CONVERSATION STARTERS
Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our Monday lives. These prompts have been designed to help Community Groups grow in their relationship with God, with one another, and with their neighbors. Please know that these questions are meant to be a resource to you. You do not have to follow them verbatim or get through them all. We trust you to know your group and to ask the questions based on your group needs.

In Ecclesiastes 2:18-23, we read the account of a man who hates the ‘toil.’ In other words, he struggles with seeing the value in his daily responsibilities. It seems that this man has been infatuated with finding fulfillment through work and accomplishments, and in turn, this has led him to a crisis point. He feels that if one validates themselves through their work, then one’s life was lived for nothing. Why does he believe this? He’s concluded that accomplishments, possessions, and reputation...all of these things have no lasting value, for they are nullified by death.

1. What stood out to you from Sunday’s sermon?

2. While you were growing up, what did you think was the purpose of work? How did that influence you as you chose a profession or started job hunting? Do you see ways this still impacts you today?

3. Like the Teacher, many of us validate our lives through our work (in other words, find our deepest value in what we do). Why do you think we do this?

4. Read Ecclesiastes 2:18-23. What does the author of Ecclesiastes say about our work? If our work is meaningless, why do it? We can’t take the money or accomplishments with us when we die. Why toil? Why work?

5. Read Colossians 3:23-24. What is the purpose of work in this passage? Use this as a prayer for your week ahead.

PRAYER PROMPT
Pray that God grants us the vision to see the purpose and meaning in the vocations to which He has called us. Pray that God gives us the grace to find joy in the midst of ‘our toil,’ and increases our capacity to enjoy His good gifts in our lives.

Title: Work Up in Smoke
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:18-23
Speaker: Reid Kapple, ReidK@cckc.church

> How do we not labor in vain?

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe…we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
-Some guy definitely not named CS Lewis