Session 4 Discussion Leader Guide | Fall 2026 Leader Hub

The setup

This is the payoff week. Everything has been building to one question: what is this family actually for? The video gives two answers that pull in opposite directions on purpose. A group is for going deep — really loving and serving each other. And it’s an open door — a place where someone new gets welcomed into the family. Tonight your group practices both.

The win tonight is concrete: your group leaves with a name and a plan. A name of someone who could fill the empty chair, and one real idea for how you’ll serve outside this room this semester.

Before you press play

Put an empty chair in the circle before you start. The video challenges every group to purposely leave one, and the second break asks your group to look at it. It does more work sitting there than anything you could say about it.
Have last week's “roles list” in front of you. You'll open the night by following up on the part each person claimed.
Bring something to write on. Tonight produces names and a serve idea. Write them down, or they evaporate.
Share a meal if you can. The video's first practice for going deep is literally eating together. Doing it while you hear it lands harder.
Heads up: a testimony plays near the end of the video — a couple who hosted a group, and what it meant to have that family show up for them in a hard season. Let it breathe; don't talk over it.
Keep a few blank covenants on hand and quietly collect any that are ready. Have Bibles out; encourage physical copies.

Look back

Following up on the parts people claimed

Go around on the roles.Ask: “How’d it feel to own a part of the group this week?” Celebrate the wins, no shame on the misses. This is where last week stops being a nice moment and becomes how your group actually runs.
Ask for a win.“What’s one good thing — big or small — that’s come out of this group over these four weeks?” It’s the last session; let people say out loud what’s happened.
Collect any covenants quietly. Same posture as always: no pressure, no public celebration, nobody singled out. Anyone still deciding belongs here just as much as anyone who signed.

Look up

What the Video Covers

It opens by recapping all four weeks — why we gather (Acts 2), going all in (Hebrews 10), everyone having a role (1 Corinthians 12) — then asks what the family is for.

The first answer is depth. The hosts push back on a common assumption: that proximity produces depth, that if you’re just around people long enough, the relationships will go deep on their own. They won’t. Depth comes from specific practices, and the video names four.

Eat together

Not a requirement, but it turns a meeting into a family gathering. The early church broke bread house to house, every day. Even if your group doesn't normally eat together, plan to do it a few times throughout the semester.

Share your joys and your sorrows

Not just the good week — the real struggles too. When someone opens up, the whole dynamic of a group changes.

Pray for one another, and confess honestly

James says confess to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. A lot of people have never had anyone actually pray over them.

Keep showing up

Nathan borrows a line from the recovery community — keep coming back; it works if you work it. When feelings get hurt, or someone feels overlooked, the instinct is to quietly disappear. Fruit comes from the people who keep coming back week after week.

From there the video goes to John 13 — the upper room, the last night of Jesus’s life, right after he washed the disciples’ feet — and hands off to you.

After the break, Nathan and Jonah unpack the passage and pivot to the second answer: this love was never meant to stay in the room. They’re honest that groups get close, build real friendships, and quietly start closing the door — and they name the pushback the church has gotten around multiplying and starting new groups. The two ways love leaves the room are serving together and inviting.

Discussion break 1 of 2

First Break — John 13:34–35

When it hits: Right after the hosts set the scene — Jesus, hours from the cross, having just washed the disciples’ feet, the dirtiest job there was. When someone is speaking in the final moments of their life, they only say what matters most.

Discussion card — on screen

Read it aloud together. It’s two verses; have someone read John 13:34–35 twice, slowly, maybe using two different translations.

Jesus gives this command right after washing his friends’ feet. How does that change what “love one another” actually means?
He says this love is how the world will identify his people. Why that — and not what we believe, or how well we behave?

Then practice it: go around and each share one joy and one sorrow from your life right now.

How to run it (12–15 minutes)

This break is longer than the others in the series because it has a practice attached. Budget for it.

For question 1, what you’re listening for: love here isn’t warm feelings or being nice — it’s the posture of a King on the floor with a towel doing the lowest servant’s job. And the standard is “just as I have loved you,” which by the next morning meant a cross.

Question 2 tends to land hard, and it should. Jesus could have said the world will know us by our doctrine or our behavior. He said love. As the video puts it, depth isn’t scripture memory or knowing all the details of the Bible or praying grandiose prayers — it’s loving one another the way Christ loved us. A good follow-up if it stalls: “If an outsider watched our group for a month, what would they say we’re known for?”

Commentary to help you lead

Do not skip the joy and sorrow round.When you’re watching the clock it’s tempting to treat it as an add-on, but it is the point — the video just taught that depth comes from sharing joys and sorrows, and this is your group doing it instead of discussing it. A session that talks about love and never practices it has missed the night.

