Catholic Discussion Guides

← All example guides

This is an example guide, shown to illustrate the format you receive. Create your own.

Drop the Nets: The Call to Follow

Theme:
The call of the first disciples
For:
Adult men, parish men's fellowship

This guide was written by AI and checked automatically. No priest, catechist or other person has reviewed it, so read it through before you lead it. It is not an official publication of the Catholic Church.

Summary

In Mark 1:16-20, Jesus walks up to four working fishermen in the middle of their job and says, "Follow me." They leave the nets, the boat, and even their father, and they do it right away. This session looks hard at what that call demanded of those men, and what it asks of us, without pretending it was easy or cheap.

Leader Prep

For you, the leader, to read before the group meets. You don't need to read it aloud.

This passage comes right at the start of Mark's Gospel. Jesus has just begun to preach that the time is now and the kingdom of God is near, and he tells people to turn around and believe the good news. The very next thing he does is walk up to four fishermen and call them. So the call of these men is not a side story. It is the first concrete answer to what Jesus just preached. Responding to the kingdom looks like dropping what is in your hands and following. The central message is simple and sharp: Jesus gives a direct order to men at work, and they obey immediately, leaving their livelihood and their family loyalties behind. His call is personal, it is costly, and it reorders everything around him. The session starts with ordinary work, because that is where Jesus found these men. Then the group reads the passage and stays close to the hard details: the nets, the boat, the father Zebedee left in the boat with the hired men, and the word "immediately." From there the conversation turns to the honest question each man has to answer for himself: what in your life actually owns you, and what is Jesus asking you to put down. The session lands on what Christ promised in return and on the fact that most men follow him by being sent back into their own work and family with everything reordered to God, not by walking out on it. Keep the tone straight and plain. Short questions, real answers, no sales pitch. Let the silences sit. You are not here to pry a confession out of anyone or to tell any man how he should feel. Put the call on the table honestly and let it do its own work.

Opening Prayer

Pray this aloud, or ask someone in the group to lead it.

Begin with the Sign of the Cross: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lord Jesus, you walked up to working men and called them by name, and they followed you. We are working men too. Speak to us plainly in this hour. Give us the honesty to hear what you are actually asking of us, and the nerve not to look away from it. Open our ears, and settle our hearts enough to listen. Amen.

Warm-Up

Start here to get everyone talking. Keep it light, and let each person answer briefly before you move on to the reading.

  1. What kind of work do you do, and what does a normal day on the job look like for you?

    If your group is quiet: Keep this quick and let every man say a sentence or two. "Just tell us what you do and what a normal shift looks like."

  2. When you are deep in a job and focused, how do you react when someone interrupts you in the middle of it?

    If your group is quiet: "Think about being under the hood or on a deadline, and someone walks up wanting something. What goes through you?" Then wait.

Jesus did not wait for these men to clock out. He walked up to them in the middle of the job, with the nets still in their hands, and gave them an order. Listen to how fast it moves.

Readings

Read each passage aloud, or invite someone to read. Give the group a quiet moment afterwards before the first question.

  • Mark 1:14-20

Reading Questions

These check what the passage says. Take an answer or two, gently fill in anything missed, and keep moving.

  1. What stood out to you most in this passage?

    Receiving answers: Whatever a man names, take it and ask him to say a little more before you move on.

  2. Before Jesus calls anyone, what is he preaching in verses 14 and 15, and what does he tell people to do?

    Example answer: He announces that the time has come and the kingdom of God is near, and he tells people to turn their lives around and believe the good news. The call of the four follows right after.

  3. Jesus says, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." What does he do with the work these men already know how to do?

    Example answer: He does not throw out their trade. He takes men who know how to catch fish and tells them he will make them catch people. He builds on what they already are and points it at something new.

