Turn the Cat around Week 6

In one paragraph

This service centered on the ongoing series "Turn Your Cat Around," the idea that aligning your life with God's principles and precepts leads not to an easier life but to a better one. Jay shared his testimony of growing up as a pastor's kid, wandering into sexual sin and a double life in high school, and then finding his way back to God through scripture and Christian community. The congregation...

Read together

1. Psalm 107:1-2 read aloud by Maddie G as the anchor text for the testimony time
2. Psalm 32 Brian quoted it on confessing sin, the body wasting away, and receiving forgiveness
3. 1 John 1:9 cited as the basis for why confessing sin allows you to partake of communion
4. Psalm 2 quoted during the offertory prayer, ask and I will give you the nations as your inheritance

What was said

• Take a stack of Easter service invites from the table and hand them to friends, asking not 'do you have plans for Easter?' but 'what are your plans for Easter?'
• If there is an area of unconfessed sin on your conscience, name it out loud to God and receive the forgiveness that 1 John 1:9 promises.
• Sign up on the fridge for the Wind River Reservation VBS trip, June 25 through 28, even if you are not sure what role you would play.
• Join the young adults send-off dinner this Tuesday and show up for whoever in your tribe family is heading into a new season.
• If you have been trying to do life alone, reach out this week to one person in the community and let them into whatever you are actually carrying right now.

Talk about it

1. Jay described the moment his parents took everything away and he was left alone with just a Bible. He said that was the first time he genuinely prayed for himself. What does it take for most of us to get to that kind of honest, stripped-down place with God?
2. Lissa shared a vision of people standing barefoot on white sandstone stairs, and the interpretation offered was that as a kingdom of priests we carry something holy into the ordinary places where we live and work. What does that actually look like for you in Jackson day to day?
3. Brian described the Holy Spirit whispering to him that in the days ahead, following Jesus will be less complicated but more costly. What do you think that means, and where do you feel that cost most in your own life right now?
4. Several people shared publicly during the service about specific sin or patterns they were turning around, and Brian pointed to Colleen's earlier public confession as something that broke open a new season for the whole community. How do you personally experience the tension between keeping things private before God and being honest with the people around you?
5. Joy confessed that she had been studying individualism and independence as problems she saw in the culture, only to realize God was holding up a mirror at her. Brian used the image of petting a cat against the grain to describe living out of step with God's ways. Is there an area of your life right now where you sense that kind of friction, and what would turning it around actually require?