CONVERSATION STARTERS
Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our Monday lives. Please know that these questions are meant to be a resource. 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. What questions or hardships in your life have challenged your belief in God’s goodness and power?

2. Read John 20:24-31 silently or aloud.

3. Thomas stuck around for eight whole days even when he didn’t believe what the other disciples believed about Jesus’ resurrection. What keeps us in community with God’s people even when we have doubts?

4. What do we learn about Jesus in this passage?

5. What does this passage say about what it means for believers to follow Jesus as king?

6. How does this passage encourage and/or challenge you?

PRAYER PROMPT
Pray for one another as the questions, doubts, and wrestling arise, and allow the Holy Spirit to remind you of Jesus’ living presence among you even as you gather. Pray for those in our church community, whether guests or regulars, who are wrestling to believe that Jesus is who he says he is.

Title: Believe He’s the One and Only
Reference: John 20:24-31
Speaker: Dakota Dietz, DakotaD@cckc.church

> What does Jesus do with our doubt?

> When we doubt, Jesus gives us evidence.

“Faith is not opposed to knowledge; faith is opposed to sight.” - Dallas Willard

> When we doubt, Jesus gives us his presence.

“Routinely they ended with the violent death of the central figure. Members of the movement (assuming they got away with their own skins) then faced a choice: either give up the struggle or find a new Messiah.” - N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

> When we doubt, Jesus gives us his wounds.

> What do we do with doubt?

> See his wounds given for your wounds

> Give your wounds to others.

"A minister is not a doctor whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared…Many people suffer because of the false supposition…that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt. But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to the human condition. Therefore ministry…does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts."
- Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

> Only Jesus’ wounds can heal…The wounds of family history

> Only Jesus’ wounds can heal…The wounds of racism in America

“We certainly do need to protest, but not to the neglect of the small local tasks and projects that, with the help of only ourselves, can make things a little better.”
- Wendell Berry, The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice

“It is necessary…for the privileged and the underprivileged to work on the common environment for the purpose of providing normal experiences of fellowship. This is one very important reason for the insistence that segregation is a complete ethical and moral evil. Whatever it may do for those who dwell on either side of the wall, one thing is certain: it poisons all normal contacts of those persons involved.”

Now listen to the solution he gives:

“The first step toward love is a common sharing of a sense of mutual worth and value. This cannot be discovered in a vacuum or in a series of artificial or hypothetical relationships. It has to be in a real situation, natural, free.”
- Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

“We all have different kinds of privilege. It only matters whether you use your privilege for the good of others.” - Pastor Stan Archie