DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

5A:

• Have you ever had some kind of spiritual experience or an unexpected moment that made you stop and question life?
• What helps you to find peace in your life?
• Have you ever had a moment of inspiration or understanding that seemed to come from nowhere?
• What other ideas or questions strike you from this part of the film?

5B:

• What have been your best experiences of community or family?
• Can you describe your ideal community?
• Which person has been the biggest influence on your life and why?
• What other ideas or questions strike you from this part of the film?

5C:

• Have you ever gone to a religious service of any kind? What signs and symbols do you remember?
• What is your impression of Christians and Christianity?
• What do you think about the idea that we can connect to God through worship and community?
• What other ideas or questions strike you from this part of the film?

KEY PASSAGES FROM THE FILM

5A – “How the Holy Spirit can change your life”

The Holy Spirit is the love of God, sent to us from the Father, by his Son Jesus. This is why Christians speak about the Holy Trinity, because the one eternal God is a communion of three Divine Persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Holy Spirit is so precious because he transforms us from the inside. He takes the broken pieces of our lives and makes something new from them. God is working in our lives. The biblical word for this is grace.

5B – “No one gets into heaven alone”

It takes a village to raise a child. And I’d tweak this slightly to say: It takes a church to raise a Christian. Christians are part of an amazing community of faith. No one gets into heaven alone.

The Christian faith has been passed on from one generation to the next. There is a golden thread that runs through history, a chain of continuity, that gives us a direct connection with Jesus Christ and the community he founded, the new family that he gathered together.

This is the deepest meaning of the Church. It’s a sign of the unity and peace God wants to give all people through Jesus Christ; and a way for us to share in that peace. It looks and feels a bit different today. But it is the Church of the Bible, the Church of the Apostles. The faith we profess today is fundamentally the same.

5C – “Why we need signs, symbols and sacraments?”

Christians believe that God took flesh and walked among us. And he continues to use visible signs to share his life with us. In the Christian tradition these visible signs are called sacraments.

The sacraments are at the heart of biblical faith. They are given to us by Jesus himself. But they are not just signs: they have an effect; they give us the grace of the Holy Spirit.

We are saved by a living faith. And the sacraments and all the external symbols of Christianity are ineffective without faith. But when they are celebrated with faith, they deepen that faith and bring it to fulfilment.