Go first, and go with a real sorrow.Not a safe one. The group’s honesty will rise to exactly the level you set and no higher.

Don’t fix, coach, or comment after each person. Receive it and thank them. If something heavy surfaces, note it and follow up personally this week — that follow-up is the whole thing you’ve been building toward for four weeks.

Discussion break 2 of 2

Second Break — The Empty Chair and Serving Together

When it hits: After Nathan and Jonah explain the empty chair and the two ways love leaves the room. They set this break up as a brainstorm — dreaming together about how your group could serve your community, your neighborhood, even throw a block party. Their words: the sky’s the limit.

Discussion card — on screen

Look at the empty chair. Who’s one person — neighbor, coworker, friend, family member — who could fill it? Say a name out loud.
What’s one thing this group could do together this semester to serve people outside the room? Put a date on it.

How to run it (10–12 minutes)

Both questions have an action built in, and that’s not decoration — it’s the difference between a nice conversation and something that actually happens.

For question 1, go around so everyone names someone. Write the names down and commit to praying for them as a group going forward. If someone can’t think of anyone, use the question the video offers: “Who’s the closest person to you who is furthest from God?” That one usually surfaces a name fast.

For question 2, let it actually be a brainstorm — the video is inviting your group to dream, not to fill in a form. Get ideas on the table, then land on one and get a date or at least a month on the calendar. Don’t try to plan the whole thing tonight; details can go to whoever claimed the Outreach/Mission role last week. Handing that person the ball in front of everyone is a great way to empower leadership.

Also, note that Church at the Grove has designated “grant money” for special outreach events that groups aspire to do. If you are interested in learning more, please reach out to Nathan for more information.

Commentary to help you lead

Expect hesitation on the invite question. People worry that a new person will make the group shallower, or that their friend wouldn’t be interested. Answer it warmly: every one of us got in because a door was open to us. Open and deep aren’t competing — the healthiest groups do both.

The video names something worth saying plainly if it comes up: we get real pushback on multiplying and starting new groups, because we want to keep a good thing a good thing. That instinct is understandable, and it’s still what slowly closes a group.

Send your serve idea to Nathan, or drop it in the group leader GroupMe.The hosts ask for this in the video, and it’s worth doing — other leaders get ideas from what your group dreams up, and you’ll get challenged by theirs.

Look forward

The Next Step, and Sending Them Out

Read back what the group committed to (2 min)

Say the names out loud and say the serve idea out loud. Then tell them you'll be following up on both — and mean it.

Name the personal next step (5 min)

The video lands the whole series here: belonging was never the finish line. The next step on the pathway after BELONG is BECOME, and the vehicle is a Discipleship Group — smaller, same gender, meeting weekly, reading the same passages of Scripture together, journaling, memorizing Scripture, and holding each other accountable to what God is calling them to do. It's the move from “I know about Jesus” to “I know Jesus and I'm following him daily.”

Cast the ongoing rhythm (2 min)

From next week on, your group keeps meeting in this same flow — Look Back, Look Up, Look Forward — discussing the weekend sermon using the church's questions. This is your normal now. Bring Bibles every week.

Commission and pray (4 min)

Pray over your group for the semester: for love the world would actually notice, for the people they just named, and for the next step each person is being invited into. Celebrate that they finished all four sessions.

The practical part

D-Groups roll out in January 2027. If anyone in your group is interested, send them to churchatthegrove.com/discipleship-groups to sign up for updates — we’ll email them as soon as it’s time to jump in.

Say the grace part too.For some people, joining a Community Group was already a big step — that’s genuinely great, and nobody should feel behind. And a D-Group is not for spiritual all-stars. As the video points out, Jesus called fishermen and tax collectors; they weren’t people who were ready to go deeper, and they didn’t even know that’s what they needed.

A few general tips

Leading this session well

Model the joys and sorrows round. It's in this guide twice on purpose. Everything tonight rises or falls on whether you go first with something real.
Make the empty chair concrete. “Who's not here yet?” should leave the room as actual names you're praying for, not a nice idea everyone nodded at.
Don't let open and deep compete. If someone frames it as a tradeoff, gently refuse the premise. A group can go deep and stay open; the healthy ones have to.
Remember the pathway is a circle. Believe, Belong, Become, Build — and then back around as the people they reach begin to believe. Nobody arrives, and nobody parks.
Celebrate. They finished. Say so. Four weeks ago some of these people were strangers to each other.

For quick reference

John 13:34–35 (CSB)

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”