This Study Guide is from The Rev. Adam Hamilton’s Course in The Walk: Five Essential Practices of Christian Life.
There are no hard and fast rules. You can do this at your own speed. Classes are on Wednesdays at 7:00pm with Rev Card. If neither of these times is convenient, you can follow along online at facebook.com/pumcnh, our website peterboroughumc.org, or on Pray Act Pray Again. We have a private Facebook Group you may request to join as well.
This information is shared for your enrichment.
The Walk: Five Essential Practices of Christian Life
Week 1: Session Goals
Through conversation, activities, and reflection, participants will:
- Accept the invitation to walk with Christ.
- Affirm the importance of worshiping in community; and
- Commit to a discipline of individual worship through daily prayer
Take Time every day to sit in silence for one minute.
Read and reflect on Psalm 95
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Opening Activities:
- Introductions/What sparked your interest to participate in this study?
Background:
- What is a Christian?
- What characteristics do you expect Christians to have in common?
From your reading consider these questions: (The book is also available in Audio Books. I have listened to it there and it covers most of what the book and the video cover.)
- Hamilton says he wats to walk with Jesus where Jesus wants him to go. How can spiritual practices like worship and prayer enable us to do that?
- What does it look like to be spiritually winded or struggling?
- Hamilton describes doing things together and doing as individuals.
- How are these related?
- Why are they both important?
- What is your daily prayer experience?
- Is prayer central to your life?
- Do you think starting with “Thank you God” can help us to pray more deeply?
Biblical Foundation and Discussion:
Reread the first two verses of Psalm 95 which offer insight into the community of worship in ancient Israel.
- Do you come to worship with joy and thanksgiving?
- Other feelings?
- Is there value in coming to worship if you have negative feelings?
- Why? Why not?
Read verses 3-5.
- What does this tell us about God’s relationship with all of creation?
- How does remembering this relationship help us to come to worship with joy and thanksgiving when we are approaching pain an in crisis?
Read verses 4-7
- Why does the psalmist give thanks and praise?
- What do these verses tell us about our relationship with God?
- Why do you give thanks and praise to God?
Book Study and Discussion
Metaphors for the Christian Life
- New Birth (John 1.12-13) (John 3.3)
- What does this teach us about what it means to be Christian?
- How does being born anew bring about reorientation?
- Repentance (Mark 1.14-15) (Acts 2.38)
- What does this teach us about what it means to be Christian?
- How does this bring about reorientation?
- Faith (Romans 10.9)
- What does this teach us about what it means to be Christian?
- How does this bring about reorientation?
- What do you think of cultivating a “gratitude journal/list”?