2016 Small Group Leader's Guide (Sample)

Table of Contents

Lesson Title Page

Roots (Student Basics)

The Ultimate Superhero (The Gospel) ................................................................................. 8

Life-Changing Habit (Quiet Time)....................................................................................... 14

Tell It Like It Is! (Testimony) ................................................................................................... 18

Bring Out the Big Guns (Scripture Memory) .................................................................. 20

Your Spiritual Life Coach (Creative Discipleship) ......................................................... 23

Good Intentions to Great Results (Accountability) ..................................................... 25

Supernatural (Holy Spirit)

Personality Transformation .................................................................................................. 30

Outside Inside or Inside Out ................................................................................................. 33

Pay Attention to the Tension ................................................................................................ 35

Know Him and No Fear ........................................................................................................... 38

Blueprint (Man)

Trust the One Who Made You .............................................................................................. 42

Distortion or Reflection .......................................................................................................... 44

God Created Me as Me ........................................................................................................... 47

Live Like You’re Loved ............................................................................................................. 50

I’m In (The Church)

I Identify ........................................................................................................................................ 54

A Bond with Great Benefits .................................................................................................. 57

Celebration Time ....................................................................................................................... 60

Tell the Story ............................................................................................................................... 63

Message (The Bible)

Is the Bible Relevant Today? ................................................................................................. 68

Are You Listening? ..................................................................................................................... 71

Embracing the Process ............................................................................................................ 74

Mirror, Mirror ............................................................................................................................. 77

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Lesson Title Page

#Applied (Philippians)

Partnerships that Work .......................................................................................................... 82

Practice Humility, Even if it’s Humiliating ....................................................................... 85

Completely Righteous ............................................................................................................. 88

Mind Your Mind ......................................................................................................................... 91

#Notforgotten (Job)

Where’s God When Life Doesn’t Make Sense?.............................................................. 96

Caught in Friendly Fire ............................................................................................................ 99

Never a Bad Plan .....................................................................................................................102

Hope in Suffering .....................................................................................................................106

Defend (Apologetics)

I Hear Voices .............................................................................................................................110

Big, Bigger, and Really Big ....................................................................................................113

The Mystery Revealed ..........................................................................................................116

The Source of Love ..................................................................................................................119

Attitude (Topical)

Epic Fail (Failure) ....................................................................................................................124

Bitter or Better (Bitterness) ...............................................................................................127

Don’t Forget to Say Thank You (Gratitude) ..................................................................131

The Battle for Number One (Self Glory) .......................................................................134

The Story (Story of the Bible)

Glory Given ................................................................................................................................138

Glory Stolen ...............................................................................................................................142

Glorious Grace..........................................................................................................................145

Glorious Hope ...........................................................................................................................148

Character & Key Verse

Do Hard Things (Josiah) .........................................................................................................152

Don’t Wait Till It’s Too Late (Philip) ....................................................................................155

No Duel for Rule (Ephesians 2:8-10) .................................................................................158

Grace that Saves and Works (Matthew 6:33) ...............................................................161

Creative Discipleship ...................................................................................................................165

4 | Student Bible Study Notes

SMALL GROUP LEADERS GUIDE OVERVIEWThe purpose of this tool is to help you as a small group leader build on what is shared

in the Bible lesson and maximize every minute of your small group time. We want to

get your students talking and interacting with God’s Word in a personal way so that

it impacts them. The guide coordinates with the lesson to give you questions and

discussion content to help lead the student to a point of decision each week.

Ultimately, we want every student to leave each week with a specific commitment to

apply the truth from God’s word in a way that is tailored to their needs. Then it’s up

to you, the small group leader, to pray for them and encourage their follow through to

that commitment.

The Leader’s Guide has five sections:

G OA L O F SMALL G R O UP This is a restating of the main objective of the lesson in a way that helps the small

group leader understand what specific outcome they are aiming for with their group.

T H E TRUTH This is the part of the student page that they would use during the lesson time but

with all the blanks filled in.

S M A L L G R O U P D I S CUS S I O N Q U E S T I O N S The Leader’s Guide has questions (in bold) and content (in italics) to guide you in

leading your small group in a meaningful discussion about the lesson. This content is

to help you think through how you might go about leading that discussion but is NOT

designed to be read to your group.

T H E DECISION This part of the Leader’s Guide is where the leader will guide the students toward

specific application of what has been discussed.

STICKY S TAT E M E N T The sticky statement boils down the entire content of the lesson into a powerful,

easy-to-remember statement that students can take with them each week.

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Trust the One Who Made You

G OA L O F SMALL G R O UP The student will gain confidence in what he believes the Bible teaches about Creation.

T H E TRUTH Two Worldviews

Kingdom of Darkness

1. In the kingdom of darkness, people are ignorant of God’s truth. (Read Ephesians 4:18)

• As human we are all born sinners separated from God.

2. In the kingdom of darkness, people suppress/hold down God’s truth. (Read Romans 1:18)

• On our own we begin life opposed to God’s ways.

