Saddleback Church

Do you ever come away from a Saddleback Church service wishing you could spend a little more time figuring out how to apply what you just heard? Would you like to discuss one of the weekend sermons with your small group, but don't know where to start?

Talk it Over Sermon Discussion Guides for small groups can help! They've been motivating Saddleback Church small group discussions for more than five years. Every week, our Talk It Over team creates a new sermon discussion guide, based on the weekend sermon. Each Guide is full of discussion questions about that sermon's Bible verses, and challenging thoughts about how to apply the message in your own life — lots of great questions you can choose from to make a curriculum that is appropriate for your group.

A new sermon discussion guide is posted to the Talk it Over website every Saturday night. Free Download!

Surrender. It is not an inviting concept, is it? Yielding. Relinquishing. Our very nature resists these concepts.

Intimacy with God. Now that is far more appealing. Don't we all long for a deeper personal experience of God's presence?

Kay Warren takes us on a startling adventure, across the globe and over the backyard fence, bringing us face to face with the powerful and mysterious link between surrender and intimacy with God. This wasn't a journey she intended, but once she took the first step there was no turning back. Her world—your world—will never be the same again.

Now Kay Warren invites you—compels you—to explore living a life fully surrendered to God. You will enter the stories of men, women and children that will forever alter your understanding of God. You will come face to face with truths that will forever alter your understanding of yourself. You will be challenged to attempt the impossible and discover in the process that God is far deeper, far wider, far closer than you ever dared to dream.

This is a 3-session Small Group Teaching DVD by Kay Warren and Small Group Study Guide.
If you've ever struggled with knowing and doing God's will, this video-based small group study is for you.

• Session One: Become Dangerously Surrendered
• Session Two: Expose Evil
• Session Three: Do Good in Jesus' Name

Everything you think about life is shaped by your world view. It determines your view on God, yourself and other people. It determines how you think about relationships, your time, and your money.

In this six-week video-based small group study, Rick Warren and Chuck Colson examine world views as they relate to the most important questions of our day. They explore such key issues as truth, tolerance, terrorism, creationism vs. Darwinism, sin and suffering, and the purpose of life.

This curriculum is video-based. Each small group will need one DVD (which provides the teaching), and one study guide for each participant. One copy of The Good Life for each participant is also recommended.

Six-Week Study

Rick Warren's best selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, described God's five purposes for every Christian. Now Erik Rees helps you discover God's unique purpose for your life based on the way God has shaped you. He made you marvelously unique for a reason. Tap into that reason and into the secrets of your own deeply personal makeup—the remarkable ensemble of passions, talents, experiences, temperament, and other components that work together to make you who you are—and you'll discover the path to a life of unimagined purpose, impact, and fulfillment.

Based on the purpose of ministry outlined in The Purpose Driven Life, this inspiring study gives you the tools to:

• Unlock your God-given potential
• Uncover your specific kingdom purpose
• Unfold a kingdom plan for your life

Filled with Scripture and real-life stories, S.H.A.P.E. presents a series of challenges that will guide you through the process of discovering your S.H.A.P.E.—your personal blend of Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences. You'll learn how to apply these attributes in ways that bring confidence, freedom, clarity, and significance that can only come from your Creator. This small group study is designed specifically to take you to that next level of purpose—to reveal how God has designed you, and help see how that fits the intention for which you were created.

In these six lessons, Erik Rees unpacks for you the five elements of God's blueprints for creating you. Each session includes tools that help bring clarity to your future goals and show you how to have the most fulfilling life possible—a life lived for God's Purposes, by God's design.

This curriculum is video-based. Each small group will need one DVD (which provides the teaching), and one study guide for each participant. One copy of the book, S.H.A.P.E.: Finding and Fulfilling Your Unique Purpose For Life, is also recommended for each participant.

Six-Week Study

Based on 5 years of research by Drs. Gary and Greg Smalley, this small group study will help you to develop a marriage where you both have the freedom to be open & secure without fear of being criticized, blamed or judged by each other. Learn how to make your marriage a safe place where your relationship grows deeper naturally.

This six-week small group study you and your spouse will:

• Discover five core promises that will double your security and marriage satisfaction in one week!
• Learn three powerful ways to improve your relationship with God.
• Learn the biggest marriage mistake that most couples make.
• Find out why marital trials and irritations are the secret to intimacy.
• Develop six levels of communication (most couples only get to the second & third level).
• Find three ways to help your spouse win every argument... while you win.
• Discover a new way to serve your spouse by identifying their key needs.

