When Theology Outpaces Intimacy
For leaders · Read together
Team Discussion Guide
For staff, elders or small-group leaders reading the book together. The five sessions match the five weeks of the series. Read before you meet, and let quieter people answer first.
Session 1
About Him, or Him?
Read: Introduction and Chapters 1–2
Theology without intimacy produces dryness. Intimacy without theology produces instability.
Information and relationship are not the same thing.
It is possible to know the Scriptures and still struggle to know God.
- Which danger is our church more prone to: dryness or instability?
- Where in our own leadership do we know about God more than we know Him?
- What would it take for people to see friendship with God in us, not only knowledge?
Session 2
When truth stops at the mind
Read: Chapters 3–4
Learning occurs when information enters the mind. Growth occurs when truth reshapes a life.
God becomes a subject of study rather than a person to know.
- Where do our classes and sermons stop at the mind?
- How would we know if truth is reshaping lives here, not just entering minds?
- When has God become a subject for us as leaders rather than a Person?
Session 3
Informed but not formed
Read: Chapters 5–6
We tend to evaluate maturity by what a person knows. Scripture often evaluates maturity by who a person is becoming.
The result is a growing number of believers who are informed but not deeply formed.
- How do we decide who is mature enough to lead here? Is knowledge doing too much of the work?
- Which of our ministries most easily produces informed but unformed believers?
- If a new believer spent five years with us, what would they mostly become?
Session 4
Truth and relationship together
Read: Chapters 7–8
The answer to theology without intimacy is not less theology. It is theology connected to relationship.
Jesus never chose between theological depth and intimacy. He cultivated both.
- Where do we treat depth and intimacy as rivals?
- Jesus called the Twelve to be with Him before sending them. How do we model that order?
- What would connecting our teaching to relationship change next quarter?
Session 5
A return to friendship
Read: Chapter 9 and Conclusion
Theology becomes transformative when it produces worship.
Many believers have been taught how to study God. Far fewer have been taught how to walk with Him.
- Which of the six practices in Chapter 9 is weakest here, and why?
- Who is teaching our people how to walk with God, not only how to study Him?
- What will we look back on three months after the series to see what has changed?