We want to help you find great studies for your group. We also want to help you stay balanced by having a healthy diet of discipleship throughout the year. This involves using different topics, formats, and teachers to challenge your group members. While our groups have the freedom to pick their own studies at times, we encourage you to do at least one study from each category this year.
- Personal Discipleship
- Books of the Bible
- Relational Growth
- Bible History & Culture
Personal Discipleship
Seven Realities of Experiencing God
Seven Realities for Experiencing God examines seven scriptural realities—those Moses experienced in Exodus 3—that teach believers how to develop an obedient love relationship with God. This eight-session study overviews the seven realities and then, session by session, explores truths like “God is always at work around you” to introduce a biblical pattern by which God reveals His will so that believers can join His activity in the world. Small-group friendly, it contains content that can be consumed daily in a manageable amount of time.
Soul Detox
In Soul Detox, pastor Craig Groeschel sheds light on relationships, thoughts, and behaviors that quietly compromise our well-being. Soul Detox is the ultimate spiritual intervention. Groeschel provides a source of inspiration and encouragement for a faithfilled lifestyle that will keep you and your church free from spiritual toxins. More than an educated, insightful look at the negative aspects of our day-to-day culture, this grace-based experience will challenge you out of complacency into a life of clean, pure, and focused living based on the standard of God’s holiness.
Discovering God’s Will
Determining God’s will can be a difficult process, especially when we need to make a decision in a hurry. In this 4-part series (8-part study), Andy Stanley discusses the providential will of God, the moral will of God, and the personal will of God. He describes how God uses other people and the principles of scripture to guide us as we attempt to discover the personal vision God has for our lives.
Books of the Bible
Phillipians
Join Matt Chandler as he walks us through this most intimate of all Paul’s letters and paints a beautiful picture of what it is to be a mature Christian. The story begins in Philippi where Paul introduces three individuals that were all enslaved by the kind of things that we often choose over the gospel: Lydia, the Business Executive, The Little Slave Girl, and The Hard Working Jailer.
Their lives portray dysfunction and emptiness, but are totally transformed by the Gospel. True joy and Christ’s love begin to live within them, giving them a life of purpose. In fact, Paul himself was enslaved and then by God’s grace and mercy he could pen these popular and profound words: To Live is Christ and to Die is Gain. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Explore the Bible
For every Christian, a deep knowledge of the Word helps make the difference between a shallow faith and a life of trust and obedience. This kind of faith does not come from information but through the transformation encouraged by a deep dwelling of the Word of God.
Explore the Bible is a book-by-book group Bible study that encourages participants to let the Word dwell in them and challenges them to live it out in their own context.
Read the Bible Together
There may be no better way for your group to experience God’s word together than to simply read it together. Pick some scriptures and let each person read a portion of it. You may want to start with something like reading the book of 1 John or choosing several Psalms followed by a time of prayer. This can be done in less than 30 minutes and is a refreshingly simple way for God to speak to your group through His scriptures.
The Bible Jesus Read
Philip Yancey has a way of confronting our most cherished but misguided notions about faith. The Old Testament is God’s biography, the story of his passionate encounters with people and also a prequel to the story of Jesus. And as you read with a fresh eye the prayers, poems, songs, and bedtime stories that Jesus so revered, you will gain a profound new understanding of Christ. “The more we comprehend the Old Testament,” Yancey writes, “the more we comprehend Jesus.”
Relational Growth
Staying in Love
It Starts at Home
In these busy, hectic days we take our kids to sports practices, games, music lessons, school tutoring and other activities to give our children the best opportunities for success. But what if we’re missing the chance to teach them what matters most? The few hours they spend in church each week can be helpful, but it cannot nurture a faith in our kids that will withstand the trials that are on the horizon. But many parents feel ill equipped to develop the faith of their children.
In these six sessions, we will explore biblical and tangible ways that parents—couples, single parents, blended families and grandparents—can build a legacy of faith for their children.
Bible History & Culture
That the World May Know
Ray Vander Laan has always believed that to more greatly understand and appreciate the Bible, one had to have a sense of the land and the culture from which it sprang. Biblical analogies and examples, while meaningful and helpful even to this day, were first meant to convey God’s truth to particular people in a particular time and place. So the more fully we can appreciate those times and places, the more fully we can respond to the power of the Word.In That They May Know, you will be taken on a journey to walk in the places Jesus walked, to see the world through the eyes of those we read about in our Bibles. Ray Vander Laan will certainly take your understanding of scripture to a new level.