Just Do It Groups
The second most fulfilling thing in your week
Want a more fulfilling life, one week at a time? You have come to the right place.
The second most fulfilling thing you can plan into your week is a Just Do It Group session, 30-60 minutes with 2 or 3 friends. The aim of each session is for each participant to discover what will be the most fulfilling thing in their week when they do it. That is their "Just Do It" item.
Participants take turns leading the sessions, using the same guide for the process each week. They catch up with each other, reflect on a 2-3 minute reading from the Bible, and ask God for their weekly "assignment"--their "Just Do It" item.
Strange as it sounds, this actually works, no matter how much or how little a person already knows about God or the Bible. Ideas come into people's minds. They go do them. Next week they come back and say what happened when they did them.
Just Do It Groups can also be called "Listen and Cheer Groups" because that's what we do. We listen to God-given Scripture and God's Spirit for guidance about his campaign and our next assignments. We cheer each other on as we discern or sense our assignments and carry them out.
After we have done that for a few weeks in our group, we listen to God to see whether it is his time for us to start other groups so more people can get as fulfilled as we are getting.
7 things you have to love about Just Do It Groups
A Just Do It Group helps you SYNC (See Yourself iN Christ). Then you can see all the following things and enjoy the golden fulfillment they bring:
1. You are not alone. You have a couple friends with you in the group, and you all are cheering each other on.
2. You are in SYNC with the universe. You know your assignment this week in the campaign God is carrying out to bring everything back into harmony under Jesus the Messiah. It doesn't get any better than that!
3. You get guaranteed immediate gratification instead of possible eventual gratification, and the guarantee holds regardless of how big your Just Do It action was or how much impact it had. You are fulfilled right away because you know you did the right thing and you did it because God assigned it to you for someone else's welfare, not your own. Contrast working for years to achieve something, then either giving up on it or reaching it only to find out it doesn't feel nearly as fulfilling as you were sure it would!
4. You get cumulative, lasting gratification. Unlike the thrills of computer games or roller coasters, fulfillment from Just Do It items compounds itself over time instead of fading away. Just when you think you have all the fulfillment you could possibly hold, you get more!
5. You always have time to do your Just Do It item. You always carve out time for the things that fulfill you. You know your life would not be fulfilling without them, and who can stand that thought? Besides, if you discover something specific that God has had in mind for thousands of years for you to do this week as part of his campaign to save the world, you automatically have time to do it. How could you not?
6. You are always capable of doing your Just Do It item, though not in yourself. God puts the Spirit of Jesus into those who ask for his help. The Spirit gives us the power of the living Jesus, the power of heaven on earth, so that we can do things we would not normally be able to do. And after all, why would God give assignments to people without giving them what they need to get them done? That would be pretty poor campaign management.
7. You have something to share that your friends will love. You know what a Just Do It Group is. You know that anybody can start one and anybody can lead a session with five minutes of preparation. You know the fulfillment that comes from discovering and doing Just Do It items. No expertise required to spread the word. Just do it!
FAQs
Has God really got an assignment with my name on it for this week?
Ask him. He will hear your question, and he can get back to you through his direct line to the deepest level of your inner self. His method of letting you know your assignment will vary according to how you are wired, which he totally understands.
Just Do It Groups don't tell you your assignment. They create a good listening atmosphere so you can "hear" from God in whatever way he is letting you know things. Our problem isn't that our daily or weekly assignments are too complicated for ordinary people like us to decipher. Our problem is that we aren't expecting God to have anything personal to say to us so we aren't listening for it.
We relegate God to timeless commands like, "Love your neighbor." That was just as much a command thousands of years ago as it is now. But "Go say hello to your neighbor over the back fence while he's mowing his yard," is personal and immediate. God puts thoughts like that into people.
But is that how God wants us to operate--depending on those thoughts? Not by themselves. We don't wait to say hello until we get a specific nudge from God to do that, but neither do we rule out the idea that God may sometimes nudge us, letting us know exactly what he wants us to do at a particular moment.
God has a master plan, and he did not leave any loose ends. He knows our names, our trajectories in life, our situation this week, and he saw it all coming. "He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." (Ephesians 2.10)
We are all aware of a little voice in our heads that sometimes tempts us to do something we know is not the right thing to do, something we would not do on our good days. Just Do It groups help us get in the habit of listening for a different voice that drowns that voice out.
What if I can't add a weekly meeting to my schedule?
Try the process on your own, using the "Weekly Guide" under "Activities". See how it works for you. Keep doing it on your own (assuming it is working), until the Spirit tells you that your Just Do It item for this week is to start a Just Do It Group. That may never happen or maybe not for a year or more, but if it happens next week or next month, get on with it.
How do Just Do It Groups make the world any better?
God's campaign is out to change the world, to connect, heal, and bless it, to get it out of the mess it is in. That mess is still there for two reasons:
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Not enough people listening to God about what he wants them to do next
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Not enough people cheering for other people who are doing that kind of listening
In a Just Do It group we listen and cheer. That makes us better participants in God's campaign. As we listen, God prompts us to take small "Just Do It" actions in our everyday worlds. We prevent pain and we help people deal with the pain they already have. We connect people. We bring blessing, and that is very gratifying and energizing.
Of course, by themselves our small actions are not enough to make the world much better, but two other things are going on that multiply our positive impact far beyond our own potential.
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God prearranges situations. At just the right time he directs us to do a particular small thing that fits perfectly with what he has set up. Though we may not realize it at the time, our small action tips the balance so that a huge change takes place.
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God commands us to multiply. He doesn't just want us to listen better ourselves. He intends for us to get more people listening to him like we are. That's why a Just Do It Group never goes for more than a couple of months without asking if this is God's time for it to divide and multiply.