Core
Curriculum
Discussion
Guides
Fear Sermon Series Curriculum
On January 10, a new sermon series "Fear" begins and your journey group can further discuss themes and applications concerning the fears we face. A seven session curriculum is available for free download on the Journey group resource page
We trust this will be a valuable resources to help make disciples.
Christmas Season Curriculum
Ahh - it's that time of the season when we can enjoy great food, fellowship with family and gear up for the Christmas season. It is also that time when you may find yourself wondering what should our Journey Group study as we near the end of the David series.
There is a Christmas study on the Journey Group Resource page (http://www.cccomaha.org/journey-group-resources.php) to use during the next month. It is entitled:
Advent: Clash of Two Kingdoms
This four-part study looks at the ways that Jesus turned things upside down when he came to Earth. As the introduction to the study says, "[Advent is] more than a nice tale about a baby being born in difficult circumstances. It is the strategy of God and the tactics of the Son. It's about life, death, blood, confrontation, darkness, light, and war. It's the clash of two kingdoms."
You can download this study and make copies for your group at no charge. This study has a leaders guide along with a participant guide. It will help your group focus on the true meaning of Christmas. Take note that there is some other excellent down loadable studies around growing as a RISKS taking follower of Jesus.
ACCELERATE
At Christ Community Church we're on a mission to "double our impact." On October 9th and 10th leaders from CCC ministries will cluster together to ACCELERATE their God-given gifts and potential around that theme.
As a Journey Group leader you will benefit in many different ways - leadership mindset and inspiration, tools for your leadership toolbox, interaction with other leaders who can relate to your current ministry context, practical workshops, and the list goes on...
Friday / October 9 / 7 - 8:30PM
Saturday / October 10 / 9AM - NOON
Visit the "news feed" at www.cccomaha.org for a detailed schedule and list of leadership development workshops.
See you at ACCELERATE!
Dusty White
Journey Groups / Adult Discipleship
Journey Groups adopt a missionary
Below is a note drafted by Craig Walter, CCC's newest member to the Bridge/Global team. We (Journey Groups / Adult Discipleship) are partnering with the following efforts. As you read this note from Craig be pondering this phrase in the back of your mind: "is there anyone in my Journey Group that could OWN this idea for our group?"
Journey Group Leaders,
As part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Christ Community Church has always been a very mission’s focused church. To me this means that we don’t just talk about “doing” missions so we can check it off our list. Instead, we actively participate in developing RISKS disciples who are at their very heart “missional” people.
What does that mean? "Missional living" is a Christian term that describes a missionary lifestyle; adopting the posture, thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in order to engage others with the gospel message. I know that’s the heart of your Journey Group Pastor Dusty White for all of the Journey Groups here at CCC.
One way we strive to do this here at CCC is to connect the hearts and minds of our people to our missionaries who are serving the Lord throughout the world. As we deepen our relationships with missionaries, understand the way they think and the way they live, it impacts the way we think and the way we live.
So we are asking each Journey Group to adopt a missionary. To begin with, that simply means the following:
Someone in your group (maybe you as the JG leader but we recommend getting someone else in your group to own this) keeps up-to-date on the issues and prayer requests going on in the life of your missionary. In the attachment below you will see a variety of ways to keep in touch with your missionary. For all the missionaries we recommend you send them an email and ask to be put on their list to receive their newsletters. For some, you can get more in depth information by reading their Blogs or connecting with them on Facebook.
Each time your group spends time in prayer, you remember to pray for that missionary
Depending on which missionary you choose there may be other ways to be involved in their lives and ministry, but we will leave that up to you and your group.
NEXT STEP: Please email Chris Reikofski at chrisr@cccomaha.org so we can get the ball rolling with this project. She will send you out a PDF list of CCC missionaries for you to puruse. After looking through the list, if there is a missionary that you are naturally drawn towards please communicate that to us so that we can start from there. If no preferences arise, we can help guide your Journey Group to a good fit for the adoption process.
If you have any questions or need any assistance, please contact Chris Reikofski, Craig Walter, or Dusty White at 330-3360.
Blessings,
Craig Walter
Global Outreach
craigw@cccomaha.org
(402) 938-1575
P.S. We have a list of missionaries and brief info on each of them for you to puruse. We won't be putting this info on the blog post for sensitivity reasons. Please note that on a couple of our missionaries the information sensitivity is set to HIGH. This means you must be very cautious in your communication to them through email. Please contact me first before you attempt to contact them for any reason and I can help you understand the guidelines.
This blog has moved!
Dear blog readers,
Christ Community Church has a new website. Hopefully you will find www.cccomaha.org to be useful for all things up and coming at CCC. One of the necessary changes was to move this blog. To continue to receive updates, please subscribe using the following link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cccomaha/journey-group-leaders
Thank you,
Greg Nunamaker
Web Manager
Christ Community Church
double your impact AS A LEADER
What will it look like for you as a Journey Group leader to "double your impact?"
A leader has to think about a lot of things. If you're a husband you have to think about leading your wife. If you're a CEO you have to strategically lead your company to it's next goal. If you're a Journey Group leader you have to ask God for wisdom and discernment on how to lead the 10 to 12 folks in your group. Along the way, your envisioning community and discipleship as a few of the chief goals while thinking about your next curriculum so that you can reach those goals. While all of this is true, let me challenge a "step it up" moment...
As a leader, how can you double your impact? In other words, the survival of a leader's role is the stuff that naturally ebs and flows (group meetings, socials, agendas, curriculum prep, etc.) but the impact of a leader focused on doubling his/her impact runs deeper than survival.
