If you prefer not to do study homework, the Deeper Bible Study section will provide you with plenty to discuss within the group. These options allow individuals or the whole group to expand their study, while still accommodating those who can’t do homework or are new to your group.
SHARING TOGETHER. Here we let the truth we are learning travel the 18 inches from our cranium (mind) to our cardium (heart, emotions, and will). Here is where the Bible urging us to “be doers of the Word, not just hearers” (James 1:22) comes into play. Many people skip over this
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aspect of the Christian life because it’s scary, relationally awkward, or simply too much work for their busy schedules. But Jesus wanted all of his disciples to help outsiders connect with him, to know him personally, and to carry out his commands. This doesn’t necessarily mean preaching on street corners. It could mean welcoming a few newcomers into your group, hosting a short-term group in your home, or walking through this study with a friend. In this study, you’ll have an opportunity to go beyond Bible study to biblical living.
GOING TOGETHER. life can ultimately be measured as a way of commandments: “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29–31 NIV). The group session will close with time for personal response to God and group prayer, seeking to keep this crucial commandment before us at all times. This is a good place to have different group members close in prayer, even when the instructions don’t specify. You can also
their Prayer and Praise Report or take a little time to meet with a Spiritual Partner.
DAILY DEVOTIONALS. Each week on the Daily Devotionals pages we provide scriptures to this section to seek God on your own throughout the week. This time at home should begin and end with prayer. Don’t get in a hurry; take enough time to hear God’s direction.
WEEKLY MEMORY VERSES. For each session we have provided a memory verse that emphasizes an important truth from the session. This is an optional exercise, but we believe that memorizing Scripture can be a vital you to give this important habit a try.
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Welcome to Make Room! Enjoy the company around you on this brief journey and remember it’s a small chapter in a larger story God is writing in your life. Let’s discover together what it means to live such a remarkable life and what steps we can take to make sure it’s the life we’re living.
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Space, as the old Star Trek program informed us, is the Law tells us that our stuff always mysteriously expands The fact is, whether we talk about space as our schedule, our homes, or our lives, most of us report it’s all packed and anything sounds impossible. Or at least only possible if something goes. Creating space for God to work means we have to decide what goes and what stays.
SESSION 1 Make Room for God
As we will see in Make Room, everybody has a challenge in making room for what really matters. So much other stuff tends to clutter up the space. But here’s the test: it doesn’t matter what we say is important to us if we don’t make room for it. What we make room for is what’s really important to us. How much room we make for God says a lot about our relationship with Him.
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COMING TOGETHER During each session, we will begin with a question or brief activity designed to “put us on the same page” for the session. Since this minutes to make sure everyone knows names. You may want to Appendix.
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1 As you begin, take time to pass around a copy of the Small
Group Roster on page 94, a sheet of paper, or one of your study guides opened to the Small Group Roster. Have everyone write down their contact information. Ask someone to make copies or type up a list with everyone’s information and email it to the group this week.
2 As you can tell by the title of this series, choices are important. but the ones you make. Make Room implies a choice. Describe a choice that you made at least ten years ago that you believe has made a big difference in your life. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ___________________________________
3 Whether your group is new or on and review your values together. On page 89 is a Small Group Agreement with the values we’ve found most useful in sustaining healthy, balanced groups. We recommend that you choose one or two values—ones you haven’t previously focused on or have room to grow in—to emphasize during this study. Choose
ones that will take your group to the next stage of intimacy and spiritual health. If your group is new, you may want to focus on welcoming newcomers or on sharing group ownership. Any group will quickly move from being the leader’s group to our group if everyone understands the goals of the group and shares a small role. See the Team Roles on page 91 for help on how to do this well. We recommend that you rotate host homes on a regular basis and let the hosts lead the meeting. We’ve come to realize that healthy groups rotate leadership. This helps to develop every member’s ability to shepherd a few people in a safe environment. Even Jesus gave others the opportunity to serve alongside him (Mark 6:30– 44). Look at the FAQs on page 86 for additional information about hosting or leading the group.
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LEARNING TOGETHER
GROWING TOGETHER
Throughout the sessions in Make Room we’re going to be hearing some pointed teaching from Greg and Josh Surratt as well as some stories from people who have been involved in making room.
In the questions that follow, you will review and expand on the teaching you just experienced.
most impossible to make room for God. But almost isn’t impossible, and with God all things are possible. With that possibility in mind, let’s begin our teaching for this session:
How did you relate to Greg and Debbie’s story of a full life which was altered when they made room for a child? What parallels can you think of from your own life?
DVD SESSION 1
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Greg made the following statement early in the teaching: We can’t make God move, but we can make room for God to move. What examples come to mind that illustrate that point for you?
Use the space below for notes, questions, or comments you want to bring up in the discussion later. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________
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After admitting that he usually aims for three points, Greg reveals he’s going to make two main points in the session to teach what we have to do in order to create room for God to move: a. Obey God in the small stuff. b. Become people of prayer. Before we talk about the details of these points, which one struck you as the harder of the two? Why?
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7 The love story of Isaac
and Rebekah in Genesis 24 begins with the encounter between a wise servant named Eliezer and a wise young woman named Rebekah. Faced with the
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wife for his master’s son, Eliezer prayed this prayer: “May it be that when I say to a girl, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’--let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” (Genesis 24:14 NIV). Why might the test of service be an effective part of choosing a mate?
8 Rebekah made room in her life to provide water for a stranger
and his camels. How did God move in her situation?
