This is our final week of the Spring Quarter. Along with an abbreviated study, you will take some time to reflect on your group experience and then have communion together. You will also fill out Feedback Forms about your group experience and your plans for the Fall. Growth Groups will take a summer break and resume the week of September 19.  Thanks for being part of your Growth Group and have a great summer!
Note: The first question under “My Story” could be a great way to start your group and discuss plans for the summer at the same time.  The two questions in the “Remembering How God has Worked” section are designed to get the group sharing about their Growth Group experience this past year and segue into communion.  Watch your time to ensure you are able to spend time in the “remembering” section.

We need over 1,500 people to help with projects during the next few weeks to finalize the move to North Santa Fe.  Check out what needs to be done and how to get involved on the back of this week’s homework!

MY STORY
Summer is just around the corner! Do you have any special plans, activities or prayer requests for the next few months?
Have everyone respond to this one.  Write down plans and prayer requests. Follow up on the plans and prayer requests with returning members in the Fall.

Looking back at this weekend’s teaching on “Friends Tell Friends,” was there a particular point, comment or verse that caught your attention, challenged you or confused you?

DIGGING DEEPER & TAKING IT HOME
This week we heard how “friends tell friends the real truth.” Obviously, there are a variety of ways we can have this kind of influence based on our relationship with those around us and how God has designed us. How do Paul’s words to the Colossian church in Colossians 4:2-6 affirm and further help us understand what it takes to influence our friends for Christ?

Colossians 4:2-6
 ²Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. ³And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. ⁴Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. ⁵Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. ⁶Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

As a result of this week’s teaching regarding the influence you have on your friends, do you sense God calling you to…

…change the character you portray and the way you care about those in your circle of influence?
…be a bit more open about going to church and your commitment to Christ?
…begin to invite some friends to church to come and see?
…ask some questions and tell the truth to those you regularly encounter?
If you have time, this may be a good question to go over as application for this week’s message

REMEMBERING HOW GOD HAS WORKED
One of the ways to be encouraged to effectively live out our faith is teaming up and living life with others. Looking back at this past quarter and year, how has your Growth Group experience affirmed, encouraged and/or challenged you in your connection and influence with others, and what it means to follow Christ? Good question to have everyone answer.

One of the keys to remembering the influence we can have on others is to remember Jesus’ ultimate example of what it means to love, serve, and care for others. That’s why Jesus told the disciples at the Last Supper to repeatedly come together and take communion. It would remind them of His total commitment of love and faithfulness to all as revealed in His life, death and resurrection.  

This week, your Growth Group will conclude by doing as the disciples did by taking communion together. To prepare for this, read the following verses and reflect on Jesus’ commitment and work in your life as you follow Him.

Communion

1) Explain that we want to end the Growth Group year by remembering and celebrating Christ’s death and resurrection.
2) Read the verses below.  You can ask people to respond to them, or just comment on them yourself.  Use the Corinthians passage to take you into communion
3) Pass the bread, thank the Lord for it, and eat together.  Pass the cup, thank the Lord for it, and drink together.
4) Move into prayer time, thanking Jesus for His commitment to love us and how He is working in our lives as people shared in your group.

Psalm 103:8-13:
⁸ The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
⁹ He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;
¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
God loves us and has compassion on us.

John 15:9-15:
⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
¹⁰ If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command.
¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Doing what God calls us to do shows our love for God.  Jesus performed the ultimate act of love by giving his life so we could have life.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26:
²³ For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread,
²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."
²⁵ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ";This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
²⁶ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Jesus said that communion was instituted to help us remember how much he loves us.

Close in Praise Song (optional).
Have everyone fill out a Feedback Form (if you didn’t last week).
Dessert Time.

Over 1,500 people needed at the new North Santa Fe church property!  Volunteers are needed NOW to help get ready for the move! Below is a brief list of projects that will be taking place over the next three weeks.  
 
Saturday - June 5

• Cleanup and trash pickup
• Erosion control removal

 
Saturday - June 12

• Cleanup and trash pickup
• Install playground sod
• Install furniture

 
Saturday - June 19

• Install and hang playground iron rod fence
• Landscape High School area
• Final cleanup inside and outside

*Weekly Cleanups – 6:30-8:30 PM, Tues, Wed, & Thurs.
To sign up or view more projects, go to the Community Service website, www.northcoastchurch.com/service