Ekklesia Study // March

Posted on by Ekko Church

“Am I What I’m Looking For?” — Ephesians Series

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” – Ephesians 5: 21-24 (NIV)

Everyone desires love and respect—whether from your spouse, significant other or from friends. Below are Godly characteristics that help us prepare for marriage (single or dating) or helps sustain a good marriage (married). 

Humility

  1. To the large group: What is humility?

  2. Break into groups of 3-4:
    What area of your life do you need to practice humility?
    Why do you think you struggle in this area?

  3. In the same groups:
    How can you foster humility in your life? (i.e. How can you ask for help? Who can you celebrate? How can you practice gratitude?)

Honesty

  1. To the large group: What does it mean to be an honest person?

  2. Break into groups of 3-4:
    What area of your life is there a lack of integrity or a disconnect between your private and public life?

  3. In the same groups:
    How can you bring congruence and honesty in this area of your life? 

Humor

  1. To the large group: How can humor be an expression of hope?

  2. Break into groups of 3-4:
    What situation, circumstance, or relationship makes you worrisome, gives you anxiety, or makes you fearful?

  3. In the same groups:
    How can you practice “hopeful humor” in this situation, circumstance, or relationship? What would it look like to practice one of the below? Be as practical as you can:

  4. Humor helps create enough distance to see the ecosystem that is causing the problem.
  • Humor helps defuse the emotional bombs that will create new problems further distracting those involved from the ecosystem that created the problem in the first place. The godly spouse absorbs anxiety and churns out an atmosphere of hope.
  • Humor helps drownout negative and fearful imaginations and creates a space for new ideas and innovation and an openness to hear new perspectives. 
  • Humor helps disengage with the tense situation at hand through the spirit of playfulness long enough for the body to calm itself down and recalibrate itself for better, smarter, more creative ideas to flow. 
  • The humorous spouse is the spouse who has been deeply dependent on God and has developed through a life of prayer a mellow heart and hopeful outlook on life.

End your time by praying for one another in smaller groups.