Week 4 || Restart Smart || How To Build Relationships That Last
Date: 10.7.18
Text: Proverbs 18:24; 20:6; 27:6, 17

Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our everyday lives. These prompts have been designed to help Community Groups grow in their relationship with God, with one another, and with their neighbors.

We all need to deeply know and be known by someone else, but this kind of relationship takes time, intention, and a right understanding of friendship. Thankfully, Proverbs offers us a model for friendship, and ultimately Jesus himself extends an invitation to be fully known and loved.

Describe your closest childhood friendship. What made that relationship tick?

Think about a “famous friendship” from history, TV, or the movies. What can that friendship have teach us about the joys and difficulties of friendship?

READ Proverbs 27:6. Oscar Wilde said, “A friend will always stab you in the front.” Think about the last time you experienced this level of honesty in friendship, and describe what that was like.

Who is someone who has stood by you in good and bad times? What does their friendship mean to you?

READ John 15:9-17. How does God’s love for us and our love for others relate? What does it look like, practically, to “lay down your life” for a friend?

What makes true friendship difficult for you? As a prompt, consider the following traits of good friends: Reliability | Honesty | Empathy | Vulnerability

PRAY. Spend time giving thanks to God for the ways that He knows and cares for you. Then, ask God to reveal how your friendship with others can reflect His love for you.

Title: How to Build Relationships That Last
Scripture: Proverbs 20:6; 18:24; 27:17
Speaker: Naya Cuevas, NayaC@ChristCommunityKC.org


“Easy at first, the language of friendship Is, as we soon discover, Very difficult to speak well.” - W.H. Auden

“Wounds that we’ve forgotten for the sake of self-preservation begin to drive our behaviors.” - Dr. Paul Hegstrom, Broken Children, Grown-Up Pain

>> Are you aware when your emotions are off or elevated?
>> Do you know when you’ve hurt someone or violated them?
>> Are you aware if your relationships have created a space where
both people can feel safe to share?
>> Are you aware when you need boundaries?
>> Are you aware of when you are being deceitful or manipulative?

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.” - Oscar Wilde

“We don’t forgive in our own right. We forgive by making God’s forgiveness our own. And even then, we don’t forgive the fact of someone’s guilt, the so-called objective guilt. God has already done that.” - Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge

“Though challenged, though injured, though tossed into the flames, though nailed to a cross, a friend loves always.” - Cicero