Small Group #14 – The Divine Conspiracy…with Michael Wear
As Small Groups are about to begin, we want to highlight a few of the new groups. Here is a description of SG #14 by Michael Wear.
I was fifteen-years old when I became a Christian after reading Romans. Almost immediately, I became concerned with a simple question: what now? What does it look like to be a Christian in the here and now? What does it mean to be transformed into the likeness of Christ? How does this happen?
Though I might have answered these questions in the “right” way, I think I operated as though we were left to our own devices to follow Jesus. I think many of us do.
I first read Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy in 2010, and it helped to reinvigorate my faith with a vision of life in the kingdom of God now. I began to notice in scripture for the first time how God has made resources—how God has made Himself–available to us for this transforming work.
I saw it in Jesus’ prayer in John 17: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:1b-4).
The question “what now?” motivates much of the Christian life, and as we find answers in scripture, in prayer and in community, we can then ask God to help us respond. I am trying to ask that question every day, though I fall short, and respond as God would have me—I definitely fall short there.
What can help us in this walk of faith is to know that we’re traveling with others. This is part of the beauty of small groups here at Restoration: we do not struggle alone, we move forward in faith with a community of people who have declared fidelity to Christ and try to live that out with God’s help, asking for the help He has already promised us for that task.
Across Restoration this Spring trimester, we will express as a church once again our desire to see ourselves and our fellow congregants transformed further into the likeness of Christ. I am excited to walk through that book that impacted me so profoundly years ago, The Divine Conspiracy, with my small group. Together, we’ll consider Willard’s insights, reflect on scripture, spend time in prayer, ask “what now?,” and urge on another on as we think together about how God might be calling us to respond.
Oh, and I almost forgot: I’ll also cook Italian food for the group for dinner. That is going to be delicious.
I am looking forward to what God has in store for us this Spring, and thankful for the blessing of this wonderful community of people seeking God together.
Interested in this small group? Sign up here
