Session 2 Discussion Leader Guide | Fall 2026 Leader Hub

Heads up — the video opens with a testimony

The first five minutes are a couple from our church, Jody and Elisabeth Bates, telling their story. Nothing is wrong with your video, and don’t skip ahead. It’s the best argument for everything the session is about to ask of your group. The teaching starts when Nathan and Jonah come on screen and say “welcome back,” about five minutes into the video.

Before you press play

Print one covenant per person, plus a few extras and some pens (we will have some printed for you to use). Make sure you grab these copies on Sunday morning at the connection desk, not panicking twenty minutes before. If you have couples in your group, print one for each person — this is an individual commitment.

Pull out the list from last week. At the end of Session 1 you wrote down the one step each person said they’d take. Open the meeting by asking how those went. Nobody expects perfection — but asking is the whole point. A group that gets asked once learns that what they say here matters.

Understanding the passage

A quick commentary on Hebrews 10:19–25

Where we are

Hebrews was written to Christians who were getting tired. Some were drifting — quietly pulling back, skipping the gathering, slipping out the back door. If that sounds like the “back door” problem from last week, it is. This passage is the writer addressing it head-on.

The foundation comes first (vv. 19–21)

Before a single command, the writer spends three verses on Jesus — the sacrifice He made, the new and living way He opened, our great high priest over the house of God. This is the part not to skip. The commands that follow aren't religious housekeeping or a guilt trip about attendance. They're the response to what Jesus already did. We keep showing up for each other because He showed up for us.

The “let us” commands (vv. 22–25)

Three of them, and they build: let us draw near to God, let us hold on to our hope, let us consider one another. Notice that the third one turns outward. Drawing near to God and holding onto hope lands us in responsibility for each other — personal faith is not the finish line.

“Provoke” (v. 24)

A strange word to run into here. We normally use it for starting a fight. But we're told to provoke one another to love and good works — to stir each other up, get under each other's skin in the best way. Your group is supposed to be a mild disturbance in each other's comfortable lives.

“As some are in the habit of doing” (v. 25)

The key word is habit. Nobody decides to quit community. You miss one week, notice it wasn't that bad, miss the next, and one day you're gone — and you never made the decision. That's why the antidote is also a habit: keep gathering, keep encouraging.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 shows up later in the video as the plain-sense version of the same truth: two are better than one, because when one falls the other can lift him up. The question isn’t whether you’ll get knocked down. It’s whether anyone will be close enough to pick you up.

Discussion break 1 of 2

First Break

When it hits: Right after Jonah sets the scene in Hebrews and tells your group to watch for the “let us” commands. Pause and read Hebrews 10:19–25 out loud together.

Discussion card — on screen

Open your Bibles. Press pause.

Read aloud together: Hebrews 10:19–25

Find the “let us…” commands (vv. 22–25). What are we told to do for one another?
Verse 25 names a real danger — “not neglecting to gather together.” Why do you think the writer had to say that out loud?

How to run it (6–8 minutes)

Read all seven verses, not just the famous two. The commands only make sense on top of what verses 19–21 say about Jesus, and reading the whole thing keeps your group from hearing verse 25 as a lecture about church attendance.

For question 1, have someone call out each “let us” as they find it. Then push one step further: the third command is the one aimed at each other. Ask what it would actually look like to consider the people in this room — to pay enough attention to know what would stir them toward love and good works.

Question 2 is the honest one. The writer had to warn them because it was already happening. Let your group sit with that: this is a two-thousand-year-old problem, not a modern one, and the Bible is not surprised by the person who quietly stops belonging.

Commentary to help you lead

The temptation here is to let this turn into a conversation about other people — the ones who don’t come, the ones who left. Keep steering it back into the room. The passage isn’t ammunition for judging the absent; it’s a warning written to people who thought they’d always be there. If your group lands on “we all have some drift in us,” you’ve done this well.

Discussion break 2 of 2

Second Break

When it hits: After Nathan and Jonah unpack the passage — the “provoke” word, the “habit” warning, why Jesus is the reason underneath all of it, and Ecclesiastes 4.

Discussion card — on screen

Be honest — what usually pulls you toward “neglecting to gather”? (Tiredness? Busyness? It just feels easier to stay home?)
Tell about a time someone “picked you up” when you fell — or a time you wish someone had been close enough to.

How to run it (8–10 minutes)

Question 1 works best when you keep it small and specific. Not “our culture is busy” — more like “by Wednesday night I’m fried, and the couch wins.” Go first, and name a real one. If you skip your turn or give a tidy answer, everyone else will too, and this break quietly becomes about nothing.

Question 2 is where the meeting gets weighty, and it’s the one that earns the covenant you’re about to hand out. Some people will tell you about a meal that showed up or people praying in their living room. Others will tell you about the time nobody came — and that answer is just as important. Don’t rush past it or try to fix it. “That shouldn’t have happened to you” is a faithful thing to say.

Commentary to help you lead

Watch the clock here, but not at the cost of the conversation. If question 2 opens something real, stay in it — you can walk the covenant more briefly and still finish the night well. What you cannot do is skip handing out the covenant, so keep an eye on your remaining time and protect the last ten minutes.

Yours to lead

The Hand-Off: The Covenant

The video teaches on the covenant, Jonah prays, and then it hands the night to you to actually pass it out. Plan on 12–15 minutes. This is the part of the whole four-week series that most shapes what your group becomes, so protect the time for it.

Hand it out and walk the six commitments (7–8 min)

Give everyone a copy and a pen. Read the six aloud — Presence, Authenticity, Confidentiality, Care, Growth, and Openness & Mission — or have six different people each read one. Then ask two questions and let people actually answer: “Which one of these would stretch you the most this semester, and why?” and “What would it look like to really live that one out?” Answer first, and name a real struggle. Your honesty sets the ceiling for everyone else's.

Send it home. Do not let anyone sign it tonight (3–4 min)

This is the instruction people most often get wrong, and the video is deliberate about it. Say it out loud: we don't want anyone signing this because the rest of the room is. Ask them to take it home, pray over it — with their family if they have one — count the cost honestly, and bring it back signed next week, or by the end of Session 4. Be clear about what they're signing: it is one semester, not a lifetime, and the group stays open the whole time — these commitments are about how we treat each other once we're in, not about locking the door. And it goes both ways: the group and its leaders are committing to them too.

Pray and send off (2 min)

Pray that each person would count the cost honestly and decide with a clear heart — not out of pressure or guilt. Remind everyone to bring their Bible next week, and their covenant whenever they're ready. Next week is Session 3, “How We Gather.”

If someone isn’t ready to sign

Some people won’t sign, and a few will tell you so. Take that well. A person who says “I don’t think I can promise that right now” is being exactly as honest as the covenant asks them to be, and they are still welcome in your group every single week. Don’t chase, guilt, or make an example of anyone. Thank them for being straight with you, keep inviting them, and let the Lord work. An unsigned covenant is not a failed conversation.

A few general tips

Leading this session well

Don't oversell the covenant. Read it plainly and let it speak — a leader who works too hard to convince the room makes people suspicious of the very thing you're asking for.
Keep your own answers short everywhere except when you're going first; there, be specific.
Tonight isn't about collecting paperwork — you're asking people to decide on purpose to be a family. The signatures are just how we say it out loud.
Once people bring covenants back, hold onto them as their group leaders. This is a commitment people are making with your group, not the church as a whole.

For quick reference

Hebrews 10:24–25 (CSB)

“And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.”

Read the full passage from your Bible — Hebrews 10:19–25. The two verses above are where the teaching lands, but verses 19–21 are the reason any of it holds together.