3. In the kingdom of darkness, people are blinded to God’s truth. (Read 2 Corinthians 4:4)

• Satan is the enemy of our souls and the god of this world.

4. In the kingdom of darkness, people lie to keep people from God’s truth. (Read Romans 1:25)

• The theory of evolution teaches that the world began out of an unexplainable big bang. Nobody knows where the gases that exploded came from. Everything that exists is the result of random chance compounded by billions of years.

5. In the kingdom of darkness, people are disobedient to God’s truth. (Read Ephesians 2:1-3)

Kingdom of Light

1. InColossians1:16-17wefindtheessenceofwhatScripturesaysaboutthis world, who created it, and how it is held together. Jesus Christ created everything.

2. The question that the advocates of evolution cannot answer about where the universe started is answered right here. Christ was before all things. As God, He was here before creation. He created it.

3. Not only is Christ the one who created everything, He also holds it all together.

LEADER’S GUIDE LESSON 1

42 | Small Group Leader’s Guide

S M A L L G R O U P D I S CUS S I O N Q UESTIONS (Lead your students in a meaningful discussion about the lesson. Adjust questions as needed. Don’t feel like you need to answer all of them.)

What are some of the things that confuse people about the creation/evolution

debate?

The debate is fueled by misinformation that is presented as irrefutable fact. Help the students understand that evolution and Creation both take faith to believe. So each is a belief system that those who hold to them put faith in.

Confusion comes to Christians when we think that the people who hold to evolution have all the facts, and we only have faith. To stand firm we must have a complete confidence that the Bible is true.

Why should you not be intimidated by your teacher when they push you to

accept evolution as fact?

Have someone read Colossians 1:16-17. Ask them to think about what this verse is say-ing about where everything, including each of them, came from. Help them see that when they doubt, they are simply not trusting God and what He says in His Word.

They must remember that the teacher who is passionately teaching evolution, sounding so confident, is simply a firm believer in the “belief system” of evolution. There is no need to be intimated by the passion and knowledge of a teacher of evolution. They do not need all the answers; they just need to hold on to the simple belief system of Scripture that says Jesus created all things.

T H E DECISION • Challenge your group to decide what they believe about Creation. Encourage

them to determine to believe what God says about Creation. Then encourage

each of your students to memorize Colossians 1:16-17 this week. This will

encourage them about Christ’s absolute involvement in Creation.

S T I C K Y STATEM ENT Your confusion ends at the real beginning.

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Is the Bible Relevant Today?

G OA L O F SMALL G R O UP To give the student an answer to the question, “Is the Bible relevant for today?”

T H E TRUTH Predicting the Future (Isaiah 53: 4-8)

1. Long ago in a place far away.

• Isaiah is a book of prophecy, found in the Old Testament. Isaiah was written

between 760 and 713 B.C.

• Prophecy is the revealing of an event before it happens. It is God telling us

what is going to happen in future in great detail.

2. A very detailed revelation

• Afflicted - carries the meaning beaten, bruised, and mistreated. (53:4)

• Pierced - a term synonymous with puncture, injure, or breaking of skin. (53:5)

• Iniquity - can be defined as sin. (53:6)

• Opened not His mouth/silent - The man that Isaiah is referring to did not open

His mouth. (53:6)

• Stricken - means to be killed. (53:8)

The Prediction Fulfilled

1. Examining the evidence

• Afflicted - The Roman soldiers showed no mercy on Jesus through this

process.

• Pierced - We see the soldier pierced Jesus’ side with His spear.

• Iniquity - When Christ died on the cross, He took the punishment for our sins.

• Opened not His mouth/silent - Jesus fulfilled the prophet’s words of Isaiah

53:7 by not answering the accusations made by the chief priest and elders.

• Stricken - Jesus was killed on a cross.



The Eye Witness Account (1 Peter 2:23-24)

1. The eye witness account of Peter in 1 Peter 2:23 again points to the fact that

Jesus at the crucifixion fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy.


Why is the significance of time between Isaiah’s prophecy and Jesus’ crucifixion

important when we consider the relevance of the Bible for today?

There are over 700 years between the predictions in Isaiah and the life of Jesus, but every detail of what is in Isaiah is fulfilled in exact detail. This kind of detail in a prediction never comes true except by accident, as in the video in the opening of the lesson. This gives us great confidence that the Bible is a book we can trust because it is true and because what is predicted is accurate. This points to a God Who is outside of time and can see the future from the past with complete accuracy because He created time.

NOTE: You may want to reread Isaiah 53:4-8. As you do encourage the students to look for the specific words talked about in the lesson. The verses that show Jesus as the fulfill-ment of these at the crucifixion have been provided with the examples from the lesson:

• Afflicted – Matthew 27:26

• Pierced - John 19:33-37

• Iniquity – 2 Corinthians 5:21

• Silent – Matthew 27:11-14

• Stricken – Luke 23:46-47

What does Peter’s view contribute to our study of Isaiah and Jesus? 1 Peter

2:23-24

Peter had an eye witness account of the crucifixion of Jesus. Isaiah gave the prophecy, then over 700 years later Jesus came to earth and fulfilled every detail. Peter heard the prophecy as teaching growing up, then we see Peter talking about the events as an eye witness. He saw it happen; he knew that it was true and testified that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy.

