Project Hail Mary
Discussion Guide
Made New
THE MESSAGE
Something is eating the sun and nobody on Earth can stop it. Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there, and the only way home runs through a mission that was always going to cost somebody their life. The weekend put our own situation in the same terms. If you could fix yourself, you already would have. We do not need improvement, we need an intervention. We do not need a little support, we need a Savior. Then the movie hands you a man who can go home or stay and save a friend who cannot save himself, and his name is Grace. The series ended at the baptistry, and some of the people coming to your living room this week walked forward.
ice breaker
Grace and Rocky have no language in common, no biology in common, nothing in common, and they end up the best friendship in the movie. Who is the most unlikely friend you have ever made, and how did that start?
These stories are usually funny and they warm a room up fast. Give it a few minutes.
Discussion Questions
The first three are about being rescued. The last two are about what you do with it. Four and five are where your group lives.
1 The line from the weekend was blunt. If you could fix yourself, you already would have. We tell ourselves we will try harder, figure it out, start doing this, stop doing that. Where have you been running that program lately, and how is it going?
Take the first turn and name something ordinary and current. The temper, the phone, the thing you have promised yourself about since January.
2 Paul was not looking for Jesus. He was hunting down Christians when Jesus met him on the road. The verse says Christ died for us while we were still powerless, not after we cleaned ourselves up. What was actually going on in your life when Jesus got to you, and were you looking for him at all?
This is the night for testimony, and you want these stories out loud before question four asks people to tell them to somebody outside the room.
3 The weekend told the story of a woman from a Muslim family being baptized with her lips trembling and her hands shaking, because going public meant her family might disown her and her country might kill her. She said yes anyway. Following Jesus costs something. What has it actually cost you, and where have you quietly arranged your life so that it costs you nothing?
The second half of that question is the one that matters. Most of us are not under threat, we are just comfortable, and comfortable is harder to see.
4 Being saved is not the finish line, it is the starting line. As the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends us. If you are saved, you are sent. Where are you living like your own rescue was the end of the story?
Nobody will say they think that. Ask the better version instead: when was the last time you told somebody outside this room anything about your faith?
5 The weekend ended with people walking to the front to be baptized. Have you been baptized? If you have, what do you remember about that day? If you have not, what has kept you from it?
Ask it plainly and then be quiet. Do not press anybody for a decision tonight. If someone says they have been thinking about it, tell them you would love to help them take that step and follow up during the week.
Go Deeper
The first digs into the verse the message leaned on hardest, the second is about baptism itself, and the third asks for a name and a day.
GD1 Read Romans 5:6-11 together. Paul uses four different words for who we were when Christ died for us, and the last one is sharper than the first three. Find all four. What is he building toward in verses 9 through 11, and why does he keep raising the stakes on how bad our situation was?
The four are powerless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies. Paul is arguing from the harder case to the easier one. If God did the expensive thing for us while we were enemies, the rest follows. The argument only works if you let the fourth word stay as blunt as he wrote it.
GD2 Read the end of Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 and then Romans 6:3-4. What are people actually doing when they get baptized, according to these passages, and how does that line up with the picture from the weekend, that going under says the old life is dead and coming up says you are made new?
One thing worth having ready. Mark 16:16 was quoted this weekend, and it sits inside the longer ending of Mark, verses 9 through 20, which is missing from the earliest Greek manuscripts and is footnoted as disputed in nearly every modern Bible. Your group may see that footnote and wonder what it means. Nothing about baptism depends on that verse, which is why these two passages are the ones to read instead.
GD3 You were called out so you could call others in. Name one person who needs Jesus. Not a category, a name. Then pick one thing from the weekend’s list and say when you are doing it: pray for them, love them, listen to them, invite them, or tell them your story.
Telling your story is the one most people skip, and it is the one that needs no training. If somebody picks it, ask them to practice it in two minutes right there at the table.
WRAP UP & PRAYER
“Because of Jesus, I am made new.”
Have everyone say that line out loud together, in first person, and then pray by name over the people your group listed in the last question. Say every name. If somebody got baptized this weekend, pray over them too, out loud, with the group listening.
Before people leave, say that the series is over and the group is not. If anyone wants to be baptized or prayed that prayer in their seat this weekend, pray with them right there and email smallgroups@eastside.com so the team can help them take the next step.
LEADER GUIDE // Before You Start....
Find out who went forward before you start asking questions. Somebody at your table may have gotten baptized this weekend, or prayed that prayer in their seat and told nobody. Open the night by asking if anything happened for anyone, and then celebrate it loudly. That is the whole point of the weekend showing up in your living room.
Somebody else wanted to walk forward and did not.
They are sitting in your group tonight thinking about it. Question five gives them a door, and you need to leave it open without putting anyone on the spot. If a person tells you they are not baptized and have been thinking about it, do not push for a yes at the table. Tell them you would love to help them take that step, and email smallgroups@eastside.com so the team can walk with them.
This is the last week of the series, and your group keeps going. The content moves from being rescued to being sent, which is where a room full of believers actually lives. Spend your time there.
You will not get through all eight questions, and you are not meant to. Choose the ones your group needs and take them in whatever order serves the conversation.