Download the current Saylorville Bible Study Journal here.

This resource has been designed to help men and women read, study, and listen to the Bible in more meaningful ways. We believe God has created us to live and learn in community with His people, so, the Journal is used best in groups. When people show up having personally spent quality time in God’s Word, the group benefits, and each member has the opportunity to grow. The goal is to challenge group members toward personal life transformation – moving from where they currently are to where God intends them to be.

The Sunday Sermon

The first step is to make sure everyone in your group takes notes during the Sunday morning message at Saylorville. Messages are posted online on Sunday mornings in case someone in your group misses a Sunday. The resources and helps in the Journal are designed to be used in conjunction with the key passage(s) from the Sunday sermon. Each Bible Study Journal includes sections for every week of the current Saylorville sermon series.

Preparation

Ideally, you and your group members will dive deep into Scripture by working through the main steps of Bible study each week. Depending on when your group meets, you may ask your group to complete the steps before or after your weekly meeting. The Journal has built-in flexibility, so you can choose the best way to use it with your group. As a leader, you may want to add specific questions each week, custom-designed for your group. You can also pull a few questions from the weekly Sermon Questions that are posted every Sunday morning.

Participation

In order to get the most out of this resource, and out of your time together as a Community Group, it’s important that you encourage participation during and between group meetings. Start a text thread, or an email chain with specific questions or new learnings each week. Celebrate when someone makes a discovery in Scripture that’s new to them. Be sure to build a group environment that highlights the transformation that comes from Holy Spirit-led application of God’s Word!

USING THE BIBLE STUDY JOURNAL IN YOUR GROUP DiscussionS

Personal spiritual growth takes commitment, so The Bible Study Journal begins with a Commitment page. At the beginning of each sermon series, encourage your group members to prayerfully agree to becoming more like Jesus together. Refer back to these commitments throughout the season to celebrate wins and encourage ongoing growth.

It’s important to develop a consistent plan for getting into the Word of God daily. The Bible Study Journal includes a simple Bible Reading Plan that will help your group follow along with our Sunday morning sermons. If you or your group would like to read through bigger sections of Scripture at a time, additional reading plans can be added to the one provided in the Journal.

Each Journal includes a Resources section specific to the current sermon series. Use these resources and helps to deepen your understanding of the passage each week, and encourage your group members to do the same. When you meet together, ask your group to share some of the Bible study resources they found particularly helpful that week.

The Attributes page is a reminder that all of Scripture points to Who God is, not just what He does. Whenever you read a passage, look for Him before asking how this relates to you. The Bible is a book about God! Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes not. The more you look for His character, the more you start to see it in every passage. When you gather with your group each week, ask them which of the attributes of God were on display in the key passage(s) that week.

Each week, the Journal includes sections titled, “Observation”, “Interpretation”, and “Application”. These three key steps of Bible study will guide you and your group into deeper engagement with the text each week. Since the steps are the same every week, you’ll get familiar with them quickly and will be able to dive deeper into each one as time goes on. Use the resources, suggestions, and helps as you study study the Bible for life transformation. When your group meets together, don’t be afraid to share some of your key learnings from the passage – remember, we’re better together!

One of the keys to learning is to take Sermon Notes. Encourage your group to follow along carefully on Sunday mornings, and then to write down important statements, passages, illustrations, or questions that stood out to them. The notes you take during the weekly sermon will provide great discussion material when you get together with your group!

Use the Personal Study pages throughout the week to put your thoughts down as you observe, interpret, and apply Scripture every day. These pages are blank canvases, so encourage your group to jot down notes, write down quotes, or journal key learnings from the passages each week.

Fill out the Growth Plan every week to help you memorize, paraphrase, and stay accountable with what you’re learning. As a group leader, these Growth Plans could be a great resource to help encourage your group to apply God’s Word. Ask your group members to fill out their Growth Plans each week, and then review them when you gather together again.

The Prayer Journal is for personal or Community Group prayer requests. Use it and watch God answer prayer.

Our vision at Saylorville is to be a church that makes more people more like Jesus. We want to be changed daily into people who look more like our Savior. At the end of each Bible Study Journal, you’ll find a “More Like Jesus” section. Walk your group through the questions in this section to help solidify the lessons you have learned throughout the sermon series.

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.” – 2 Timothy 3:1

The Coronavirus pandemic has brought new levels of anxiety, confusion, and fear for many in our world. Yet, with great difficulty comes great opportunity. People in your Community Group are undoubtedly struggling with a range of emotions during this time of uncertainty. So, where are they turning for help?

The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about ministering during difficult times. While the attack in Paul’s day wasn’t a physical virus, the defense is the same today as it was then: the inspired Word of God.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

God gives us a way to be complete during times of crisis – by living our lives according to His Word.

Our counseling team has put together a resource designed to help you point your group to Scripture during difficult times. Check it out here, send it along to your group members, and encourage each other to run to the source of hope in times of crisis.

We’ve partnered with RightNow Media to provide additional teaching and training resources for Community Group leaders and co-leaders. Our subscription gives you free access to a huge, streaming, online, access-on-any-device library of over 10,000 video Bible studies, leadership videos, kids shows and more.

To sum it up — it’s like the Netflix of Bible study videos. You will have FREE access to thousands of video resources to help you with parenting, marriage, discipleship and more. It includes content for all ages and stages of life, and all of your Community Group members are invited to set up their own accounts as well.

Check out rightnow.org or contact the church office to request a login.

