Greeting Leaders,
Here's this week's guide. Week 3 of Foolish Joy. We hope it serves you and your groups well.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greeting Leaders,
Here is this week's guide. Week II of Foolish Joy.
I pray you are well. I'm planning scheduled a call for us soon. Keep an eye on your email. Please let us know if we can do anything for you.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
As you know, we've started a new series "Foolish Joy" where we focus on the joy we have in Christ and how the world perceives this as foolish.
We're keeping a similar structure to the guide as we had in the New Normal series. We hope it serves you and your groups well.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings leaders,
There’s no time in recent history where encouragement is needed more than now. Encouragement to continue to follow Christ, encouragement in maturing in spiritual disciplines, encouragement in sharing the Gospel, encouragement in trusting in God’s sovereignty, etc. We are grateful for the example of Barnabas in the Bible and pray that we would all seek to encourage the body of Christ as this man did.
If you’ve seen some examples of others within your City Group or the church who have exemplified an encouraging spirit, we’d love to hear about them so we can encourage them in return!
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Leaders,
We're continuing to publish discussion guides through May for you and your group members. We hope our Lord uses these to encourage you in the midst of uncertain times.
This week our focus is how God's kindness toward us through Christ leads us to live generous lives.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greeting Leaders,
This week we observe how God uses our trials for his glory and our good. Our passage this week is James 1:1-18, and like last week we've adjusted our normal discussion guide to compliment this new series. We hope this guide helps encourage you and your groups.
Thank you all for your commitment to lead and serve our church in these crazy times.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greeting Leaders,
We are ambassadors of Christ. Through the Gospel, Jesus has created a people to share his saving word and work. Though our lives may change and our rhythms shift, Jesus' call remains to "make disciples." The way this begins is by sharing the good news of salvation in Christ. This task called "evangelism" is the call of every Christian.
As we've shifted our focus to a new sermon series for the next 4 weeks on "The New Normal," we're adjusting the discussion guides to help us use this time to establish or affirm a foundation in evangelism, discipleship, generosity, and fellowship. This week our guide focuses on evangelism by helping us think through 5 categories to guide us in sharing the good news of Jesus with others.
We pray this helps you and your groups to be better witnesses for Christ.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Happy Easter!
Jesus is risen! We hope you and your families are all well and resting in the hope we have in Jesus.
This week our guide will lead us to consider 1 Corinthians 15 and the implications of Jesus' resurrection for our lives. Thank you for your faithfulness to review this guide, stay in touch with your group members, and serve so well in these uncertain times.
We hope this guide encourages you to hold fast to Christ.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Happy Palm Sunday,
Today kicks off both a time of solemnity and rejoicing as we consider all that this week means. We mourn that our sin nailed the Son of God to a tree, but rejoice with thankfulness that He chose to be the sacrifice to redeem mankind. As we consider how Christ humbly served us in this indescribable way, we pray that we as believers seek to find ways we can humbly serve others during these days. Praying for each of you this week!
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings everyone!
We hope everyone is staying healthy, safe, and sane.
We'll be back in 1 Corinthians this week studying continuing to follow Paul's writings on unity and humility. What an important subject if Paul spends 4 whole chapters on the subject! We hope this study continues to encourage the body as we strive for humble unity with one another.
What an encouragement it has been to see and hear about so many groups still gathering digitally to pray and study together. Continue to intentionally reach out to those in your group and if you need anything from us, don't hesitate to let us know! We appreciate you all so much and look forward to chatting with you at either noon or 5:00 today.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Group Leaders,
Attached is next week's discussion guide. Pastor Dean will be deviating from our 1 Corinthians course this week as we visit a psalm of lament that points to trust in God. How appropriate for this time of uncertainty in our lives.
