Grace Group Guide — Noticing the Growth
Mark 4:26-29 (CEB) · Tending the Soul: Growing in Grace Through Three Questions · Week 2 · June 7, 2026 · Communion Sunday
In one of his shortest parables, Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a farmer who scatters seed and then goes about ordinary life. The seed sprouts and grows, but the farmer doesn’t know how. First the stalk, then the head, then the full head of grain, and finally the farmer recognizes the harvest.
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 of seed and soil, open our eyes to the growth we’ve missed. Help us notice where you’ve been at work, in our lives, in this community, and in the places we’ve stopped looking. Teach us to trust the mystery. 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?
The witness promise begins with noticing. Before you can name what God is doing, you have to see it.
Of the five practices, prayers, presence, gifts, service, witness, which feels most alive right now and which is dim?
Where has your attention drifted this past week, and what is that attention growing in you?
When did you last tell someone what God is doing in your life, and what kept you from telling sooner?
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.
Jesus says growth happens while the farmer sleeps. Look for the harvest you didn’t engineer.
Look back over the last six months. What changed in you that you did not manufacture and can’t fully explain?
Where have you noticed God growing something good in someone close to you while they were not looking?
What stalk-stage growth in your life are you tempted to dismiss because it is not yet a full harvest?
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.
Measuring asks “what have I produced?” Noticing asks “where have I seen God at work?” The discipline grows over time.
Which question are you mostly living in this week, the measuring question or the noticing question?
What is one small step of telling, to a friend, family member, or coworker, that names what God is doing?
Who in your life needs to hear that God is growing something good, and what would your first sentence sound like?
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. Hold the hard things to the light. Trust that God is already at work in the soil.
The harvest is closer than you think. Grow with us at mcphersonfirst.org/next.