Grace Group Guide — When Everything Changes
Acts 2:1-8, 14-21; Philippians 4:4-7 (CEB) · Fresh Start: When Life Takes an Unexpected Turn · Week 7 · May 24, 2026 · Pentecost Sunday · Heritage Sunday
Pentecost begins with a community willing to wait. The disciples gathered in one room for ten silent days, and the Spirit fell as fierce wind and individual flames. The miracle was not that the disciples became multilingual scholars, but that every listener heard in the dialect of home. Peter quoted Joel: God’s Spirit poured out on all people, sons and daughters, young and old, servants and free. Paul names the gift that outlasts the spectacle: a peace that exceeds understanding, guarding hearts and minds even when the future is unclear. On Heritage Sunday, this same Spirit testifies through 152 years of McPherson First’s faithfulness, and the invitation is simple. The flame is still being passed forward.
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 wind and fire and peace, gather us in this room as you gathered those first disciples. Honor every voice present. Pour your Spirit on every generation here, the longtime and the newcomer, the confident and the uncertain. Open us to receive the peace that exceeds understanding. We pray in the name of Jesus, whose Spirit fell at Pentecost and has not stopped moving since. 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?
Pentecost begins with a community willing to wait, and the Spirit moved when ordinary people stayed in the room together. As you check in, consider:
Where in your life right now does waiting feel most uncertain, and what kind of peace are you longing for?
Pentecost honored every dialect. When have you most felt heard in the voice that feels like home?
Paul wrote about peace from a prison cell. Where do you need that kind of peace this week?
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.
Who in your life has helped pass the flame of faith forward to you, and what did they do?
Where have you noticed the Spirit moving through ordinary people in this congregation lately?
Whose voice in our community do you sense the Spirit elevating that you might have been overlooking?
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.
What is one anxiety you can bring to God in prayer this week, paired with one specific thanksgiving?
The Spirit fell on disciples who stayed in the room together. Where might God be inviting you to keep showing up even when you do not know what comes next?
As we move into Tending the Soul and the launch of Grace Groups, what fresh start is the Spirit already creating in you?
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.
Pass the flame forward this week. The Spirit is still moving.