As we have communicated with you all already, we are discouraging groups from meeting in close quarters for 2 weeks. However, we were made to be in community with the body of Christ and while you may not be able to meet in one another's homes, we pray that you will continue to connect creatively with other believers over the coming weeks. The Enemy would love to get a foothold in the lives of believers who have become isolated from their brethren. Here are some ideas to help you connect your group:
Conduct a Google Hangouts/Facetime/Zoom/etc. session during your normal meeting time to read the Word, go through the discussion guide, and pray
For smaller groups, consider asking everyone to bring a lawn chair and sit in your yard or nearby green way (with comfortable distance from each other) to read the Word, go through the discussion guide, and pray
Send the discussion guide to your group members if you cannot meet in some fashion and ask everyone to commit the normal group time to reading the Word, going through the discussion guide, and praying within their household
Come up with some other creative solution that your group wants to implement!
We sent out a guideline earlier on how you can conduct a virtual meeting. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! We are thankful to have you all as the frontline to our discipleship ministry, initiating contact with your group members and caring for one another. If you need anything, let us know.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Leaders,
This week, we turn to 1 Corinthians 3:18-23. As we round out chapter 3, Paul reminds the Corinthians of the ways they profess. The wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. Though we've seen they were, and we are, still inclined to divide over human matters, Paul reminds them and us why this is foolish. Chapter 3 ends with a bang! We're reminded that "all things are yours...and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
We hope this discussion enriches your walk with God and that of your groups.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Leaders,
We're continuing our discussion of 1 Corinthians 3 this week. In verses 5-17 Paul draws our attention to the work of God in salvation and building up the church. We'll see how we participate with God on his mission to build up his church. We hope this discussion and your meetings remain fruitful.
Thank you all for you service to the church.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Leaders,
We've heard several encouraging updates from you and your groups. We hope you have been encouraged by the Lord's work this term.
This week we're back in our study of 1 Corinthians. We will study 1 Corinthians 2:10-3:4 together. There we will see what it means to be a spiritual person and how we are to seek the things of the Lord above the things of the world. We are praying for you and your groups and hope this study is encouraging and edifying for you and your groups.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings City Group Leaders,
We hope this finds you well. As you likely know, this week we will deviate from our regular study of 1 Corinthians to complement the sermon we will hear from Dr. Russell Moore this Sunday. Our study will focus on Paul's words in the book of Romans. We will study what God has to say to us about how we are to treat one another and model the love of Christ in the midst of disagreement. We will see how the call to model love is connected to how we should view government. We hope this is a fruitful discussion for you and your groups.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Group Leaders,
What an exciting passage of Scripture we have to study this week as we are reminded how incredibly powerful the message of the Gospel is in our lives! It's life-giving, it's transformative, it provides purpose. Praise God for how He graciously works in our lives. We hope that your time together in groups will be an encouraging time of growth and excited praise as we study together about the power of the cross.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Group Leaders,
We hope your groups are enjoying time in the Word and spiritually growing as we dive in to 1 Corinthians. This week is an excellent reminder that in and of ourselves, we can’t accomplish anything. Our weakness should not discourage us, but rather propel us to give all the glory to God and what a joy that is to be able to do so!!!
We are so grateful for all that you!
Blessings,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Leaders,
We hope you've had a great week. Next week's guide is attached.
We will also be sending a newsletter out in the next few days. That will contain a few important dates and reminders for you and your groups.
We're continuing our study of 1 Corinthians looking at verses 10-17. Here Paul is addressing divisions in the church at Corinth. He tell that Christ is not divided and neither should his church be. We hope this discussion helps you and your group better see the unity we have together in Christ.
Thank you for your continued leadership of your groups.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greeting Leaders,
This week we're kicking off our study of 1 Corinthians. We'll start by looking at the first 9 verses of Paul's letter. Here we'll see Paul's basis for giving thanks for the Corinthians.
We hope you and your groups are blessed by this study and are enriched through our study of 1 Corinthians.
Gratefully,
Joe and Kaylan
Greetings Leaders,
This week we're wrapping up our series of "New Year, Same Church" by looking at our commitment to growth through personal discipleship.
Like we've done the last two weeks, we're encouraging you to lead a discussion in your group that helps your group think through these commitments together. This week, we hope you have fruitful discussions on what spiritual growth looks like individual and corporately.
Our prayer is that these discussions help you and your groups set a vision for the term ahead. Please let us know if you have any questions. We will start 1 Corinthians next week.
Grace and Peace,
Joe and Kaylan