Life Group - Study Guides

In this series, First Things First, we've talked about what it looks like to keep God at the center of every area of our lives, covering relationships, priorities, and parenting. As we finish this series, we end on the topic of honoring your parents. For some people, this comes naturally. For others, this topic carries pain, tension, grief, or difficult memories. We recognize that every family story is different, and not every relationship is simple or healthy. Life groups should be a safe place to process honestly while continuing to come back to what scripture teaches us about honor, wisdom, forgiveness, and healing. The goal of this topic is not perfection or pretending. The goal is to invite God into our relationships and allow Him to shape our hearts and align us with His Word.

Many of you have heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Whether you are currently raising children, have grown kids, hope to one day be a parent, or simply play a role in a child’s life as a mentor, relative, or friend—this conversation matters. Scripture shows us that children are deeply valued by God, and each of us has an opportunity to influence the next generation. Today we’ll explore what it looks like to put God first in how we shape, guide, and invest in young lives through relationships, discipline, and spiritual leadership.

In today’s culture, friendships are often built on convenience or common interests, but Jesus shows us how to have deeper friendships. He teaches us that friendships should be marked by selfless, intentional, and sacrificial love. This week isn’t just about identifying good friendships; it’s about becoming the kind of friend who reflects that kind of love. Today we will look at the friendship between David and Jonathan as an example.

Last week, we talked about putting God first in every area of our lives. This week, we’re zooming in on relationships, especially marriage, but this isn’t just for married couples. Whether you’re single, dating, engaged, or married, the foundation is the same. God’s design for relationships doesn’t start when you say “I do” it starts with who (or what) you’re building your life on right now. The truth is, every relationship is being built on something. The question is: will it last? This week we’re looking at what it means to build relationships God’s way; strong, steady, and centered on Him.

Before we talk about marriages, kids, friendships, or dating, we have to start with something deeper—what it really means to know God. It’s easy to build our lives around relationships and still miss the most important one. We can even do things “for God” and yet never truly know Him. In this series, we’re going to look at all our relationships—but only after we get this right: God was never meant to be one part of our lives. He is meant to be at the center of it all. Because if we don’t know Him, every other relationship will eventually feel out of order.

This week, we’re looking at the names of God. Throughout Scripture, God reveals Himself in specific ways: provider, healer, shepherd, peace, and victory. These aren’t just titles; they show us who He is and how He meets us in real moments of life. What’s powerful is that these names don’t stay in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we see them fully revealed through Jesus. As you walk through each passage, encourage your group to notice what each name reveals about God’s character and how that connects to Jesus. This week is about recognizing who He is and how He is at work in our lives today.

We have reached the final week of our series on worship. Over the past few weeks, we have explored what worship truly is, the posture of our hearts, worship as a sacrifice, and how to worship in desert seasons. This week, we’re finishing by looking at how worship becomes a weapon during spiritual battles. Grab your bible, pull up a seat alongside your life group family and let’s see what God might reveal to us.

Throughout Scripture we see a pattern of how quickly people can move from worship to grumbling. The Israelites experienced God’s power firsthand yet still struggled to trust Him in the desert. We’ll look at what that reveals about our own hearts and how we can choose worship, even in hard seasons.

This week in life group we are exploring another dimension of Worship: sacrifice. In most areas of life, we’re used to investing rather than sacrificing. We invest time in our jobs because we receive a paycheck. We invest money into things like retirement accounts because we expect a future return. Even in relationships, sometimes we give time or effort with the hope that we’ll receive appreciation, respect, or something back. Sacrifice is giving something valuable without expecting a return. It’s choosing to give because someone is worth it, not because it benefits us. That’s part of what makes worship unique. God doesn’t need anything from us, but when we recognize His worth, our response is often to give Him our time, attention, devotion, and trust—even when there’s no immediate benefit to us. As we look into God’s Word, we will see examples of people whose response to God went beyond convenience and comfort.

Last week we talked about how worship isn’t really about us; it’s about God. We were created to worship Him. But if we’re honest, worship can sometimes become routine. What once was meaningful can slowly become casual. Think about things in life that start out exciting – a new job, a relationship, even a new car. Over time, familiarity can cause us to treat something special like it’s ordinary. The same thing can happen in our relationship with God. This week we’re looking at our hearts’ posture, to help keep our worship from becoming casual and remain meaningful.