Lesson 4: Humility Leader's Guide

KEY CONCEPT

Treat your spouse as more significant than yourself.

The goal of this lesson is to help participants see that too often their focus in marriage is more on what they can get for themselves rather than how they can serve their spouse. A selfless, spouse-centered focus should be the natural result from truly embracing God’s grace as described in the previous lesson. Putting your spouse’s needs before your own will be one of the quickest ways to improve your marriage.

QUESTION HIGHLIGHTS

• Q3: This is a good place to camp as it will spark a ton of conversation. The practical ideas shared will give each participant a clearer picture of what they can do to grow in humility. Each participant should be able to find themselves somewhere in the list, so – without going around the circle – encourage everyone to share an answer.

  - Especially for the men in the group, it might be worth asking how they do at “studying your spouse”. This is historically a huge area of weakness for guys.

  - Virtually all the bullets in the preceding paragraph are the topics of future lessons (Communication, Emotional Intimacy, Making Amends, etc.) so don’t feel like this week you need a full explanation of how to improve in each area; you will get to it!

• Q4: This is a follow-up to Q3. If someone wants to grow in the area listed in Q3, how might they do it? Just try harder? How does God teach us? What does he use? Hopefully this leads to a discussion of accountability to others, asking God via prayer, memorization of applicable scripture, study of best practices from God’s word, etc.

• Action Item 2: Continually point back to Jesus as a role model for humility. Perhaps share Mark 10:42-45 as it is another key passage that gives a picture of servant leadership.

  - Note: This is the second time in the curriculum where participants are asked to process a long passage of scripture on their own. It may be worthwhile to read the passage out loud to ensure those less familiar with the Bible hear it, then you model how to make observations.

• Action Item 3: So far in the curriculum all the questions have been focused within each participant’s circle. This action item is the first time participants are encouraged to step outside their circle by asking “what can I do to serve you better?” It might be worth mentioning this to the group and asking how their exchange went (for some it might result in conflict, others might withdraw or disengage).

REMINDERS

• Since the Grace lesson was last week, you may have some new believers in your group. Try to look at your discussion through the eyes of someone who just came to Christ, and help clarify anything confusing when necessary.

• Because pride is such a powerful force in human nature, you may find some participants pulling away from a discussion on humility. Keep an eye out for anyone that is disengaged and encourage them to reengage (pun intended).

• Warn couples that next week’s lesson on Communication might take some extra time, so prepare accordingly.

• A best practice for leaders is to debrief with your spouse after the group this week. Some questions to ask yourself:

  - Did we talk too much? Did I talk over you?
  - Did we miss any verbal or non-verbal cues from each other, or participants?
  - Is there anything we need to clarify next week?
  - Which participants need follow-up this week?

DID YOU KNOW?

In the early versions of re|engage, this lesson was later in the curriculum. However, it was found that the upcoming lessons on Communication and Peacemaking were more productive when couples entered those lessons with a posture of humility.