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Small Group Resources
Welcome to the Small Group Resources page. Here you’ll find additional materials for each lesson, including leader videos, printable handouts, and helpful links.
9/9 What are Small Groups?
Objectives
- Get to know your group
- Encourage your group to interact and talk
- Set the overall tone for the year of small groups
Ideas for the First Small Group
- Everyone gives a recap of their summer using “High, Meh, Low” (one highlight, one mundane thing, and one difficult part)
- Ask a silly and random question just to get them talking
- “When is it ok to start listening to Christmas music?”
- “If you are stuck on an island with only three items, what would they be?”
- “Is a hot dog a sandwich?”
- “What's one food everyone seems to love that you just don’t?”
- “Beach, mountains, or other for vacations?”
- Share your salvation testimony briefly and have 1–2 give theirs
- Bring a small snack or some Bubbl’r
9/16 | The Necessity of God’s Word
Key truth: You need God's Word.
Objectives
- Recognize our desperate need for Scripture
- Brainstorm ideas for how we can establish good Scripture habits early in the semester
Ideas for Personal Devotions
- Pick a time, keep the time, and talk about your time.
- Ideas for Method
- SOAP (Summary, Observation, Application, Prayer)
- Scribing & Journaling
- Steps: (1) copy a passage and (2) comment on a passage.
- Can be done in a notebook or a Journible
- Book-of-the-month
- Steps: (1) Read the same book [probably an epistle] once a day for a month, (2) start writing themes down on an index card on day #10, (3) start marking the one theme per day on day #20.
- Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians are good first choices.
- Book-at-a-Time
- Steps: (1) Choose a book [works well with narratives and gospels] and invest in a study Bible, (2) read 1-2 chapters per day, (3) read all the footnotes each day.
- Variation: Using the “themes” from the study Bible, mark the themes with colored pencil as you find them in each day’s reading.
- Biography & Response
- Steps: (1) create a plan for reading [a book, group of books, or Bible], (2) mark verses as your read that relate to one of the following questions. What is God like? How must I respond to God?
- Isaiah 40–55 or the Psalms are good first choices.
9/23 | The Necessity of God’s Church
Key truth: God expects you to engage in a local church, even in college.
Objectives
- Emphasize the importance God places on our local church engagement
- Explore how attendance at church and engagement with church are different
- Share how you as a leader have chosen to engage regularly and substantially in your local church
9/30 | Introduction to Psalms
Key truth: You must rightly relate to the God Who reigns over all creation.
Objectives
- Show how Psalms focuses on our personal relationship to and interaction with God
- Understand the meaning and role of “blessed” in Psalms
- Consider how Psalms proclaims God as the knowable, active, worthy, and trustworthy ruler
10/7 | Psalm 1
Key truth: You must love God’s Word to respond correctly to His rule.
Objectives
- Emphasize how our relationship to God’s Word places us in one of two categories
- Develop an action plan for how we can delight in God’s Word this next week
10/14 | Psalm 2
Key truth: You must trust God’s Messiah because God rules unthreatened by man’s schemes.
Objectives
- Demonstrate the Messianic nature of Psalm 2
- Explain how the structure and themes of Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 form the introduction to the Book of Psalms
- Apply the closing commands of 2:10–12 practically to the group’s context (be warned, serve, rejoice, pay homage, and trust)
10/21 | Psalm 8
Key truth: God declares His grandeur.
Objectives
- Demonstrate how structure and parallelism emphasize the psalm’s big truth
- Understand the different ways in which God shows His grandeur
- Explain why humble trust is the appropriate response to God’s grandeur
10/28 | Psalm 51:1–9
Key truth: Confess your sin to God because He loves you steadfastly.
Objectives
- Distinguish between confessing sin and just saying you are sorry for sin
- Describe how God’s steadfast love is our foundation for confession
11/4 | Psalm 51:10–19
Key truth: Trust God’s promise to forgive.
Objectives
- Describe how the psalm shows that no one is beyond God’s forgiveness
- Explore what the fruits of repentance might look like in our lives
11/11 | Psalm 15
Key truth: You must follow God’s clear instructions for what honors Him.
Objectives
- Unpack what it means in our context to live blamelessly, do right, and speak truth
- Trace the psalm’s flow of thought to see how a close fellowship with God leads to stability
Additional Resources
- Sermon on Psalm 15 (Pastor Micah Potter)
11/18 | Escaping Ingratitude
Key truth: You must guard diligently against an ungrateful heart.
Objectives
- Articulate how ingratitude is like the carbon monoxide of sin: silent but deadly
- Identify the sources of ingratitude
- Develop a plan to foster gratitude while on Thanksgiving Break
12/2 | Psalm 13
Key truth: When you are overwhelmed, you must cry out to God and choose to trust Him.
Objectives
- Understand the lament pattern within psalms
- Emphasize how trust is a choice even before God answers our prayer
Additional Resources
- Sermon on Psalm 16 [another lament psalm] (Dr. David Saxon)
12/9 | Our Triumphant Priest-King
Key truth: Jesus, our Priest-King, came to save and rule.
Objectives
- Describe how only Jesus Christ could fulfill Psalm 110
- Explore why we need a Priest-King in Jesus Christ
- Discuss how Psalm 110 might change the way we read the Christmas story