Awakening to Baptism

Each week’s group meetings during Easter Season point forward to the coming Sunday. For this week, your groups will explore what it means that having been made “one with Christ” they are also gifted by the Holy Spirit.

Suggested Agenda

1. Brief, informal time of gathering (10 minutes or so) with snacks to share.
   
2. Formal gathering — seated in a circle in chairs or around a table — with requests for prayer for the coming week (10 minutes)-- and prayer led by the group leader or unison in the group. If the latter, one practice I’ve found useful in leading such groups is immediately after a person shares, the whole group pauses, then says in unison, “Into your hands, O God, we commend our sister/brother/sibling(s) Name(s).” Proceed to the next person and repeat until all who wish to offer requests for prayer have had the opportunity to do so.
   
3. Teaching and Conversation — (35 minutes) — Use Session 1 and 2 from our “DIY Tools for Spiritual Gifts Discernment and Ministry Deployment” for your session tonight. Your time will be best spent by dividing it into two segments, about 15 minutes for biblical reflection and 20 minutes to share results of the spiritual gifts assessment and their answers to the questions (1-9) listed in session 1.
   
   You are encouraged to send the link to the ELCA Spiritual Gifts Assessment and encourage them to complete this before your session, then bring the results (top 5 and bottom 5 gifts) to your meeting time rather than using meeting time to complete the assessments. (Note: The ELCA survey has been in archive format for over six years now, but it still works!)
   
   During the coming week, encourage group members to complete the Jung Personality Type Inventory (see assignment for session 3 on the DIY Spiritual Gifts resource) and bring results from that survey to next week’s formation group meeting.
   
4. Gather in a circle or huddle, lay hands on one another, one by one, and pray in unison, “X, may you continue to grow in Christ in the days ahead.”
   
5. Thank all for coming, and send the group out to keep learning and living the baptism they have received.