St Luke's Church, Great Crosby

  Homegroup Leaders' Notes
 

Haggai 1.1-11

Welcome Recall a time when you have visited a church building and have been inspired either by the architecture or the décor or something else. Share your experience with the rest of the group.
Worship

Psalm 84 speaks about the ‘dwelling place’; read it together and use it to worship God with. You could use the examples from the ‘welcome’ to thank God.

Alternatively, you could think about God building his temple of people with Christ as the cornerstone (1 Peter 2.5) and thank God for one another.

Word

Some dates:
Jerusalem conquered by Babylon 606 BC.
Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem destroyed 586 BC.
Babylon conquered by Persia 539 BC
King Cyrus allows exiles to return to Jerusalem 538BC

You can then read what happens next in Ezra 1-4 but basically building work has stopped for 18 years when Haggai speaks. Now read Haggai 1:1-11.

v 1 How do we know when God is speaking?
v 2 Is there ever a good time to ‘build the Lord’s house’?
vv 3-4 What is the accusation Haggai is making here?
Why do you think work might have stopped?
Why was the Temple so important? (1 Kings 8.14-21)
vv 5,7 Why is this important?
v 6 What is the observation here?
v 8 What are they to do?
vv 9-11  

Is God punishing the people or simply awakening them?

a) What is the relationship between the church building and the people?
b) Is this the right time for us at St Luke’s to be re-building? Why/why not?
c) How do we ‘consider our ways’?
d) What impact will our re-building have on ourselves and the community of Crosby?
e) How are we to react when bad things happen to us?

Witness At the beginning of this new year, start discussing a social event you could put on as a cell group which you would like to invite your friends and family to.
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