The Life You’ve Always Wanted. Part 5: An Unhurried Life (Small Group Curriculum)

Worship:

Listen to a Worship song (If you need suggestions you can use one from the YouTube Playlist for this week) or express something that you are thankful to God for.

Welcome:

1. Check In – Did anything happen in your life in response to last weeks challenge?
2. If you were to take this exhortation with all seriousness, ‘to be  spiritually healthy, you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,”  what is one thing you would need to change in your life so you could slow down?
3. John Ortberg writes, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.  Hurry can destroy our souls.  Hurry can keep us from living well.” How have you experienced the destructive power of hurry in your life?
4. How can busyness cause us to settle for mediocrity in our faith rather than a deep experience of God’s presence and power?  Have you experienced this reality in your life during times of intense busyness?

Word

1. Read: Mark 1:32-39 and Luke 5:15-16
2. From these two passages and other stories in the Gospels, how did Jesus model an unhurried life?
3. Take a few moments and have each person take this brief survey, Circle YES or NO for each question.

• Do you live with the daily sense that there is not enough time to get done everything you need to accomplish? YES or NO
• Do you find yourself talking faster because there is so much to say? YES or NO
• Do you nod a lot when a person is talking slowly in an effort to keep them moving alone? YES or NO
• When people are talking too slowly, do you ever find yourself wanting to (or actually) finishing their sentences?  YES or NO
• Do you ever drive faster than is safe (even sometimes when you are not in a hurry)?
• When you stop at a red light with two or more lanes, with cars in them, do you every try to anticipate which car looks faster so you can get behind that car and save a few seconds when the light turns green?  YES or NO
• Do you ever try to gauge which line at the grocery store will be the quickest and get in that line?  And it turns out you picked the slow line, does it bother you? YES or NO
• Do you multiple-task and try to get more than one thing done at a time on a regular basis? YES or NO
• Do you have a big pile of magazines, newspapers and books that you hope to read “someday” YES or NO
• Do you live your life driven by schedules, organizers, and to-do lists? YES or NO
• Do you find it difficult to say no when others ask you to do things that will add one more item to your schedule? YES or NO

Share how many times you circled YES to the questions above and tell your group what you think it reveals about the hurry in your life.

• John Ortberg says, “Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible”. How is hurry the enemy of love in one of these relationships?
  • Your Relationship with God.
  • Your relationships with family.
  • Your relationship with other followers of Christ.
  • Your relationship with those who don’t yet know Jesus.
• What are some of the values and attitudes in our society that drive us to a hurried lifestyle?
• What are some biblical truths we can hold on to that will counteract these values and attitudes?
• What is one thing you need to practically apply from this lesson?

Prayer:

1. Pray that God’s spirit of peace will fill your hearts, homes, work places and thought patterns.
2. Ask God to teach you the life-giving discipline of slowing down.
3. Pray for any other concerns that your group has.

Witness

How can we bring the message of Jesus to people during this time?

Other Resources

How to Have an Extended Time of Solitude

Reviewing the Day with God