Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life. What profound ideas to talk about in this week’s message “Following The Way.” The small group discussion guide is attached here, and in case you missed it, the sermon videos can be viewed online at www.christchurchsl.org/sermons Please include the sermons link and attach the discussion guide in a friendly meeting reminder email to your group members.
This week we begin a new sermon series called “I Am…. Jesus in the gospel of John.” The discussion guide for the message “The View From The Vineyard” is provided in the link below and the sermon videos are available at www.Christchurchsl.org/sermons. Please be sure to include them in your small group meeting reminder emails. This week’s leader tips are also presented below in the video, audio and text formats.
The discussion guide for this week’s message “A Voice In The Night” is available in the link below and the sermon videos are also available at www.Christchurchsl.org/sermons. Please be sure to include them in your small group meeting reminder emails this week. Also below is this week’s announcements and leader tips in the video, audio and text formats.
Today’s messages on the Walk To Emmaus, “Eyes Wide Open” are available for viewing at www.christchurchsl.org/sermons. The small group discussion guide is in the mid-week email and also available at www.smallgroupleaders.net. Please include them as you send a friendly meeting reminder via email this week to your group members. Below are links to this week’s documents and the Leader Tips in video, audio and text formats.
It was a great Palm Sunday at Church today! The message videos are available at www.christchurchsl.org/sermons. The discussion guides of “When the City Was Stirred” and the leader tips for this week are available on the www.smallgroupleaders.net site or in the small group leader weekly email. Please send a friendly email reminder about your meeting this week to your group members and be sure to include the discussion guide and link to the sermon videos.
This Week’s Leader Tips in Video, Audio and Text Formats:
Video Format-
Audio Format-
Text Format:
Leader Tip #1- Post-Participation Survey for New People in Small Groups
Earlier in the semester we asked all new people to fill out an anonymous survey using a ID passphrase at the top. Last week and this week I am attaching a follow up survey for them to fill out to see how participating in a small group is impacting their remembering and applying the weekly sermon messages in their lives. Please print, distribute and collect the follow up post-participation surveys for those who filled out the first one, requesting that they write the same passphrase ID on their page that they used last time to help connect their two forms while maintaining the anonymous nature of the surveys.
Leader Tip #2- Winter Semester End Survey for ALL Small Group Participants
For those of you who did not do a pre-participation survey earlier in the semester because you were already a part of a sermon based small group for some time, don’t feel left out! I have a general feedback survey page with open ended questions so that ALL the small group participants have the chance to offer their feedback about their experience. This will help serve to improve our small group ministry and inform the group leader about their intentions for the next semester. Please print, handout and collect these surveys labeled “Semester End Survey For ALL Small Group Participants.” Note: if they are doing a follow up anonymous survey, they don’t need to do the semester end survey too. It was already included at the end of the follow up survey.
Leader Tip #3- What’s next? The Spring Mini-Mester?
Having a 10-11 week semester in the fall, and a 10-11 winter semester as well as a 5-6 week Spring Mini-Mester, helps give helpful timeframes of commitment for participants. This is particularly helpful in recruiting new members to the group at the transition points of a new semester by adding an expiration date on their commitment. Since the end of our winter semester commitment is this Sunday, now is a good time to talk with your group about the group schedule for after Easter. This offers them the opportunity to announce their plans to either sit out the next semester or to re-up their commitment to participate and consider inviting someone new to the group in the upcoming semester. After the Spring Mini-Mester, your group is free to continue meeting weekly if you wish to. But, many find that their summer vacation and travel schedules make it difficult to have enough people for a good sized discussion group and choose to have monthly summer fellowship events instead.
Leader Tip #4- Easter at Christ Church
Please consider inviting neighbors, co-workers or friends to Easter service at Christ Church, especially if you get the feeling that they are not attending a church somewhere. If they are, no harm in asking anyway right!? There are invite cards at the welcome table in the Gathering Hall if you would like to make use of them. Also, we are encouraging those who comfortable walking, to park in the extra parking lots across the street by the middle school tennis courts or next door by the little league baseball fields to free up more spots for our guests to use in the main parking lots. This also helps with traffic flows in and out of the parking lots. Our sunrise service is on Town Square at Jupiter restaraunt at 7am, and all are invited to come and bring their own chair to this Easter outreach event. Hope you can also join us for our special services on Maundy Thursday at 7pm in the family life center and Good Friday at 7pm in the sanctuary.
