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.

1. Have you ever had an authority figure that you did not get along with or respect? Without giving identifying details, what was that experience like for you?

2. Read Ephesians 4:32 - 5:1. Ephesians 5 begins with the word “therefore,” pointing us back to 4:32. What is the connection between 4:32 and 5:1? What reason do we find there to imitate God?

3. Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be imitators of God as beloved children. We obey because we are loved. How does love as the foundation for obedience change our ability to obey?

4. Ephesians 5:1-21 tells God’s redeemed people to live lives that are at odds with our culture and often our own human desires. This is not easy. How are we able to “walk as children of light?” Read Ephesians 5: 15-21. What part does the church play in this?

PRAYER PROMPT:
Every member of your group is a beloved child of God. Take a minute to silently meditate on that reality. Then thank God for his love and care for you. Thank him that though you were once darkness, now you are light in the Lord. Ask for his wisdom and grace to walk in love.

Title: Walk In Love
Scripture: Ephesians 5:1-21
Speaker: Nathan Miller, NathanM@cckc.church

> Loved people love people.

> Loved people love people more than their desires.

"Paul labels [these behaviors] as sinful and completely off-limits for believers. In doing so, I repeat, he asserted and reflected a stance diametrically opposed to the prevailing attitudes of the time, and he intended to distinguish sharply what should be the sexual behavior of believers, particularly males." - Larry Hurtado, Destroyer of the gods

"…is it possible that what women have gained in freedom and professional opportunity many have lost in the sexual revolution that cloaked what many men wanted -- commitment-free sex -- under the mantle of liberating women?"

“...suit up in impregnable emotional armor to sustain the lifestyle and grieved that no one had told her sooner. ‘Why are girls not given this data in high school?’
- Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity

> Loved people love people more than privacy.

> Loved people love people enough to create a better community.

"Paul has the entire church in mind here, and he is contrasting two sorts of community performances. They are not to act like their surrounding communities in Asia Minor, getting drunk and behaving foolishly. In contrast to being just another worldly community that pursues ungodly behaviors, the church is to be filled by the Spirit with the presence of God, a reality that will become manifest through community habits and practices."
- Timothy Gombis, The Drama of Ephesians