Looking for a way to get your group on the same page at the beginning of this season? Check out Better Together – a brand new six-session start-up study that will help you and your group launch successfully. Download the study, or grab copies from the church office, and start your group the right way!

Memorizing the Bible can be difficult, but it is an important habit to memorize and meditate on Scripture privately and within Community Groups. Joshua 1:8 says, “Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth, but meditate on it day and night so that you will be careful to do everything that is written in it, then you will be prosperous and successful.” God’s Word is not supposed to depart from our mouths, but it will never make it to our mouths unless it is first in our minds! Here are some practical reasons why your Community Group should make Bible memorization a priority:

Imitating Christ. It may seem inconsequential at first glance, but the fact that Jesus had Scripture memorized is a powerful reason why we, followers of Jesus, should adopt the same habit. Romans 8:29 says, “For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn amongst many brothers.” We are supposed to look like Jesus! Just as Jesus quoted Scripture to combat Satan in the wilderness, rebuttal the pharisees, and teach his disciples, we should have Scripture in our mouths and minds.

Victory over sin. Psalm 119 says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” God’s Word is a powerful tool to use to combat sin in our lives. Ephesians likens God’s word to a sword that is our only offensive weapon against the devil. Memorize passages that will point you to God and away from sin!

Comfort and counseling. John Piper says, “When the heart full of God’s love can draw on the mind full of God’s Word, timely blessings flow from the mouth.” Proverbs 25:11 puts it this way, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” We must memorize Scripture so that we can be ready to speak it as encouragement to those who need a word from the Lord.

Preach the Gospel. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…” As Christians we are commanded to “Go unto all the World and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15). At the very least, we should have verses that speak of the gospel memorized so that we will be able to accurately convey the good news to those who don’t know Christ. Understand and memorize passages about God’s holiness (1 Peter 1:16), Man’s sin (Romans 3:23), Jesus’ saving act (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), and the call to believe (John 3:16), so that you can accurately share the gospel with others.

Delight in God. Do you delight in God’s person and character? Psalm 1:2 talks of a man who “delights in the law of the Lord” by meditating on it day and night. Understanding the character of God, who he is and what he has done, will bring us joy and peace as we memorize and mediate on passages that point us to Him.

As you think through some of these reasons for memorizing Scripture, come up with a plan that will help you and your Community Group succeed in this area! Encourage your members to write verses down and place them around their house where they can see them, and hold each other accountable for memorizing God’s Word.

One of the essentials of a healthy Community Group is the centrality of the Bible. We rely on the truth of God’s Word as the final authority in our lives and in our groups. As a Community Group Leader, an even as a Christ-follower, you’ll need to be prepared to defend your faith and the reliability of Scripture. Here are four quick reasons we can trust that the Bible truly is God’s Word.

Early testimony. The gospels were written by eye witnesses living within one generation of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. Imagine playing the game, “Telephone,” lining up 100 people, with each one representing a single generation. We would expect corruption to take place with the message within those 100 people, right? But if the first generation wrote down the message, then we should expect the message to be accurate, even 99 generations later. As William Lane Craig says, “If the gap between the evidence and the event that took place is short, then the gap between the evidence and today is irrelevant. Good evidence does not become bad evidence because of time.”

Embarrassing testimony. If someone is writing about a real event that took place, they will include every detail, including embarrassing details. If the gospels have no embarrassing details about key characters, we might question the truth of those stories. But the gospels do in fact have embarrassing details: Peter is called the devil, Jesus’ closest disciples are constantly rebuked for their failures, and women (who were considered by that culture as non-reliable witnesses) are some of the heroes of the gospel stories. If the writers of the New Testament were trying to write a good story, they did a really bad job. But they weren’t trying to write a good story, they were writing a true story.

Excruciating testimony. If the disciples really knew that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead and they were spreading a lie, would they have died for that lie? 10 out of the 12 disciples were murdered for their belief in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The eleventh was dipped in a boiling pot of water, survived then exiled. And the twelfth was Judas, who betrayed Jesus and then killed himself.

Extra-Biblical testimony. When we compare the New Testament documents to other ancient documents, the New Testament simply has way more evidence for its reliability. For instance, the 3rd best-preserved ancient work is Sophocles with 194 copies – and the earliest ones date 1400 years after the original. The 2nd best is Homer’s “The Iliad” with 643 copies dating 500 years after the original. With overwhelming evidence, the best-preserved ancient work is the New Testament with 24,000 hand written copies dating within mere decades of the originals.

With these testimonies, and others, we can confidently rely on the truth of God’s Word as the final authority in our lives and in our groups.

One of the foundations of a growing relationship with Jesus is regular time in God’s Word. As a Community Group leader, help your group walk through these four simple steps of Bible study to help them develop the habit of spending quality time in the Bible. Print out the worksheet, send it to your group, or walk through it together at your next group meeting.

As a Community Group leader, you can’t lead others where you’re not willing to go. If you’re encouraging your Community Group to grow to be more like Jesus, they’ll need to see that example in you. To be more like Christ, you need to know Him, obey Him, and abide in Him. Here’s what John 15:4-5 says, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

To learn more about how to abide in Christ, and how to lead your group to do the same, check out this resource from North Point Ministries.

Here’s a quote from their excellent resource:

“You can’t lead others well and help them to grow unless you’re receiving input from God. That’s why it’s so important that you spend regular quiet times with your heavenly Father—it’s necessary for both your personal spiritual growth and for your leadership.”