Consider these scripturally probing questions to enrich NEXT Sunday's (3.8.09) message:
Living Loved
Day 1            In chapter 12, Mack emerges from a major counseling session with the 
Wonderful Counselor, Sophia.  How does Mack describe the marks of change in his internal world?  Can 
you recall a time when you could have identified with his feelings?  If this was like typical earthly 
counseling sessions, the psychologist would announce your 50 minutes is up, his or time being valuable, 
and others in urgent need, he or she is done with you.  In this case, however, who is waiting patiently for an 
opportunity to hang out with Mack in ordinary time after the critical counseling session was concluded?  Is 
that as you would expect?  Explain.  Describe times when you assumed otherwise.  What would you say 
are the consequences of such assumptions?  What lesson(s) in living loved would you note here?

Day 2            At the bottom of page 173, we find Mack weeping again over Missy. Why does he weep? 
What is it about these tears he notes as different from the season in the grips of his Great Sadness? What 
fundamental assumptions have been transformed about where God was when Missy suffered? How are 
recognizing and updating mistaken assumptions like these an essential component of "learning to live life 
loved" (p. 175)? How does Romans 12:2 describe this process? How long does it take? In what ways can 
we cooperate with it? Can it be rushed? Can it be delayed? Can it be neglected? Explain.??
Day 3            What echoes of Jesus' words in John 14 and 15 can you note in the paragraph describing the 
arrangement of living life loved in the lengthiest paragraph on page 175? Who makes their home in you 
according to this passage? And according to John15:7-12 in what do we make our home as those learning 
to live life loved? In practical terms, what would you take this to mean?

Day 4           Toward the end of page 177 the book's conversation turns to the subject of the Church, the 
Bride of Jesus. What of this description do you like or do you doubt as to its accuracy? What points of 
comparison might be drawn to a biblical description of the Church in Ephesians 4? Does this passage 
confirm or deny what is said on p. 178, "it's all about relationships and simply sharing life." In what ways 
have you, like Mack been disillusioned by churches? In what ways have you experienced signs of the true 
church as described in Ephesians 4? What can individuals do to help any church live into that vision?

Day 5            The scaffolding of institutions cannot substitute for the living relationships of the church, but 
cannot institutions and organizations be a part of God's plan to foster the true church? What answer would 
you say this chapter gives to that question? What do you say? Why do you think Hebrews 10:23-25 is 
encouraging? Reading Romans16 do you hear any incongruence between the organizational church and the 
true church? Reading Matthew 28:18 do you think God wants to make disciples through the church or apart 
from it?