Mom and your kindergarten teacher said it best – It really is a good thing to share! Recently, I've had the opportunity to travel around the country and meet with some of my heroes – collegiate and young adult leaders in churches and on college campuses. The creativity and energy these leaders possess provides countless opportunities to connect with college students and young adults in our communities and on our campuses. But I have a confession to make: Some of my best ideas as a college minister were not my own. Many of those … [Read more...]
Do Groups Really Matter?
Anytime I'm in the presence of collegiate or young adult ministry leaders, I’m always intrigued by the conversations that surface about our ministries. “What does your large group worship time look like?” “What are some of the issues you're tackling in your group gatherings?” “What type of missions opportunities does your group do?” Are those relevant and important questions to ask? Absolutely. They're all aspects of what draws young adults to our ministries and keeps them involved with the ministry as a whole. However, … [Read more...]
Why Does the Holy Spirit Give Us Gifts?
My kids love getting gifts. (I guess that whole “blessed is the giver” thing hasn’t caught on yet.) My son likes Legos®, light sabers, and baseball bats. He could care less about getting clothes. In a big stack of presents, he’ll open a package of socks, nod politely, and then quickly throw them aside in search of a new action figure. But my little girl? Well, clothes are an entirely different story with her. She’ll open her socks and squeal with glee. She doesn’t see clothes as a necessary evil that has to be dealt with every … [Read more...]
Free Friday: Gray Areas Small Group Kit
In a complicated world, certainty is a commodity of high value. For some questions, there just don’t seem to be right or wrong answers. Worse, in other situations, there seem to be several right answers. Good people disagree on big issues. You can probably name a few hot topics off the top of your head, right? In Gray Areas Bible study, Mike Glenn takles the sometimes hard to navigate topics like addiction, dating, divorce, sexual identity. Take a look at Mike's approach to the study. We’re giving away a Gray Areas small … [Read more...]
3 Practical Ideas for Reaching Young Adults
One of the most popular questions we hear from church leaders is: What outreach ideas do you have for reaching young adults? Let's cut right to the ideas, but keep in mind that a healthy and balanced young adult ministry plan should have one or more of Threads’ four markers of ministry—Community, Depth, Responsibility, and Connection—at its core. Hold a community sports event. Since it’s March Madness time, we feel obliged to start with the idea of creating a basketball tournament in your community. It’s a great way to impact our … [Read more...]
Join Us for a Groups Matter Twitter Chat
Groups Matter. A lot. Based on some recent research (featured in Transformational Groups), people in groups report that they give more generously, serve more sacrificially, confess and repent more frequently, and share the gospel more boldly than those who are not in a small group. So this Friday, Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, and Eric Geiger are hosting a Twitter Chat to talk about group life. They'll have questions for you like, How do you keep people involved in the groups at your church? And, How do we change the fact (based on … [Read more...]
Have You Heard About Our New Curriculum?
The Fall 2013 quarter has arrived, and our new Bible Studies for Life: Young Adults curriculum is now available and in full swing for use. Bible Studies for Life: Young Adults replaces our former LifeMatters curriculum and offers a simplified, easy prep, and engaging format for you and your group. These improvements will help you do the following: Connect the Unconnected With compelling biblical studies that are focused on real life issues and with tools designed to help you promote each new study to draw people into a group through … [Read more...]
LifeMatters :: The Messiah Suffered for Us // Isaiah 53:4-9
Have you ever had that gnawing feeling in your gut when you've done something wrong? Perhaps, you had been caught and awaited the consequences of that action? I remember one of those times when I cheated on a French exam. The teacher caught me and pulled me out of class. That gnawing in my gut was not for fear of the consequences I would reap with the teacher; rather, it was what I knew awaited me at home when my dad found out. In Isaiah 53, seven hundred years before Jesus was born, we read about how He would take the punishment … [Read more...]
LifeMatters :: The Promise of God // Jeremiah 29:10-14
Out of His great love for them, God promised His people that they would not always live in bondage. Jeremiah 29:10-14 declared this promise for the exiled people-that God would bring them back to their homeland where they could be restored to a right relationship with Him. Included in this passage are characteristics of those who received the promise. They would pray, call to Him, and seek the Lord with all their heart. God promised this restoration because He is sovereign and He wanted to restore His people. Here, God reminded the … [Read more...]
LifeMatters: God’s People Were Warned (2 Kings 17:12-15)
When I was about 5 years old, I remember my parents expressly telling me not to play at the creek near our church building. They warned me not to do it and said there would be consequences if I did. Disobeying them, I ended up falling in the creek and hurting myself pretty badly. Not only did I hurt myself, but my parents gave me the discipline I deserved. Reflecting back, I now recognize that my dad instructed me to avoid the creek because he wanted what was best for me. I thought he was trying to keep me from having fun. In reality, … [Read more...]
