Talking About Identity And Belonging

Discussion Questions:

• What issues of identity do you encounter or witness the most in the Millennial generation?
• What issues of belonging do you encounter or witness the most in the Millennial generation?
• What issues of identity or belonging, if any, have you witnessed for Christians in our culture?
• What issues of identity or belonging have you personally experienced?
• Can you think of any issues of identity or belonging that are more ongoing, not specific to our time or culture (for instance, issues encountered by people in biblical times?)

Related Scriptures:

• Psalm 25:16
  • “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.”
• Isaiah 53:3 (Prophesying about the Christ)
  • “He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
    Like one from whom people hide their faces
    He was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”
• Ecclesiastes 2:11 (Identity and occupation)
  • “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
    and what I had toiled to achieve,
    Everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
    Nothing was gained under the sun.”
• 1 Kings 19:10 
  • “He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.'”
• Hebrews 10:39
  • “But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”
• Romans 8:9a
  • “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the spirit…”
• John 15:19
  • “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”