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    Sudden Impact: Powerful Encounters with the Real Jesus
    Sudden Impact: Powerful Encounters with the Real Jesus
    Sudden Impact: Powerful Encounters with the Real Jesus
    Ebook98 pages57 minutes

    Sudden Impact: Powerful Encounters with the Real Jesus

    By Mark Ashton

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    About this ebook

    The Reality Check series makes just one assumption: that you’re serious enough about your spiritual journey to investigate Christianity with an open mind. This isn’t about joining anyone’s religious club—it’s about being real with yourself and with the others in your group. Since no one has all the answers, there’s plenty of room for discussion. After all, if there is any truth to the Bible’s stories about Jesus, then one thing he’d welcome are questions and opinions that come from honest, earnest hearts.

    Whatever your opinion is of Jesus, you can’t deny his impact. Men left their careers to follow him. Prostitutes and extortionists reformed their ways. Grief-stricken women regained lost loved ones. One religious leader sought his wisdom while others sought to kill him. Taking a compelling look at six very different encounters with Jesus and their impact on real, flesh-and-blood people, Sudden Impact helps you consider how you might respond if Jesus entered your own world and turned it upside down.

    Sudden Impact includes these sessions:
    The Professor
    The Roof Smashers
    The Corpse
    Soldiers and Criminals
    The Prostitute
    The Blue-Collar Man and the IRS Agent

    For the Group Leader
    Reality Check is for spiritual seekers of every persuasion. Uncompromisingly Christian in its perspective, it steers wide of pat answers and aims at honesty. This innovative and thought-provoking series will challenge you and those in your group to connect heart to heart as together you explore the interface between Jesus, the Bible, and the realities of this world in which we live.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateFeb 23, 2010
    ISBN9780310867975
    Sudden Impact: Powerful Encounters with the Real Jesus
    Author

    Mark Ashton

    Mark Ashton is the director of seeker small groups at Willow Creek Community Church. In addition, he supervises the staff for more than 40 new believer groups, 80 seeker groups, and Willow's Internationals ministry. He is also the director of TruthQuest - Willow's ministry that answers tough questions about Jesus and Christianity. Mark is a frequent speaker at conferences and is the author of Absolute Truth?

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      Book preview

      Sudden Impact - Mark Ashton

      9780310311256_Sudden_Impact_fb_0002_001

      Reality Check Series

      Clear Evidence: Eyewitness Reports of Jesus

      Future Shock: Jesus and the End of the World

      Hot Issues: Jesus Confronts Today’s Controversies

      Jesus’ Greatest Moments: The Week That Changed Everything

      Leadership Jesus Style: The Master and His Mission

      Sudden Impact: Powerful Encounters with the Real Jesus

      When Tragedy Strikes: Jesus’ Response to a World Gone Wrong Winning at Life: Jesus’ Secrets Revealed

      ZONDERVAN

      Sudden Impact

      Copyright © 2002 by Willow Creek Association

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

      ePub Edition September 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86797-5

      Requests for information should be addressed to:

      Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

      ISBN: 978-0-310-31125-6

      All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

      The Sin List in The Roof Smashers discussion topic is adapted with permission from a message by Nancy Beach, New Community,Willow Creek Community Church, 2000.

      The quote about Jesus’ return to Judea to see Lazarus, in the Leader’s Guide for The Corpse, was taken from The New Bible Commentary: Revised John, by Donald Guthrie (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 953.

      All rights reserved. The original purchaser of this product shall have the right to make unlimited print-form copies here of, provided such copies are not resold or distributed to the general public.

      Interior design by Sherri L. Hoffman

      To Caysie,

      my precious little girl.

      May Jesus’ sudden impact

      cause you to do Craze-y things.

      CONTENTS

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      Doing Crazy Things

      Discussion 1 The Professor

      Discussion 2 The Roof Smashers

      Discussion 3 The Corpse

      Discussion 4 Soldiers and Criminals

      Discussion 5 The Prostitute

      Discussion 6 The Blue-Collar Man and the IRS Agent

      Putting the Puzzle Together

      Leader’s Guide

      Introduction

      How to Lead a Great Discussion

      Notes for Each Discussion

      Acknowledgments

      About the Publisher

      Share Your Thoughts

      INTRODUCTION

      DOING CRAZY THINGS

      Have you ever done something really crazy? Something you couldn’t explain, but just felt compelled to do?

      People did crazy things when they met Jesus. Whenever he crossed paths with people, he always had a sudden impact. Tax collectors gave money to the poor. Prostitutes changed careers and became faithful to only him. Children sat on his lap and danced and sang. Paraplegics walked home to see their families. Blind men saw beautiful sunsets. Dead people left their coffins and returned to life as normal. People sat for hours hanging on his every word. Roman centurions asked him for favors. One person spent a year’s wages to buy perfume to spill on his feet. Some religious leaders worshiped him as God. Others became his murderers. After his death, his followers refused to deny him—even though it meant they would be tortured and killed.

      What made people so devoted to Jesus? His teaching was unsurpassed among his contemporaries and stands as the model of excellence to this day. He healed the sick, cared for the poor, loved the loveless. He gave people hope, and provided tools for forgiveness and reconciliation in relationships. He understood the maladies of the human heart with crystal clarity and claimed to have the cure. He predicted the rise of a kingdom based on God’s love and justice. He claimed to be God walking around in a human body.

      But could all those things be true? Were these people merely hoodwinked by a fancy talking, charismatic leader? Fooled by a teacher who seemed to know the longings of the human heart and capitalized on them? Or merely touched by the kindness of a great man who seemed to care about everyone—children and adults alike?

      You are about to embark on an adventure to decide for yourself. In this discussion guide, you’ll encounter this same Jesus who made people do crazy things. You’ll also meet six people—people whose lives changed suddenly and dramatically after meeting Jesus. A religion professor who was enlightened by the new teaching of the young

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