IMPACT trumps COMFORT
For instance, one of our Journey Groups that launched October 2009 has already doubled in impact. The leader dove right into this group creating community and discipleship - the goals of Journey Group DNA, but also took it to the next level by April of 2009. What did he do? He doubled his group! Although he and his wife were gaining a lot of momentum with the 8 couples that we hooked them up with in October, they released and commissioned one of those couples to become Journey Group leaders for the fall of 2009. Impact trumped their comfort level.
I grabbed coffee with the leader (of the first group) and we laughed together about how the DNA of the newest group that they commissioned is way different. The demographics are different. The interests are different. The age range is different. The curriculum emphasis is different. A lot is different because one group's impact doubled.
As a church, as leaders, we're on a quest to answer the double your impact question for every individual. What will your role be as a Journey Group leader considering this movement?
What if you just tried to double yourself? What if you looked at your group of 8 to 12 folks and invested some time (discipled intentionally) into 1 or 2 of those people that you think has leadership potential?
Over the years in small group ministry and ministry in general, I've come to terms with the fact that somebody else can reach people better than I can. No matter how hard I try and making it "fit" with certain folks - there is always someone I know, that I can influence, to lead that "fit" way better.
So what will it look like for you - personally in your shoes - to double? Wrestle with the Lord on this question. Ask the Holy Spirit to inspire the answer.
On the double,
Dusty
double your impact AS A GROUP
What will it look like for you as a Journey Group to "double your impact?"
As our vision continues to grow at Christ Community Church, we're focusing in more and more on making disciples of Jesus for kingdom impact. While we do that, we're now asking - how can we double that impact?
Since this is blog crafted and directed towards mostly (Journey Group) leaders at CCC, I want to ask you, as a leader, what will it look like for your Journey Group to double the impact? What will it look like for the people in your Journey Group to double THEIR impact? How will you lead that charge? Probe that charge? Execute that idea?
I recently met with one of our Journey Group leaders and we were talking about this "double your impact" idea. He took the idea to his Journey Group and they had a great conversation about it. I'm not mandating or suggesting these as the cookie-cutter approach to doubling impact, but for this Journey Group, here is what they came up with:
1. Double the prayer. We're moving past surface things and really sharing deep issues. We're holding ourselves accountable to being more intimate and purposeful about praying for each other. A gal in our group spoke up about the fact that we share things to pray about, but we don't share the real stuff about what is really going on inside us.
2. Double the neighborhood outreach. We want to have some sort of cookout or something in atleast one maybe two of our neighborhoods and invite neighbors. Nothing overly evangelistic, just do it and they will naturally find out we are from the same church.
3. Double the Serving. We will volunteer at the Open Door Mission as a group. (Sidenote: the leader of this JG already has an established relationship with Open Door.) We will go down on a Suariday or something for maybe 3 hours and do some volunteer work and then go out for ice cream or something afterwards to talk about our experience. We will probably do this several times a year.
4. Double scoop. We will hold an Open Door Misson/Lydia House Ice Cream Social. This will be a bigger deal if we do it. We'll provide and serve ice cream for Open Door and the Lydia House. Or we could include some other Journey Groups on this idea as well.
5. Double the missons movement. We will adopt a missonary to pray for as a group every time we meet as a group and we'll keep up with what is going on in their ministry and their lives. If and when they visit Omaha or CCC, we'll get in touch with them and have them personally visit our group.
Again, these are 5 ways for this group to double their impact. Maybe your group is further down the road and these aren't challenging enough. Perhaps your group is just launching and some this looks daunting. These five ideas don't have to be yours and based on the DNA of your Journey Group perhaps they shouldn't be. Either way, ask God for the direction that your group will need as you lead your group to double their impact.
On the double,
Dusty
Leader's notes for the "Where's God When..." King David series
Journey Group leaders -
This coming Sunday, August 23rd, launches a new series on the life of King David. This morning I got my hands on the final publication of the "study guide" (for lack of a better term I suppose).
This slick little guide contains devotionals, 12 Journey Group studies, cool facts and info on the life of David, along with a place for note-taking for the sermons on Sunday mornings.
These will be made available this Sunday to the CCC family. I encourage you to encourage your group members to jump on these considering the fact that most Journey Groups will benefit from this being our fall kick-off curriculum.
ALSO - to make your life as a leader a little easier, we (the contributors) have also hammered out some "leader's notes" for you to have as you dive in. These notes will give you more confidence and a little bit of background before and during your group time.
Here it is: Where is God When Leader Guide
Thanks for leading people into discipleship and community,
Dusty White
Come and see for yourself part II (small group guide or prayer guide)
The following is a follow up to the post titled "come and see for yourself" that is located on the general Journey Group blog (not the leader blog). Please note that this approach assumes repentance and faith and that people are Christ-followers (you wouldn't want to use this in the wrong environment). I used this approach with our CCC staff team this morning...
Based on John 1:35-51 - Jesus calls the disciples
CALLING
Quick discussion - Where were you (not necessarily physically) and what were the circumstances surrounding your first encounter with Jesus? How much did you know about Jesus when you decided to follow Him?
Praise and thanksgiving are a natural result of God granting us grace and calling us to His side.
* Spend some time approaching God with hearts of thankfulness.
FOLLOWING
Quick discussion - What is one of the biggest obstacles that you are facing right now as a follower of Christ? Where do you need God's guidance, discernment, and leading?
Following focused prayers are a natural result of our personal obstacles as we journey with Jesus.
* Spend some time praying and seeking God for these stories and more.
LEADING / MODELING
Quick discussion - Jesus invited his disciples to the journey of faith. Who (names) are you currently inviting? How are you using Jesus' "come and see" approach to ministry in your own life right now?
Jesus' methods of ministry were very intriguing as He invited people into His life.
* Spend some time praying for these people in your life. Intercede for their souls with the heart of Jesus. Pray that your "come and see" life will draw them to the foot of the cross.
on the road again