I hope you all have great small group meetings this week in talking about our messiah and Lord who stirred up the city on that first Palm Sunday long ago. I believe that as we surrender our confusion and our wishes, and our pains and our sins to Him, we find Christian hope that is far greater than anything we could imagine. As we journey through holy week together as a community, I pray that Christian hope would become more and more real to you all the way unto our celebration of its inauguration in the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday.
The videos of today’s messages “Hiding God’s Word” on Psalm 119:9-16 are available on the church website at www.christchurchsl.org/sermons. This week’s small group discussion guide and leader tips are available here on the www.smallgroupleaders.net site or in the weekly email attachment as well. Please forward the discussion guide and links to the sermon videos in a friendly meeting reminder to your group members this week including any group announcements you may have as well.
The spiritual discipline of this week is Prayer. The discussion guide for Sunday’s message “A Life of Prayer” is available at www.smallgroupleaders.net or in the attachment for this week’s small group email. Please forward a copy to your group members with a friendly meeting reminder or other group announcements that you may have this week of spring break. Please also add the link to the sermon videos on the church website- www.christchurchsl.org/sermons for those who may have missed church on Sunday. Below is the link to the discussion guide and the leader tips of the week in the video, audio and text formats.
The discussion guide for this week on the spiritual discipline of receiving communion is available on the smallgroupleaders.net site and in the weekly email attachment. Please forward the discussion sheet on to your group email list in advance and have copies available at the meeting for people to refer to and write prayer requests on. Please also add the link to the sermon videos on the church website- www.christchurchsl.org/sermons for those who may have missed church on Sunday. Below are the links to the discussion guide and this week’s Leader Tips in all 3 formats- video, audio and text.
I hope you all are enjoying this Lenten series on spiritual disciplines. The discussion guide for this week’s discipline of fasting is provided as an email attachment and as a downloadable item at the www.smallgroupleaders.net site. Please send a friendly meeting reminder email to your group members and be sure to attach the discussion guide and include the link to the sermon videos- www.christchurchsl.org/sermons. You may also wish to include the link to the daily devotions of lent at Christ Church- www.christchurchsl.org/lent. The devotionals are on theme with the discipline of the week, Monday- Friday, and you can subscribe to receive them via email by entering their email address in the box on the right side of the screen. The Small Group Discussion Guide and Leader Tips for this week are provided below and are also available at smallgroupleaders.net in multiple formats (video, audio and text). The links for two additional attachments, the Habitat House Volunteer’s Meal Sponsorships schedule and the Realm guide for Group Leaders, are also listed below.
You may find that different people within your group have health needs that make abstaining from food an impractical discipline for them. The goal of the discipline is a deepened prayer life, not a need for medical attention! Please encourage your members to be aware of what their doctor would advise in this area. As you will see in the discussion guide, there several alternative ways of practicing fasting that does not involve eating. Perhaps you could encourage some of these other ways to those who have the need for a very regular diet.
Leader Tip #2- service project opportunity
As mentioned at the end of the discussion guide in the application section, there is a possible group service project for you in sponsoring a Saturday meal for the volunteers working the Christ Church Habitat For Humanity house. See the attached flier for open dates that you can contact renee about at reneet@christhchurchsl.org. Doing a service project as group is a great experience to do every once in awhile. It is a win-win, the group gets closer in serving together, and the kingdom of God wins through the good work that the group chooses to pursue. If not a Habitat House meal sponsorship, or volunteer work on the Habitat house, perhaps another service project opportunity in the near future will work out for your group.
Leader Tip #3 – Realm, the new church membership online database
As I mentioned last week, you can do group attendance and a whole lot more in the new online church membership database called realm. It can be a good communications tool with such features as group messaging, posting photos and text and creating online events that members can see and respond to. Attached is a pdf file of a Realm reference guide for the features that group leaders may wish to make use of. A good place to start is try logging in and entering in who attends your meeting this week. More information about Realm and the link to the log-in is available at www.christchurchsl.org/realm. The group is already set up and when you log in, you should see the name of your group listed in the drop down menu under “Groups.” Then just click on the menu item “attendance” in the middle of the screen and then click on the date of your upcoming meeting. If you have trouble with it, just let me know and we can find a time to try to work through it together. One advantage of doing attendance, is it flags leaders when someone misses three meetings in a row so that a personal contact can be made to see if something is wrong, or if they have simply forgotten about the meetings or if something else is going on.
I pray the Lord meets with you and your group this week in wonderful ways as you strive to grow together in fellowship and Bible study, and the practice of spiritual disciplines like confession and fasting. I believe if people who are new to fasting give it a try, they will have a faith stretching and enriching tangible experience that they can share about in the following week. We’ll see!