This curriculum is video-based. Each small group will need one DVD (which provides the teaching), and one study guide for each participant. One copy of the book, I Promise, is also recommended for each participant.

Six-Week Study

One out of every six verses in Matthew, Mark, and Luke is about material possession, and nearly half of Jesus' parables are about possessions. Managing Our Finances God's Way is a 7-week, video-based small group study that will inspire your members to live debt-free and/or manage their finances in a way that enables them to respond to God's calling on their lives in a way that will honor Him.

Each small group study features a 20-minute video lesson on the subject of biblical financial management. Lesson topics include:

• The Big Picture—Rick Warren
• Dedicate it All to God—Chip Ingram
• Plan Your Spending—Ron Blue
• Giving as an Act of Worship—Chip Ingram
• Saving and Investing—Ron Blue
• God’s Solution to Debt—Howard Dayton
• Enjoy What God Has Given You—Chuck Bentley

Along with the DVD teaching curriculum, group study lessons include these easy-to-use tools and resources:

• Study Guide and Workbook with seven study lessons
• Resource CD containing digital versions of all worksheets that perform calculations automatically
• Contact information for help with answering questions
• Resources for keeping financial plans on track and making them lifelong habits

Participants in the study do not share financial information with each other, but keep each other accountable to do the work and to follow through with their personal commitments.

The study guide, sold separately, accompanies the DVD. In the study guide, you'll find a workbook with seven study lessons, tools, and resources including a CD with digital versions of all worksheets. Contact information for help with questions and other resources are also included in the study guide.

Seven-Week Study

Are you looking for God? The pursuit of God is the chase of a life time. In fact, it's been going on since the day you were born. The question is: Have you been the hunter or the prey?

This small group study is not about music. It's not even about going to church. It's about living your life as an offering of worship to God. It's about tapping into the source of power to live the Christian life. And it's about discovering the secret to friendship with God.

In this four-week study, Buddy Owens, author and teacher, will help you understand the meaning of worship. Through his very practical, engaging, and at times surprising insights, Buddy shares truths from Scripture and from life that will help you understand in a new and deeper way just what it means to be a worshiper.

God is looking for worshipers. His invitation to friendship is open and genuine. Will you take him up on his offer? Will you give yourself to him in worship? Then come walk the Way of a Worshiper and discover the secret to friendship with God.

This DVD includes all four video lessons and accompanies the small group study guide. The DVD also includes an audio CD with 10 worship songs.

Each small group will need one DVD (which includes all four video lessons), and one study guide for each participant. Your study of this material will be greatly enhanced by reading the book, The Way of a Worshiper: Discover the Secret to Friendship with God.

Six-Week Study

You are about to embark on a journey of discovery. Throughout this six-session video-based study taught by Rick Warren you are going to discover the answer to life's most fundamental question: "What on earth am I here for?" and here's a clue to the answer "It's not about you..."

You were created by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end."

The Purpose Driven Life DVD, is designed to be used with The Purpose Driven Life DVD Study Guide. Whether you are going to experience this adventure with a small group or on your own, this six-session video-based study will change your life.

The six sessions include:

• What on earth am I here for?
• Worship—You were planned for God's pleasure
• Fellowship—You were formed for God's family
• Discipleship—You were created to become like Christ
• Ministry—You were shaped for serving God
• Evangelism—You were made for a mission

Six-Week Study

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" so begins the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' longest sermon in the New Testament. And with these words, Jesus introduces us to a whole new way of living—inside out living!

The Sermon on the Mount is a blueprint for building the Christian life that covers three chapters of the book of Matthew, and includes the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, Jesus' teachings about worry, forgiveness, integrity, loving our enemies, storing up treasures in Heaven, and many other topics. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reaches beneath our actions to the attitudes that motivate us. He teaches us how to stop living for ourselves, and how to start living beyond ourselves. And that kind of living is inside out living.

Volume One: Living a Blessed Life (Six Sessions)
In this volume Lance Witt will engage groups in an enriching, verse-by-verse discussion of the Beatitudes, and living as salt and light, as found in Matthew 5:1–16.

Volume Two : Living Beyond Yourself (Seven Sessions)
The primary focus of this volume is relationships, and it includes Jesus' teaching on anger management, faithfulness in marriage, being both truthful and trustworthy, and loving our enemies.

Volume Three: Living in Pursuit of God (Seven Sessions)
This volume discusses Jesus' teaching on the Lord's Prayer, fasting, materialism, and storing up treasures in Heaven.

