BLESS – WEEK 2 Begin with Prayer

Worship: Spend time throughout the week during your time with God listening to Run To The Father – Cody Carnes. As you spend time worshipping, be reminded that God is longing to be in relationship with you.

Check-In: Have there been moments in your life where you have given up on prayer or thought that your prayers were not being answered? What did you do to overcome this?

Bible Readings: Anchor: Genesis 12:1-3; Luke 6:12-16; Matthew 9:36-38; Romans 8:26; Psalm 41:13; Luke 5:16; Luke 19:16; Luke 22:32; Psalm 3:4; Psalm 40:1; Proverbs 23:18

Preparation and Discussion for Group Time:

1. What has God been saying to you around BLESS and prayer since Sunday’s message?
   
2. Often, we struggle to pray and use one of the following excuses:
   • I don’t know how to pray
   • I am too busy to pray
   • I don’t think prayer actually works
   
   Which of these are you most challenged by when looking at your own prayer life? What steps can you take to overcome this?
   
3. We see from the life of Jesus that He often withdrew to pray. It was his first response before doing anything else. What could you take from this example of praying first to implement in your own life?
   
4. Ps Pedro shared three practical steps we can take to pray this week:
   • Plan – be intentional about making prayer a habit
   • Prepare – ask God to be with you and to point out anything in your day where you could BLESS someone
   • Places and People – commit to praying for the people you may encounter and the places you will visit today
   
   As you go into the rest of the week, which of these practical steps are you committing to in order to make prayer a first response as a way to BLESS those around you?

Prayer time: Ask the Holy Spirit to increase your burden to pray for yourself as well as opportunities to be a blessing to those around you.

Love God:
Read Genesis 12:1-3 this week and be encouraged that you have been blessed and that you are now called to be a blessing to others.

For personal study, here are some suggested YouVersion devotionals:

• Dangerous Prayer by Craig Groeschel
• Pray Effectively by Bayless Conley

Love Others: There are many opportunities to Love People coming up – see the Church Center App for more information:

• Be intentional about praying for those people on your BLESS card
• Invite someone to join you at church for Week 3 of BLESS as we look at how we can BLESS by Listening