Discussion Questions:

Opening Question: Think about a time in your life when you felt like you were moving in the right direction but had no idea what you were actually doing. What did that season teach you?

Section 1: Authenticity and Integrity
Pastor Rino said: "We are going to be the same in the pulpit and in our pajamas. We will be no different. You won't see an act job up here. You won't see anything phony."

1. How would you describe the gap, if any, between the version of yourself that people see publicly and the version that exists privately? What creates that gap?
2. Why do you think authenticity is so difficult to maintain, especially in environments where people have expectations of us?
3. What would it look like practically for your group, your family, or your workplace to commit to that same standard of consistency?

Section 2: Spiritual Warfare — External and Internal
Pastor Rino shared that the land the church sat on was spiritually defiled, but he also acknowledged that the greater battle was inside himself. He said: "God had to kill the pastor."

1. We often think of spiritual warfare as something that happens around us. How does it change your perspective to consider that some of the fiercest battles happen within us — in our pride, our fears, or our blind spots?
2. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that our struggle is not against other people. How does that truth change the way you respond to conflict, disappointment, or opposition?
3. Is there an area of your own life right now where you sense that God may be doing the uncomfortable work of "killing" something in you — a habit, an attitude, a wrong priority? How are you responding to that?

Section 3: Divine Order
Pastor Rino described living his life in the order of "me, ministry, God, family" instead of "God, family, ministry." He pointed to Matthew 6:33 as the corrective.

1. If you were honest about the actual order of priorities in your daily life — not the order you say you have, but the one your calendar and energy reflect — what would that order look like?
2. What is one area of your life that feels most out of alignment right now? What would it take to bring it back into order?
3. Pastor Rino also confessed that his misalignment led him into manipulation — pressuring people for resources in ways he later recognized as wrong. Have you ever found yourself doing something that felt justified in the moment but later realized it came from a place of fear or self-reliance rather than trust in God? What did that teach you?

Section 4: The Cost of Loving People
Pastor Rino said: "There is a profound and beautiful pain in loving people. I did not really understand to be a shepherd meant that you were willingly signing up to have your heart broken many, many times."

1. Have you ever been in a position — as a parent, a friend, a mentor, a leader — where loving someone well cost you something significant? What was that like?
2. Pastor Rino spoke about choosing to stay quiet when lies were spoken about him, letting God handle it rather than defending himself publicly. How do you respond when you are misrepresented or treated unfairly? What makes that kind of restraint so difficult?
3. First Peter 5:2-3 describes a shepherd who leads not out of compulsion or for personal gain, but willingly and by example. Who in your life has modeled that kind of leadership for you? What did it look like?

Section 5: God's Provision
Pastor Rino described strangers driving food to Santa Barbara because his mother had mentioned a need, an architect who designed an entire building without charge, and a century-old prayer over a piece of land that was still being answered.

1. What is the most unexpected or unusual way God has ever provided for you? How did that experience shape your faith?
2. It can be easy to trust God for provision in theory but much harder when the need is urgent and the solution is not visible. What makes trusting God for provision difficult in your current season of life?
3. Pastor Rino said: "When you step out in faith and you do crazy things, God will show himself to you." Is there something God has been prompting you toward that feels too risky or too unrealistic? What is holding you back?

Section 6: Faith, Vision, and the Future
Pastor Rino shared his vision for an endowed school, new land, and continued growth — and acknowledged he may not see all of it in his lifetime. He said: "God is the dreamer. He just wants people that'll listen."

1. Do you tend to think of yourself as someone with God-given vision and dreams, or do you leave that kind of thinking to leaders and pastors? Why?
2. What does it mean to you that some of what we pray for and work toward may be seeds we plant for a generation we will never meet? Does that motivate you or discourage you?
3. Isaiah 54:2 calls us to stretch out our tent and enlarge our expectations. In what area of your life do you need to expand your expectations of what God can do?

CLOSING PRAYER GUIDE
Close your group time by praying through these themes together:

• Thank God for his faithfulness over time, even when the path was unclear.
• Ask God to reveal any area of internal misalignment or hidden pride.
• Pray for divine order to be restored in each group member's life.
• Lift up anyone in the group who is in a season of waiting for God's provision.
• Ask God to give each person the courage to take one step of faith this week.