Read:  Acts 12:1-25

Open

Please share with the group a time when you were most desperate in prayer.

Dig

Notices the powers that are arrayed against Peter and the Church: Herod, prison, four squads of four soldiers each, two soldiers shackled to him, two chains, sentries, etc.  What could the followers of Jesus do for Peter?  What was Peter’s only hope?  What application can we make from this in our lives?

In the sermon we were told, “the Church only exists by the power and mercy of God…. We have no power or weapons… we are a fellowship of the dependent.”  The Church in Acts knew this and prayed for what they were powerless to obtain.  Allan said that we do not pray because we are so seldom at the end of our rope.  Do you agree with this?  Why or why not?  What can we do so that we pray as the Church in Acts did and as the Church in many parts of the world does?

Are you comforted, challenged or convicted by the truth that God is for the Church?

Are you surprised when the Church seems irrelevant or powerless in our world?  How does this story in Acts 12 help us to live in the Church’s current context of growing irrelevance and powerlessness?

Reflect

How can we in our small group help remind each other that we are totally dependent on God alone?  How can this small group as a Christian community have humility and dependence at its heart?