Order Your Advent Study today!

Plan for Growth in 2023

Plan for Spiritual Growth in 2023

January 03, 2023 1 Comment

READ MORE

How Can the Church Recover from Covid?

How Can the Church Recover from Covid

October 25, 2022

READ MORE

Plan Your Church Year

Planning Your Church Year

August 09, 2022

READ MORE


Does Jesus Understand Your Distress?

Does Jesus Understand Your Distress?

March 22, 2022

READ MORE

The Freedom of Forgiveness

The Freedom of Forgiveness

March 08, 2022

READ MORE

How to Celebrate Lent with Your Children

How to Celebrate Lent with Your Children

March 01, 2022

READ MORE


Considering a Lenten Discipline

What Does It Mean to Observe A Holy Lent? Consider These Spiritual Disciplines

February 22, 2022

READ MORE

The Crucified Life: Seven Words from the Cross

A Lenten Study

February 08, 2022

This Lent, you are invited to take a journey into the heart of the crucified life. Jesus challenged his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

READ MORE

Use the Lenten Season to Grow Your Family's Faith

Use the Lenten Season to Grow Your Family’s Faith

February 01, 2022

Like anything, learning to face battles and not lose our God-centered focus takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes recognition, repentance, and the hard work to try to see the windstorm brewing before it takes you down. It’s a discipline—an opportunity for spiritual growth.

READ MORE


Top 5 Bible Study Books

How To Choose a Bible Study

October 26, 2021

Many of us have heard the phrase, “If the shoe fits, wear it.” The same goes for Bible studies. What is the best Bible Study “fit” for you? What is the best Bible study for your small group? I have always looked for specific, concrete answers to these questions.

READ MORE

The Power of Alignment

The Power of Alignment

February 08, 2020

Imagine for a moment the impact on your church if for 40 days every person in your congregation lived in alignment with God’s will in the pattern of Jesus’ call to pick up our cross and follow him. What if your people lived in powerful community with their small groups to discuss and pray over lives sacrificed to God? What if, as groups and individual people began to experience the power of God in their lives as they surrendered all to Jesus Christ?

By intentionally coordinating and aligning the elements of your Lenten season using The Crucified Life materials, you will make an environment for spiritual growth that will move your congregation from self to surrender.

By aligning the following three elements of participation, you will see the power of God working in your church because of the intentional focus on the heart of the Gospel and the grace offered in the cross of Jesus Christ:

  1. Individual Participation:

    This is the real heart of The Crucified Life study, and it is the element that will produce the greatest spiritual growth among the members of your congregation. The goal is to encourage individuals to read and reflect on God’s Word through the daily devotions and to prayerfully consider His will for their lives daily throughout the study. By participating in this campaign, each person will be challenged to grow spiritually and experience God’s plan for living a transformed life.

  2. Group Participation:

    A powerful element of The Crucified Life is getting people to explore and experience God’s will in true biblical community. We provide you with curriculum to be used in small groups or classes for adults and children. Individuals bond through prayer and authentic discussion in a smaller community within your congregation. They will enjoy the benefits of sharing life, spiritual growth, and accountability for that growth. These small group experiences are vital to ensuring the greatest personal spiritual growth, as well as a commitment to ongoing growth as a community within your congregation.

  3. Sunday Worship Participation:

    The services that take place during the Christian Life Trilogy campaign include Forgiveness Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost. These services offer opportunities for the Senior Pastor and worship planning team to call the entire congregation to a depth of worship. The drama of Lent and Holy week become intense, real, and personal, as the entire congregation has been focusing on the cross and following the way of Christ together.

By creating a singular Lenten focus on what it means to “pick up our cross” and follow Jesus in the way of the Crucified Life, the entire congregation is called to a Holy Lent together. This unified focus will burst forth in new life with the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday!

READ MORE

Following Jesus in the Way of the Cross | 5 Keys to Receiving God | Bible Study Media

Following Jesus in the Way of the Cross | 5 Keys to Receiving God | Bible Study Media

November 05, 2019

By: Brooke Holt

1. The Challenge

Throughout The Crucified Life, Charlie challenges us as Christians to follow Jesus in the way of the cross. As we lay down our lives to the Lord, we actually find our lives. On day 38, Charlie writes, “The key to receiving the life of God is in surrendering our spirit to his Spirit that we might be mysteriously united in the wonderful mystery of his will.” 

2. Surrender

For me, the act of surrendering is not easy, even in little things. Jesus speaks these words from the cross right before he dies: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46). Jesus, being fully God and fully human, entrusts himself to the Father all the way to the cross, to his last dying breath. 

3. God is Good

There is nothing I want more than to fully entrust myself to the Lord. I have been wrestling with this all week. In my mind and spirit, I know that God is good; his ways are good; he is fully worthy of my trust and submission. In my flesh, I want what I want, and I have this great desire to control my own life. 

 4. Submit your Spirit

Ultimately, I want to land into the loving arms of my Father. I want to submit my spirit, my very life to him. I have been asking him to show me how to do this, to make his will my will, his desires my desires. I wish I could say that after a week of wrestling and praying that I have this fully mastered. I certainly don’t! However, it has become my daily heartfelt prayer. 

Romans 8:31-32 says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how we he not also with him graciously give us all things?” 

 5. God is for us!

God is for us! He has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). I may not have this surrender thing down, but I will daily lay my life before the Lord and ask him to help me fully commit myself and my ways before him. I want him. I want his life.   

Charlie ends the devotional writing with these words: “Entrust him with your entire life today.” What does that look like for you today? 

READ MORE