Mentor-Mentee Discussion Guide

Session 1: God

Discuss any or all of the following questions:

1. If a person who had never heard of God asked you to describe what you meant when you say the word "God", what would you say?

2. Which two words from the list below would you choose to best describe your concept of God and which two would you be least likely to choose?

all-powerful

invisible

awesome

merciful

far

holy

all-knowing

just

judge

loving

personal

mysterious

forgiving

creator

perfect

Father

Mother

Jesus

Spirit

3. Talk about how your belief in God has changed over the years and where it stands today. Discuss periods of doubt- what caused them, how did you overcome them or learn to live with them? Do you still have doubt today?

Discuss any personal experiences that you may want to share of a sense of God's presence.

4. Why do you think a faith in God is important in today's world?

5. What questions do you have about God? (You can share your questions together without feeling that you need to answer them. Exploring the questions together is as important as finding correct answers.)

Session 2: Jesus

1. If a person of another faith asked you who Jesus is and why he is important to Christians, what would you say?

2. Throughout Christian history, people have tried to explain the relationship between Jesus and God. Although some ideas were challenged by the church as being "incorrect", today there is a great diversity of belief about Jesus and it is much harder to say which is the correct one. (You might be able to say, "This is the correct Catholic belief" or "This is the correct Lutheran belief" but because there are so many different kinds of churches, it is hard to say, "This is the correct Christian belief". As a multi-denominational church, we do not require adherence to a particular creed about Jesus.)

Here are several different historical approaches to the relationship between Jesus and God. Which most closely describes your belief?

•Jesus was a very good man who taught us about God but was not God.

•Jesus was "adopted" by God when Jesus decided to give his life spreading the gospel. At that point, God chose him to be God's Son and Jesus and God spiritually became one.

•God came down from heaven, took on the human form of Jesus, and then went back to heaven after the resurrection. Although Jesus appeared to us in the form of a man, he was really God.

•Jesus and God are two faces of one divine reality (the third face being the Holy Spirit)

3. What do you think Jesus' most important teaching is?

4. Which of Jesus' teachings have given you the most problem?

5. How should we, as Christians, relate to people of other religions?

Session 3: The church

1. Talk about your experiences of church growing up. How are they different from one another's and how are they the same?

2. What is most important to you about the church?

3. Mentor: Can you remember your own baptism/confirmation?

•What did you have to do to prepare for it?
•What was the ceremony like?
•As you think back on the promises you made that day, do you think you fully understood them? If so, what did they mean to you? If not, how could you have been better prepared?

In Youth Group, we often play a game called Zobmondo which requires the players to choose between two extreme, often ridiculous, scenarios. In that vein,

If you had to choose between the following, would you rather:

a. Go to a huge cathedral with 1000 parishioners for the rest of your life or

b. Go to a small country church with 25 parishioners for the rest of your life?

a. Go to a church with terrible music but great preaching or

b. Go to a church with terrible preaching but great music?

a. Never go to worship the rest of your life but go to as many church dinners, Bible studies, and non-Sunday church activities as you want or

b. Never go to anything in the church except worship the rest of your life?

5. What is one thing you would change about our church?

What is one thing that you would never want to see change about our church?