Life happens fast. Each and every day you make decisions regarding who and what will receive your time, money, and attention. At some point you have realized there is not enough of you for all the demands and, if you are like many of us, you have probably anticipated eternity more than ever during these moments. But what if life is meant to be more than simply waiting for eternity? What if it is meant to be a journey toward eternity?

In A Spiritual Road Map in a Mixed Up World, a study of 1 Thessalonians taught by Pastor Lance Witt, small group participants will work through thought-provoking questions and discussion prompting them to unpack the spiritual road map prepared for the Thessalonians and engage the group in deeper study, application, and prayer.

Volume One (Six Sessions)
In this first series of A Spiritual Road Map in a Mixed Up World, small groups will begin seeing the map by unpacking topics such as spiritual growth, discipleship, pure motives, spiritual reproduction, and loving people that are outlined in the first three chapters of 1 Thessalonians. Participants will develop a firm understanding of the direction of the spiritual road map and build a practical application of the topics as they relate to their personal lives.

Volume Two (Six Sessions)
The second series of A Spiritual Road Map in a Mixed Up World, continues laying out the map begun in series one by leading small groups through the last two chapters of 1 Thessalonians. Participants will engage topics such as living a life of sexual purity, living as insiders while reaching outsiders, spiritual laziness, small group living, and preparing for the return of Jesus Christ.

This curriculum is video-based. Each small group will need one DVD (which provides the teaching), and one study guide for each participant.

Pastor Rick teaches on the five marks of maturity in this verse by verse study through the book of James. Explore how to be positive under the pressure of problems, how to make wise decisions, how to deal with temptation and how to be blessed by the Bible. Learn how to treat people right, how to have real faith, how to manage your mouth, how to relate wisely to others and how to avoid arguments. Understand why it is our nature to judge others and how to break that habit, learn the common mistakes we make in facing our future and how to avoid them, and how to be wise with our wealth. Look at when, why and how to develop patience, and finally how to pray about our problems.

Volume One (Six Sessions)
Join Pastor Rick Warren as he examines James 1:1-2:20 in the first of this two-volume small group study. The study guide is designed to follow along with each video lesson and contains study questions as well.

Volume Two (Six Sessions)
Join Pastor Rick Warren as he examines James 3:1-5:20 in the second of this two-volume small group study. The study guide, like the first volume, is designed to follow along with each video lesson and contains study questions as well

Foundations is a fresh, innovative small group series by Tom Holladay and Kay Warren about the essential truths of the Christian faith and how these truths are to be lived out in your relationships, your character and your work.

Foundations is a series of eleven individual four-week studies, with participant’s guides and teaching DVDs by Tom Holladay and Kay Warren. The first six studies are currently available, with the other five soon to be published. Focus on the topic your group wishes to explore. Current topics include:

GOD: This study on God focuses on getting to know him - his character, his values and his love - and in the process come to experience him in a more powerful and personal way. As you begin this journey, expect that God will use this study to reveal more of himself to you and your group.

THE BIBLE: This study on The Bible focuses on helping you to develop confidence that God's Word can be trusted above and beyond your own feelings, values, opinions, and culture. You will also discover how God has made it possible for you to read and study the Bible and, within its pages, find life-changing truth.

JESUS: This study on Jesus is all about relationships. As you look at what the Bible says about the person of Christ, you are doing so as one who is developing a lifelong relationship with Jesus.

HOLY SPIRIT: This study on the Holy Spirit focuses on building confidence in your relationship with God based on the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. You will see with eyes of faith just how the Holy Spirit is at work in your daily life and how you can be filled with the Holy Spirit each day.

CREATION: This study on Creation focuses on how each of us was personally created by a loving God. While we will not shy away from the great scientific and theological arguments that surround the creation/evolution debate, the goal of this study is to deepen the awareness of God as your creator.

SALVATION: This study on Salvation focuses on God's solutions to people's need for salvation and their understanding of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. God's love and provision in salvation offers each of us assurance and security.

Tell Faith-Filled Fish Tales.

We've all heard them. "It was this big." "You should have seen the one that got away." People love to tell stories of their fishing adventures. When it comes to faith, however, most people clam up. Why is it we can't talk about what God has done in our life as naturally as we can spin fishing tales? This six-part DVD explores the motivation behind sharing our faith and how it can become a natural part of our lives. This study by Andy Stanley will take the struggle out of sharing your faith—offering a new perception of the word "evangelism". Its companion study guide is complete with a leader's guide and six lessons, including conversation-starting exercises, discussion questions, and application steps.,

The sessions include:

• We Were All Fish Once
• Why Fish?
• Fish Guts
• Fishing Buddies
• Muddy Water
• The One That Got Away

Six-Week Study

God tells us that our dominant life value is to be love. Jesus once said that of all the commands in the Bible only two are most important: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. In this small group study, Rick Warren teaches that learning to love God and others is to be our highest goal, our greatest aim, our first priority, our deepest aspiration, our strongest ambition, our constant focus, our passionate intention, and our dominant life value. The more we learn to love authentically, the more we become like Jesus.

