It Starts with One Participant's Guide: Igniting the Passion for the Mission of the Church

By Seacoast Church

What does it mean to be the church? What part do we play in living out the mission Jesus left for his followers?  

To understand and be inspired in our role as the church, this study from Seacoast Church takes you back to where it all began. Jesus is very clear about the mission for His followers. In It Starts with One, you will explore Acts 1–6, the early formation of the church and the disciples’ dependency upon the Holy Spirit as they discover what this means for the church today.

Experience the urgency, the mission, and the passion of the early church for spreading the Kingdom of God as you:

• Worship God enthusiastically
• Grow in maturity and consistency
• Connect with the church regularly
• Serve others unselfishly
• Share your faith effectively

This unique study can be used on your own for personal devotions and study or for study with your small group, family, youth group, or even your entire church. 

Participant's Guide features:

• Daily readings
• Questions for personal reflection
• Action steps for personal growth
• Guide for small group discussion
• Guide for family discussion
• Tips for implementing this study in a youth group

For use with It Starts with One DVD-Based Study (ISBN 9781418546120).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Jul 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781418549770

Book preview

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IGNITING THE PASSION FOR THE

MISSION OF THE CHURCH

Seacoast

Church

9781418546137_INT_0001_001

© 2011 Seacoast Church

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [e-mail].

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

It Starts with One: Igniting the Passion for the Mission of the Church

ISBN: 978-1-41854-613-7

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 QG 5 4 3 2 1

It all started with one:

The holy one

who descended from heaven,

gave us new life,

and returned to heaven.

The story is not finished.

It’s just beginning.

It starts with one.

[ CONTENTS ]

Introduction

How to Use This Guide

Session One: Changing Your World

Consider

Read

Reflect

Action Steps

Group Discussion

Youth Discussion

Family Discussion

Notes

Session Two: Receiving the Gift

Consider

Read

Reflect

Action Steps

Group Discussion

Youth Discussion

Family Discussion

Notes

Session Three: Becoming Weightless

Consider

Read

Reflect

Action Steps

Group Discussion

Youth Discussion

Family Discussion

Notes

Session Four: One Extraordinary Prayer

Consider

Read

Reflect

Action Steps

Group Discussion

Youth Discussion

Family Discussion

Notes

Session Five: The Ripple Effect

Consider

Read

Reflect

Action Steps

Group Discussion

Youth Discussion

Family Discussion

Notes

Session Six: Outlast the Growing Pains

Consider

Read

Reflect

Action Steps

Group Discussion

Youth Discussion

Family Discussion

Notes

About the Authors

[ INTRODUCTION ]

Resurrection Power

Geoff Surratt

In 1939 three men, led by Albert Einstein, approached the president of the United States with the secret to the power of chain reactions. Their work became known as the Manhattan Project, and the chain reaction led to the atomic bomb. Equally powerful, although in a different way, is the power of the truth of the gospel. When Jesus appeared alive to his disciples, history changed forever. How do we handle the kind of information that will change history? We’re going to look at the beginning of the church in Acts for the next six weeks, and we’ll see how those early Christians took the gospel message and used it to change the world.

The disciples knew that what set Jesus apart was the mystery and power of his resurrection. He’d fed the five thousand on a hillside in Judea—a remarkable miracle. But Elijah had fed a widow and her son with the same cup of grain for a month. Jesus had turned the water into wine, but Moses had parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape slavery in Egypt. And Jesus had raised men from the dead, but so did Paul, when a particularly long sermon led a young man to fall out of a window to his death. But no one in history had ever risen from the dead of his own power. That single action proved for all time that Jesus was, in fact, the Christ. He was God.

For the disciples, knowing Jesus this way meant that God was no longer simply a concept, a higher power to be respected but not known. Jesus entered their homes and their lives, he taught them about his kingdom, and he prepared them to minister in his name for the ages to come. And they knew then that everything they’d learned—all of the Old Testament and Jesus’ whole earthly ministry—was all leading up to this moment when he rose from the dead. Acts is the pivotal point of the Bible, the time when the lessons became actions and the power of the Holy Spirit came to rest on God’s people. Pentecost is the Manhattan Project of Christianity. When the Holy Spirit was unleashed, the small Jewish sect grew to