Connect

Express Yourself - Introduction

July 05, 2026 0 0

 

Introduction:

 

Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean losing your identity. Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean sanding off all the quirks and rough edges. Being a Christian doesn’t mean ‘fitting in’. Being a Christian means be ‘fitted out’! Fitting out a new life with everything that you truly are. 

God does not ask us to blend in and keep our heads down. God does not invite you to lose yourself in something bigger, but rather to find yourself as part of something bigger. Bringing all those quirks and rough edges to contribute to more than the sum of our parts. Through expressing our true selves to God and one another we uncover who we have always been at heart. 

This summer as a community we are exploring the many different ways we express ourselves — through food, music, art, sport, festival and celebration. 

God does not ask for conformity, God asks for generosity. God does not ask for timidity — God asks for tenacity. God does not call us to be insular — but urges us to look out. Expressing ourselves through the things we love is not a reward for being a Christian — it’s what it IS to BE a Christian. The expression — of compassion, of kindness, of love, of imagination, of care, of art, of adventure, of effort, — are not incidental, they are a human being fully alive! 

So this summer — all you’ve got to do is express yourself!

Weekly overview:

  1. You are what you eat! — Food

  2. Gameface! — Team Sports

  3. Secret Chords and a well known chorus — Music

  4. A lamp to our feet — Running with God

  5. Coming face to face with God — Art

  6. A heavenly party — Festivals and celebrations

  7. Unity through diversity 

  8. Everyday glory — Work

  9. Expressing God’s love in the world!

 

 

A note about format:

Rather than creating an extended Bible study over the summer, while many Connect groups take a break, we have instead created a short Biblical focus for each of the 9 weeks of our summer themes. Each week also has an optional book and film you may wish to explore.

These can be used for personal study — perhaps this summer you can take a journal with you and reflect each week on these prompts wherever you go? Or they can be used informally with friends, families, congregations and others groups getting together in summer configurations. Perhaps you are running a summer cafe church and you could use these questions to shape group discussions? Maybe your Connect group wants to keep meeting over the summer but in a shorter/more irregular format with people coming and going — you could use these questions as opportunities to dig into our themes while also having a lighter load to enjoy catching up with one another!