This 6 week course will help small groups explore why, despite the Bible’s clear message that we’re accepted by God through faith and not through effort, many find difficulty taking that message to heart. We can be conditioned, perhaps from childhood and other life experiences, to feel we ‘ought’ to perform better – at work, at home, with our families, at school or college, at church and at friendship. We strive for perfection. Consequently, when we don’t or can’t perform as we wish, and – horrors! – seem to get worse, we feel like failures. This is compounded when we believe that we can’t share those disappointments honestly, especially if everyone else seems to cope wonderfully. This is session five, exploring how perfectionism can distance us from people as we fear ‘neediness’.
In an ideal world, if you could have one household or work-based task taken from you for ever, what would it be? You could present it as a mime – can others guess what it is?
Watch the below video.
Extract from Friday 4 May (p160) – conversation with Sally about proofreading.
Extract from Thursday 14 June (p187) about the assembly.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 especially v27 The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’
Exodus 17:12 When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady until sunset.
1. The Bible reading from 1 Corinthians applies to the church but how could it also be applied to other areas of life, such as family or a team in a workplace?
2. Do you ever say, ‘It’ll get done better if I do it myself.’ Is the ‘quality’ of the finished task the most important thing?
3. Moses needed others to hold up his arms. Imagine what would have happened if he, like Fran, had resisted help. What can we learn from his story and from Fran’s experiences?
4. The help Aaron and Hur give Moses is described with specific detail – ‘they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other’. What is the writer of Exodus trying to emphasise?
5. When Sally offers to help Fran with the proofreading and gets the brush-off, what has Fran potentially lost from that, and what has Sally lost?
6. Think about an area of your life in which you would welcome extra help. Decide how you will reach out for that help and pray that God will give you the courage to be vulnerable.