  4. What exactly does each set of brothers leave behind when they follow him?

    What to listen for: Simon and Andrew drop their nets, which is their living. James and John leave the boat and leave their father Zebedee sitting in it with the hired men. They walk away from their income and from their own father.
    Background: The detail about the hired men is worth pausing on. Zebedee is not left helpless or destitute. The sons still leave him, but the text shows a real family with a real business, not a fairy tale.

  5. Mark says twice that they followed "immediately." What is missing from this account that you might expect to be there?

    Example answer: There is no negotiation, no "let me finish the season," no asking for time to think it over. No deliberation of any kind is recorded. They hear the call and they go.

Application Questions

These are the heart of the discussion. You don't need to ask every question: choose the ones that fit your group and give them room. A pause is fine; let people think.

  1. These men were in the middle of their job when Jesus called them. Where in your ordinary week would it be hardest to hear him say, "Drop that and follow me"?

  2. The nets and the boat were not evil. They were honest work. So what is the real question this passage puts to a man about his work and the things he owns?

    What to listen for: The question is not whether the nets are good or bad. It is whether they own you. Listen for men naming the difference between using a thing and being owned by it.
    Background: The Church teaches that most men follow Christ through their ordinary work, not by fleeing it. See CCC 898 on laymen seeking the kingdom by handling everyday affairs.

  3. James and John left their father in the boat. The sharpest edge here is family. How do you tell the difference between loving your family rightly and letting family loyalty become the thing that comes before God?

    Background: Be clear and say it out loud: this is not a call to walk out on your wife or kids. Following Christ reorders a man's love so God comes first, and for most men that makes them better husbands and fathers, not absent ones. See CCC 2232, family ties are important but not absolute.
    If your group is quiet: "Jesus is not telling a married man to abandon his family. He is asking whether God or anything else sits on the throne. What does it look like when family becomes the excuse that keeps God second?"

  4. What is one specific thing you could drop or do first this week, inside the job and family you already have, as a way of answering this call?

    Example answer: "When I am honest, I have been nursing a grudge against a guy at work. This week I am the one who makes it right first, instead of waiting for him."
    What to listen for: Keep it concrete and ordinary: cut a habit for a week, make an apology, give up an hour he was guarding, be the one who initiates. Steer away from big heroic projects piled on top of life.

  5. In Mark 10:28-30, Peter later tells Jesus, "We have left everything and followed you." What does Jesus promise these men in return for what they walked away from?

    Example answer: He promises that no one who leaves house or family or land for his sake will fail to receive a hundredfold now, along with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. He does not leave them empty-handed.
    Background: This is where the session lands. The call was costly, but Christ is not asking a man to lose his life for nothing. He gives back more than he asks, both now and forever.

Going Deeper

Optional. Use this if the group wants to go further, or offer it as a take-home.

St. Gregory the Great pointed out that these fishermen did not own much, but they left everything they had, and he measured the sacrifice by the heart's attachment rather than by the size of the pile. A man can be gripped by very little. The question is not how big your nets are. It is how tight they hold you.

Sometime this week, name on paper the one thing you would least want Jesus to tell you to drop. Then read Mark 1:16-20 again slowly and ask yourself honestly whether that thing owns you or you own it.

Sources: St. Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 5

Prayer Intentions

Read the invitation, then pause so anyone who wishes can offer an intention aloud. After each one, the group answers together.

Is there anything you want this group to carry in prayer this week? Say it out loud if you want to, or just hold it quietly.

For every man here who knows exactly what Christ is asking him to put down, that God would give him the honesty and the nerve to let go of it and follow.

We pray to the Lord.

Closing Prayer

Pray this together to close. You can invite the group to read it aloud with you.

Lord Jesus, you call us the same way you called those fishermen, in the middle of our ordinary work. Send us back into our jobs and our homes this week with our hearts reordered to you. Show each of us the one thing we have been unwilling to put down, and give us the courage to loosen our grip on it. Make us the kind of men who answer you plainly and do not put it off. We ask this of you, who gives back more than you ever ask. Amen.

Produced by CatholicDiscussionGuides.com