Uncapped, Week 1 | This Week

For leadersBefore you startLeader note, central theme, and two suggested activities

Leader Note

Welcome to the first week of group.

This week is about building the foundation of connection in your group. Story Cards is a great way to do that, and it is ready to run as is.

Your First Night has the group overview questions if you want them. What this group is, when you meet, and who does what.

If this is your first time leading, we do our best to get the questions to you by noon on Monday each week.

One more thing worth doing this week. Review the group ground rules with your group. Do that again every time somebody new joins. It is a good reminder for the people already there, and it is how the values of the group get said out loud.

Central Theme

The question you are asking decides what your life with God becomes.

Three of the four are comparison questions, and comparison either puffs you up or shuts you down depending on the room you happen to be in. The fourth one comes from creation. It asks what God actually built you to do, and nobody answers that by looking around.

Suggested activity

Story Cards

A deck of photos that gets a room of near strangers telling the truth in ten minutes

Open Story Cards →

Suggested activity

Dinner Group Guidelines

Show up. Join in. Be real.

Three guidelines, and they carry the whole group. It is not required to cover this on the first night, but it is worth covering by the end of your second week.

Walk through the Dinner Group Guidelines and talk as a group about what it means to show up, join in, and be real.

Open the guidelines →

Message Review

Watch the messageA New Question · YouTube

This weekend we heard the first message of the new series Uncapped. We opened with a question. Four of them, really. The idea is that you are already asking one, whether you have named it or not. What is the least I have to do. How do I do a good job. How do I be the best. Those three sound different, but they work the same way. You can only answer them by looking at the people around you, and that either puffs you up or shuts you down depending on the room. Then we were handed a fourth. What am I capable of? That one does not come from comparison. It comes from creation. It asks what God actually built you to do.

We saw the weight of that in . A man runs up to Jesus and asks what he has to do to inherit eternal life. He had kept the commandments since he was a kid. But when Jesus named what he was capable of, he walked away sad. That question comes with a second one, because you are limited. You cannot chase your capacity everywhere, so something gets to reign. Jesus says in to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. None of this is about earning anything. He already gave his life for you. This is about finding out what he made you capable of.

Discussion Questions

Pick the questions that fit your group tonight. You do not have to cover them all. How the questions work.

Free ticket

New season, new group, and for some of you a few faces you have not met yet. Easy one to start. No athletic ability required.

You get a free ticket to one Olympic event of your choosing. Which one are you picking?

Clip 6:50 gymnastics and the sub four minute mile. Good bridge out of the icebreaker and into the night.

Measuring up

Three questions run most of our lives. What is the least I can get away with. How do I do a good job. How do I be the best. All three have the same flaw. You can only answer them by looking around the room, and the room changes.

When was the last time you measured yourself against someone and walked away feeling behind?

Clip 4:31 the comparison problem, and the basketball story.

He walked away sad

Read . This man was not doing the bare minimum. He had kept the commandments since he was a kid. But when Jesus pushed the rich young ruler beyond what’s good or best and into what he was actually capable of, he walked away sad.

What do you think made it so hard for him to step into more?

Clip 10:12 the rich young ruler.

Run for the prize

In Paul writes, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” He wanted to win. So the question is not whether you are running hard. You already are.

What are you running hardest for right now?

Clip 11:57 Paul on running for the prize.

Check the receipts

Now go check that answer. Djokovic said that to reach his maximum, every part of his life outside the tennis court had to serve the tennis court. The fastest way to find out what reigns in your life is your calendar and your bank account.

What does your time, money, and attention say is actually king in your life right now?

Clip 22:28 Djokovic into the bank account and the calendar.

Carry the canoe

You are limited in capacity, and that is not a problem to fix. It just means you pick one thing instead of five. On those canoe trips in Canada, people spend two days saying they cannot do it and finish saying they had no idea what they were capable of. Nobody found that out by thinking about it.

What is one thing you are capable of with God that you want this group to help you start this week?

Clip 27:12 the canoe story.

Prayer Focus

If there's time, start by sharing prayer requests. If you're short on time, start a text thread to collect them.

Use these to guide your group in prayer, whether out loud together or in a moment of quiet reflection.

For freedom. Ask God to loosen the grip comparison has on the people in your group. Name it plainly, that measuring up has worn some of them out.
For honesty. Give people room to admit what has actually been reigning without dressing it up. Nobody gets fixed in this part, they just get honest.
For surrender. Invite your group to hand Jesus the thing that has been king. Keep it simple and unhurried, and leave some quiet in it.
For first steps. Take the one thing each person named and pray it back by name. That is how a group starts carrying it together.

For leadersAfter groupNext steps this week

Go last on the final question. If you name the thing you want help starting, everyone else can.
Write down what each person named. That list is your week.
Text one person midweek about the exact thing they said out loud.
Reach out to anyone who said they were coming and did not. Two misses early is how a group quietly loses somebody.

Announcements

Each one is written to paste into your group text. Copy brings the full link with it.

Equip studies start back up Sunday, September 27. Classes run from curious about God, to digging into Scripture, to building rhythms that actually hold up here. Worth a look if something from tonight stuck with you. All of them are at hobokengrace.com/events/growth

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