Epiphany 06: The Transfiguration

Community Group Questions

1. Tim listed four things that often stand between people and belief in God: 

• Lack of hard evidence

• No personal encounter

• Lost capacity for mystery &

• Human suffering

How do each of these things impact your faith? Are some of them more impactful than others when it comes to your ability to believe? How do you see them functioning in your day-to-day life? For you, do the impacts feel more slow and building, or more sudden and harsh when something big happens? Or both? 

2. During the transfiguration, Peter’s instinct is to build tabernacle spaces for all who are present, to rest on the mountain top, and stay tucked away in the holy moment. Tim pointed out that this urge should be one that catches us all in its net.

How much do you relate to Peter in this moment? When you find yourself in more of a “mountain top” type of place with God, how much do you resist leaving the mountain? How do you feel about the necessity of returning back to the everyday world you live in?

Do the rises and falls feel like something you experience routinely? What’s the impact of whatever that pattern might look like on your day-to-day living of your faith?

3. Tim taught that cruciform love is the only power stronger than the Empires of the world, and that if we follow Christ’s example of cruciform life, our love will be revelatory; it will reveal the true nature of the powers of Empire. 

How do you feel about these statements and promises? Do they give you hope? Do they feel inspiring? Or did they feel empty? Too abstract to be meaningful?

Tim’s closing slide said “God is made most alive and visible in the wilderness of suffering and out the other side… And this is a very narrow road.”

Reflect on that idea, and what it might mean for you in your faith today and in the world as we know it. What surfaces? What thoughts or feelings come to you as you sit in the space?