9 What actions by Moses and Jonah did Greg use to further
illustrate a small step for man can make it possible for a large step from God? What actions for God in today’s world would resemble what Moses and Jonah did?
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There’s little doubt that Jesus made prayer a part of His daily life. Greg used John 14:13-14 as one of the hand-offs Jesus used to tell us we should follow His pattern: “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (NIV). Why do you think prayer is an essential part of any effort to make room for God in our lives?
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In explaining the second main point about becoming people of prayer, Greg listed three prayers we can use each day to create room in our lives for God to work: Lord, what do you want me to do today?
Lord, is there someone who is not on my mind that should be? Lord, is there something I need to do that I’ll forget unless you remind me? Which of these prayers do you think would create the most room for God in your life? Why?
12 When Greg explained that prayer aligns us with God’s will,
what did he mean?
one or two of these do you think would create a in your life for God to work if you put it to practice?
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GOING DEEPER BIBLE STUDY You can explore the following Bible passages behind the teaching for this session as a group (if there is time) or on your own between sessions. Read Romans 12:1-21. This is the part of his letter to the Romans where Paul launches into very practical instructions. He begins with “Therefore,” basically saying, “If everything I said in chapters 1-11 is true, then here’s how to make room for it to be true in your life:
Read Psalm 139:118. In this entire Psalm, David examines both his relationship with God and the amazing evidence of God’s care for him. In a sense David is making room for God even as he speaks to Him: Identify some of the ways you see David making room for God in this Psalm.
How does the description of “living for God? happen when a person makes room for God?
The theme of verses 3-8 is service and the way God makes it possible for each of us to serve others in a unique way. How does service to others make room for God?
If God fearfully and wonderfully made you, in what ways do you think He included space for Him to work?
SHARING TOGETHER Verses 9-21 are a series of small acts of the way God wants us to behave. Which
Now it’s time to make some personal applications to all we’ve been thinking about in the last few minutes.
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13 When you think about Greg’s two
main points, (1) Obey God in the small stuff; (2) Become a person of prayer,
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accept or to put into practice? Why?
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welcoming new people to the group. Who might you invite to join us for these sessions? If someone came to mind, write their name(s) here:
Allow everyone to answer this question: “How can we pray for you this week?” Be sure to write prayer requests on your Prayer and Praise Report on page 97. Close the session in prayer. Encourage each other to pray audibly for others in the group.
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sense God calling you to practice more consistent obedience in the small stuff that He can use to make a big difference?
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If you could put into words one new personal idea or challenge you are taking from this session, what would it be? How did the interview with various people at the beginning of the DVD impact your understanding of making room for God?
DAILY REFLECTIONS These are daily reviews of the key Bible verses and related others that will help you think about and apply the insights from this session.
Day 1 – Revelation 3:20 Hearing the Knocking
GOING TOGETHER During these sessions we are doing things “together:” learning, thinking, growing, praying, choosing, etc. Part of meeting together is how we live when we aren’t together. Here are some questions to clarify our shared purposes until we meet again.
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style of these sessions is an emphasis on seeking and
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. “
Although this is often used as a verse describing how Jesus see it as true of your experience with Christ throughout life? _________________________________ ______________________________ ____________________________
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GREG SURRATT
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Greg is the founding pastor of Seacoast Church, one of the early adopters of the multisite model and author of Ir-Rev-Rend. Located in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, Seacoast has been recognized by various media as an strategies for church growth and development. Seacoast combines a unique approach to highly participatory worship with a heart for missional evangelism. Greg calls their weekends of mystical worship experience, done in multiple locations, very inexpensively.� Seacoast currently has 34 weekend worship experiences in more than a dozen separate locations. Greg is also a founding board member of the Association of Related Churches (ARC) arcchurches.com, a church planting network that has given birth to over 300 churches in the last 11 years. Greg is married to a very hip grandma, has 4 children, 9 grandchildren and enjoys and Gamecocks.
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SMALL GROUP LEADERS
SMALL GROUP LEADERS
JOSH SURRATT
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Josh joined the staff at Seacoast in 2001 and has served in several roles including 4 years as the campus pastor at Seacoast’s original location in Mt. Pleasant, SC. In addition to being a member of Seacoast’s teaching team, his current role as Pastor of Worship Experiences has him overseeing the Sunday worship experiences on more than a dozen of Seacoast’s campuses. He also leads the Creative Team in the planning of the weekend services at Seacoast. He married his wife Lisa on May 5, 2001. They currently live on Sullivan’s Island, SC with their 2 kids Miles, 5 and Greta Kate, 3. He hopelessly cheers for all Chicago sports teams and the Clemson Tigers, who have made it a habit to beat up on the South Carolina Gamecocks over the past century.
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MORE BY SEACOAST CHURCH
“It’s all about relationships. Training is second-to-none. relevant and timely. It’s invaluable!’’ -Peter Haas Substance Church - Minneapolis, MN
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The Inside Track The Inside Track is a four week process that allows you to meet people on a similar journey, hear about the vision of the church, take a closer look at how God has wired you and explore what it would look like for you to get involved. You’ll come away with the knowledge, resources and relationships needed to take your next step at Seacoast. Whether you’ve been here for a long time or if Track is the best next step for you. Contact your campus directly for details. Week 1: Your Church Week 2: Your Purpose Week 3: Your Mission Week 4: Your Destination
713 Long Point Road | Mount Pleasant SC 29464 | 843.881.2100 | seacoast.org
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START A CHURCH and, above all, relationships that you can count on at every turn. It’s why 93% of all ARC-sponsored churches thrive.
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