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From what you have understood in this lesson can you give a reason why some-

one might want to trust the Bible?

If the Bible can predict something is going to happen hundreds of years in advance and then those predictions come true, it seems reasonable that the Bible is a book that we can trust. The Bible, flawless in the past, flawless today! Remind your group of the fact that of the Bible’s 2,500 prophecies about 2,000 have already been fulfilled to the letter. Some of these events happened within days, weeks, or months of the prophecy.

T H E DECISION • So what if you had the ability to predict the score of every game, or the future

of the stock market? What would you do differently? Would you change your

life to match that future so you could benefit? Would you bet every week to

your advantage? The Bible is always right and never wrong. Knowing this

truth, what do we do differently now? Here are four specific areas: If you

believe that the Bible is true it would be foolish to:

— Not grant forgiveness, when the Bible says bitterness will harm you (James

3:14-16).

— Hold on to anger when the Bible tells you that it will only bring more trouble

in your life (Proverbs 29:22)

— Gossip, since the Bible says that a gossip will separate good friends

(Proverbs 20:19)

— Worry, when the Bible says that you can focus on other things and have

God’s peace (Philippians 4:7-9).

S T I C K Y STATEM ENT The Bible, flawless in the past, flawless today!


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I Hear Voices

G OA L O F SMALL G R O UP Help your group understand that the fact that they have a conscience is strong evidence that God exists and they should live their lives in subjection to God.

T H E TRUTH The World’s Voices

1. There are two primary explanations for the origin of the conscience.

• One group believes that there are natural explanations for conscience.

• The other group believes that God gave us our conscience.

2. There are three basic natural explanations for the existence of conscience.

• The first theory is we get our conscience from our world.

— Society changes, what is considered right now may be considered wrong in a

few years.

• The second theory is that we get our conscience from our family.

— Why does my conscience tell me something is wrong when someone else in my

family thinks is morally right?

• The third theory is that we get our conscience from our wiring.

— Why is everyone wired differently? Why do some people believe that some

things are wrong and other things are right?

God’s Voice

1. The Bible has answers for where our conscience comes from. (Romans 2:14-15)

• Even without God’s written law the Gentiles lived lives that conformed too much

of God’s written law.

• The verses say that God wrote his law on the hearts of all men so that they had

an inner knowledge of God’s law, meaning God gave us our conscience.

2. Why some do not hear God’s voice? (Romans 1:19)

• As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God because they knew



immediately that what they had done was wrong, their consciences were

working well.

• Romans 1:18-22, explains that people can violate their own moral conscience.

• People make a willful choice to deny evidence that points to God because they

want to live a wicked lifestyle.

It makes more sense that an intelligent Creator placed in His creation the knowl-

edge of right and wrong than it does to think that random processes somehow

became organized and caused with in us that knowledge.


If the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was right and there is no God

then what are some of the possible results of this?

Nietzsche was saying if right and wrong are simply determined by family, society, or by chemical reactions in the brain then there is no such thing as right and wrong, no reason to love, no basis for human rights. Go ahead and kill and steal. Don’t be concerned if one race of humans is a slave of another race. Nietzsche did not believe in God, but he realized that if he was right, his belief made a huge difference in how he lived every day. The same is true for us.

• What motivation would I have to be kind?

• How can cheating on a test be wrong?

• Why would bullying be wrong?

• How could school shooting be wrong?

You can quickly see that what we believe about God makes a difference in our everyday life. That is a little scary and it leaves us both confused and a little hopeless. The point is that we all DO make decisions every day about what is right and wrong. This means we have a conscience. Now let us take a look at what the Bible has to say about the con-science.

If someone was in strong opposition to God how could an “apologetic of touch”

help them see the truth of Scripture?

The basic idea is that my life and my relationships with people will make a huge difference in whether or not someone will listen to what we have to say. Some people who might not

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be willing to listen to the evidence may decide to listen because we have taken the time to build a relationship with them; we have shown them the compassion and caring of Jesus. We may need to prepare someone’s mind to listen by living a lifestyle that honors God and by showing compassion to those who have not yet trusted Christ and are not yet willing to take an honest look at the evidence.

T H E DECISION • Determine to obey the conscience that God has put inside you when it convicts

you of wrong or confirms that you are doing right.

• Will you train your conscience by spending time in God’s Word daily and

acting on what you read there? Studying apologetics is not enough; you must

grow spiritually. Study God’s Word and apply what you learn to your life. The

stronger you grow spiritually the better you will able to stand the persecution

that you may face.

S T I C K Y STATEM ENT Don’t deny what has been placed inside.


Documents

2016 Small Group Leader's Guide (Sample)