A – Activate: 4th Step in The RECAP Model
Activate is my personal favorite! This is where we commit to whatever God is moving us toward in the area of our focus for the week.
This is the “Now What?” portion, after “What?” and “So What?”. It’s how we walk out our faith in our everyday life.
Just knowing about stuff doesn’t actually change our lives. James 2:14-20 says, “What good is it dear brothers and sister, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” – but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds” You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?”
“Even the demons believe”, so understanding cannot be the end goal we are working toward, it’s a good start but if it doesn’t affect our everyday life, it’s worth is diminished at best. This doesn’t mean we need to make life altering action step goals each week at Group, but it does mean that we need to activate our faith through listening to how the Holy Spirit is guiding us and then following through. Sharing what we believe God is prompting us toward with others in our Group exponentially improves the actuality of our walking out that step and not just talking about it.
Taking that one minute of silence to listen to what God is saying to us personally might be the most awkward, but most valuable, time in our Group gathering format. Our dreams become reality when we connect our promptings with our actual lives.
Pro Tip: Ask the people in the Group to actually hold their responses till that full silent minute is over. Then, go first as a Leader – often your sharing sets the bar for authentic response.