If you are a follower of Jesus, you have experienced the deep impact of the deep grace of Jesus: that because of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection you can love God with more and more of who you are and what you have. You can freed from guilt and shame through the forgiveness of Jesus and the transformation and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. You can experience relationships of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love. You can be empowered by the Holy Spirit to make the world the place he always dreamed it could be. So, how do you respond to the deep grace of God? By not only celebrating God's grace in worship, but then carrying God's grace to the world.

To process further this Sunday's conversation, talk through the questions below with your group, your family or a circle of friends. Feel free to even post your own questions below to challenge and inspire the rest of us!

1. Can you recall a moment of "deep grace" in your life, a time when you expected, and deserved, judgment from someone but received mercy instead? Briefly described what happened.

• How did that moment affect your own sense of yourself? How did it affect your relationship with that person?
• Why do we live with such an expectation of judgment? Why do we always seem to assume the worst about how others will respond to our failures?
• Consider telling each other stories about experiencing the deep grace of God, perhaps when you first sensed his love for you, or first embraced Jesus Christ as your forgiver, leader and source of your life.

2. Read Jonah 2:1-2, 7-9. Jonah's first reaction, in response to God's "deep grace" was worship. What is worship? Why do we do it? What does it do?

• What's the difference between a profound experience of worship, in which you truly enter God's presence, and worship that "falls flat"? Why do we sometimes experience the one and sometimes the other?
• How do you prepare yourself for the revelation of God's grace in worship? What would need to happen ahead of time for you to come prepared to experience him?
• What factors, within your control, keep you from fully entering into the spirit of worship during the service? What is our responsibility to experience worship when we gather together?
• What's the difference between actively engaging in worship and passively "consuming" it? How can we learn to engage, rather than to consume?

3. In what way is "worship the fuel for the fire of mission"? How does proper worship inspire us to take our faith into the world?

• Why do you think that experiences of God's "deep grace" often quickly translate into worship, but rarely translate into mission? Why is it not our immediate instinct to "get up and go" tell others what God has done for us?
• Why is it be that the #1 accusation against Christians is that they are judgmental and hypocritical? Why do you think the church can be so quick to judge the failures of those on the "outside"? How does that compare to how Jesus lived?
• Why do people within the church often seem to be so intent on sheltering themselves from contact with people who don't know Christ? How does that compare to how Jesus lived?
• How can we nurture an attitude of mission in ourselves? How can we challenge and stretch ourselves to not just celebrate God's grace in worship but to carry it to the world?

4. What changes do you need to make to better engage in the purpose of your life: to respond to his grace first with worship and second by mission?

• What do you suppose to be your biggest barrier to responding to God with a heart of worship? How can you address that barrier?
• What do you suppose to be your biggest barrier to responding to God with a heart for sharing your love for him with others? What can you do to address that barrier?
• Pray for each other and your commitments, and pray for your friends who don't yet know Jesus.