Session topics:

• Love Matters Most
• Love is Patient, Love is Kind
• Love Speaks the Truth
• Love is Forgiving Love is not selfish
• The Habits of a Loving Heart

Hurts, hang-ups, and habits do not develop overnight. They are the result of our poor choices or the poor choices of others. Some have taken many years to develop into a behavior that is not healthy or beneficial. While freedom does not happen overnight, you can find the help you need in Life's Healing Choices. Life's Healing Choices small group study is a companion to the Life's Healing Choices book.

Session topics:

• Admitting need
• Getting help
• Letting go
• Coming clean
• Making changes
• Repairing relationships
• Maintaining momentum
• Recycling pain

Sacred Marriage, expresses a radical thought for today's marriages! Chapter by chapter, discover how marriage works to develop Christ-like character, forgiveness, love, respect, perseverance - in each of you. This book will enrich your marriage in unexpected ways.

The Sacred Marriage participant's guide is designed to accommodate and enhance the six teaching sessions on the DVD. Small group ice-breakers, discussion questions, Bible study and guided prayer are only a few of the many helps provided to let your marriage become a doorway to a closer walk with God.

Session topics:

• God's Purpose for Marriage: More Than We Imagine
• The Refining Power of Marriage
• The God-Centered Spouse
• Sacred History
• Sexual Saints
• Marriage: The Love Laboratory

Max Lucado draws from Jesus' encounters with people in frightening situations and offers evidence that we can trust God through these scary times. Fear is like an invisible prison. It holds you captive, influencing your choices and perceptions about life, God, and other people. Can you imagine what life would be like without fear? Let this inspiring and timely message encourage your heart today!

Building Biblical Community is a 4 session group experience designed to help members understand what it means to belong in a small group, know how to live in community and do life together, discover mission, and learn the importance of "story" in group life.

Session topics:

• Celebrating Community: a biblical community looks for reasons to celebrate; Jesus modeled this even in the hours before being arrested in Gethsemane
• Learning Community: God created us to be learners; community is perhaps the best context for individual learning as members engage truth, seek to understand, and put learning into practice
• Loving Community: draws from 1 Corinthians 13 to develop the notion that love is central to biblical community: a community that loves God completely, loves others compassionately, loves self correctly, and loves the world courageously
• Service Community: examines the reasons service seems so “heavy” by identifying the barriers to service within the church and broader community

Life seldom happens in neat, tidy ways. It tends to come at us like a story-full of unexpected twists and turns, laced with adventure, wrought with adversity-and is always meant to be experienced within the context of community. Small group Life has been created as a guide for your spiritual pilgrimage. In these pages you will participate in a study of God and his written Word. You will grow in your knowledge of Christlikeness and apply all of these to the leadership and ministry that come from a heart fully alive. The sum of these parts moves us toward redemptive community.

Session topics: 6 book series

• Formation-Because we are spiritual beings, we are always in the process of being formed spiritually. Every thought we hold, every decision we make, every action we take-each contributes to our spiritual formation. In this way life becomes God’s customized curriculum for each of us by which we live and grow daily.
• Mission-In today’s culture, missional is defined as a lifestyle closely aligned to and with the heart of Jesus. This study will explore fundamental influences such as surrender, intention, and discomfort that empower us to live a life missionally focused with significance and passion.
• Freedom-Jesus came to set us free. We have been set free simply because God does not want us living in bondage. Go from bondage to authenticity in your relationships and experience the freedom in Christ that God desires for each one of us.
• Barbarian-This study will lead followers on a journey into the deepest places of who we are. Barbarians fight for their king. They accept the fight and go after it with reckless abandon. Awake the barbarian inside of you and come alive!
• Kingdom- Kingdom life is viewed through the prism of what it means to be a subject of the King. Learn how to carry out God’s work in the Kingdom present, and look forward with the hope to Kingdom future.
• Awaken-It’s easy to live life focusing solely on what’s right in front of us. We take things day to day, paying more attention to the urgent and immediate than the things that could bring us greater joy, fulfillment, and purpose. But it is possible to live life fully awake, aware of the presence of God and his hand on our lives, being available for his purposes, and discovering who we are truly meant to be.