A weekly exploration of the Sunday Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary as used in the Anglican Church of Australia. Prepared for Home Groups, it may be useful  in other settings too.

Breakthrough is open-ended rather than result centred, life-centred rather than content-driven, intuitive rather than inductive. Heart stuff before it's head stuff. While it can help if Group leaders & members do such 'homework' & apply whatever level of study they're capable of to the text, it is not a 'study' in the often off-putting sense. To make it operate like that will court failure.

The emphasis is on learning & growing through sharing our stories, our experience. That way we can Break through & out of old often-failed methods based mainly on the imparting & absorbing of religious knowledge. An advantage of the Breakthrough approach is that people who've never 'studied' the Bible, shun traditional 'studies', or feel themselves ignorant, can soon & without any embarrassment enter into the spirit of what's happening on equal terms with anyone else, as it all starts with them & where they are, not with someone else & where they would like them to be.

The Group Leader, however appointed, needs to be someone willing to be humble servant to the others & encourage & draw them out. So every feels able to begin, & go on sharing themselves & their experiences & hopefully find Gospel in the process. To begin to enjoy God more. It's not the leader's job to push people to some pre-determined (by whom?) conclusion. Over time (& led by the Spirit!) a Group is likely to develop & share leadership / membership functions (including servanthood!) as a mini Body of Christ.

Breakthrough is for those open to exploring new ideas about themselves, God, & others. Open to finding the 'Gospel according to themselves'. Even if that means leaving, e.g., "Paul says....." on the shelf while we discover that what we say can be OK too.

P.S. Feedback is welcome via Email to Brian McGowan at tirnanog1@iinet.net.au