Grace Group Guide — Finding Your Voice in a Foreign Place
Acts 17:16-31 (CEB) · Fresh Start: When Life Takes an Unexpected Turn · Week 4 · May 3, 2026 (Senior Sunday and Communion)
Paul walks alone into Athens, a city of philosophers and altars to gods he doesn’t recognize. Instead of shrinking into silence, he pays attention, builds a bridge, and speaks truth with grace. What he carries from home, his faith and his courage, turns out to be enough.
New to Grace Groups? Grace Groups are small communities of 6 to 8 people who meet weekly to grow deeper in faith and support each other. They’re a place to be honest about your faith journey and watch over each other in love, not a Bible study, not a therapy group, not a place to fix each other’s problems. The format is simple, the conversation is real, and over time, these become the people who know your story. Every meeting follows the same five-part rhythm below.
1. Center
Open with prayer or a moment of silence. Take a breath. Let the week fall away.
God who is never far from any of us, thank you for meeting us wherever we are this week. Open our eyes to recognize where you are already at work, and give us courage to speak with honesty, humility, and hope. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
2. Soul Tending
Check in with where you are spiritually, not where you think you should be. These five areas can help you find your way into the conversation. Pick the one or two that feel most alive, or most stuck, right now.
Prayers — How is your prayer life? What are you reading or listening to?
Presence — How has worship or being with other Christians shaped your week?
Gifts — Where are you giving your time, money, or energy?
Service — Where are you serving? What does that look like right now?
Witness — Where have you shared your faith or lived it out loud?
This week’s scripture follows Paul into a foreign city, where what he carries from home becomes exactly what he needs. As you check in, consider:
Where have you recently felt like you were in a foreign place?
What parts of your faith have become your “native language” over time?
Paul’s distress in Athens turned into grief, not anger. What stirs that same grief in you?
3. God Sightings
Share something from this week where you noticed God moving, in your life, in someone else’s, or in the world around you. Big or small, it counts.
Where did you see God already at work before you arrived this week?
Who has been a bridge-builder for you, meeting you where you were?
What “altar to an unknown god” have you noticed in your own life lately, a place of unnamed longing or searching?
4. Growing in Grace
Name something you’re carrying, a decision, a fear, a next step you’ve been avoiding. The group isn’t here to fix it. Just to hear it, sit with you in it, and pray.
Witness is our focus this week. What conversation is God nudging you toward?
Paul invited the Athenians to take one next step. What next step could you offer someone?
What do you carry from this community that will help you find your voice in your next foreign place?
5. Close
Pray for each other before you leave.
Each person shares one prayer need in a sentence. Then someone in the group prays for them out loud. Keep it simple: “God, I pray for [name]...” and one or two sentences is plenty.
God is not far from any one of us. In God we live, move, and exist. Carry that with you into every foreign place this week.