Grace Without Margins: Chapter Seven

Serving Volunteers

"No matter how incredible our recruiting efforts were, they needed to be ongoing.  My experience is that recruiting is not an issue that can be solved or eradicated.  You merely become more efficient at it."

• What are your ideas on recruiting volunteers?  Where will you find them?  What direction or course will you set for them?
• How are you casting vision for your volunteers?
• Have you celebrated lately?  What things do you have to celebrate in your ministry?
• What are the most important things you need to do for your volunteers?
• Are you praying for your volunteers on a regular basis?

Grace Without Margins: Chapter Six

Partnering With Leaders

Sometimes it may take a while to get the leadership of the church on board for a new ministry.  That is ok.  God is working even when you are waiting.  

Discussion questions for Chapter Six:

• Is your leadership on board for special needs ministry?
• Have you shared your passion with them?
• Have you introduced them to the people in your congregation you are hoping to serve?
• Have you been gracious?  
• Have you been thankful?
• In what ways do you need to be patient?

Grace Without Margins: Chapter Five

The Call of the Church

In chapter five of Grace Without Margins, I talk about the call of the church.  Below are some discussion questions:

• How have you been received by the church?  
• What do you think Christ expected his church to be? Take some time to search Scripture and learn about Christ's perspective on the church.
• Have you ever had someone visit your church that made you uncomfortable?  Be honest about the experience and share it with a ministry friend.  How did you react?  How could you have extended grace?  What have you learned from the experience?
• As a church who are we called to serve?  What are the next steps your church needs to take in reducing those in the margins?  What do you feel called to do personally?

Grace Without Margins: Chapter Four

Setting the Paradigm

     Well, here come some tough questions as we take inventory and evaluate the margins that our churches may be characterized by. 

• Has your church every turned away a child or a family because it was too hard to serve them?  Was there a valid reason?  How could the situation have been handled differently?
• Do you agree or disagree that the church is called to serve whomever walks through its doors?  Give specific reasons for your answers.
• Would you consider throwing a banquet for the people outside your church doors?  What would it look like?
• Do you believe that everyone is created in the image of God?  What type of person changes that belief?  Why?

These are tough questions, but they are important to answer.  I encourage you to not be afraid of the questions, rather be open to the possibilities.  

Note:  Grace Without Margins is now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, and Ingram Distributors.

Grace Without Margins: Chapter Three

Strength In Weakness

     Over the next couple of months I will continue to post discussion questions for the book, Grace Without Margins.  

     In Ephesians 3:20 it says, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us."  

• Have you ever experienced a time in your life when you felt too "weak" to do something but because of God, you were strong?
• Describe an experience when God did more than you could ask or imagine.  
• How did it impact your faith?  
• How did it change your ministry?
• What weakness do you have that it would "blow you away" if God used it to accomplish His plan?
• Describe a challenge you had that blessed you.

Grace Without Margins: Chapter Two

The Calling

     I have been reading an interesting book, the speed of dark by Elizabeth Moon.  It is written from the perspective of a young man affected by autism.  I am trying to become like him as I read it...thinking like he thinks...feeling what he feels.  He definitely seems to be in the margins of society.
     In chapter two of, Grace Without Margins, I talk about those marginalized by society.  Dictionary.com has one of the harshest definitions of "margin." It is "a limit in condition, capacity, etc., beyond or below which something ceases to exist, be desirable, or be possible."  When you think of that definition in terms of people, that is really concerning.
     When I think of the marginalized, I think of people that are not in the spotlight, they are overlooked, they are left out and not valued as much as those in the mainstream of society.  Here are some questions to think about and discuss:

• What does it mean for a group of people to be marginalized?
• Have you ever been in the margins?  How did you feel?
• Do you feel God is calling you to serve a specific group of people? How are they in the margins?