Before your small group begins, set a simple jigsaw puzzle on a coffee table. Take two or three pieces and place them on the opposite side of the room. As your guests arrive, encourage them to help you build the puzzle. When it becomes apparent that are missing pieces, encourage your group members to look around the room for the missing pieces.

Once the puzzle is completed, discuss these questions:

• How did you feel when you discovered there were missing pieces? Why?
• Why weren't you content to leave the puzzle "as-is?"
• How is this like God's desire to "find the missing pieces" and gather people to himself?

SAY Tonight we're going to explore God's love and how he goes about gathering people to himself. We're going to learn that in order to retrieve the missing people that he's in the business of gathering, God sends his people -- including his own Son -- after those who are distant from him.

Larry Shallenberger is the pastor in a church that doesn't value job titles. He works mostly with family ministry and adult learning. He's also a husband, a father of three, and the author of Lead the Way God Made You and Divine Intention. You can read more about Larry at www.larryshallenberger.com.