We are blessed to have a worship leader (shout out to Aaron Antoon) who writes contemporary songs based on the Psalms. We usually sing at least one of them every week - it's a great way for us to stay engaged with the songbook of God's people.
If you're interested in hearing some of the songs he's written, he's posted a number of them to his website.
Our Young Adults group (more in the late-20s demographic) does a simplified lectio divina on the passage that was preached the previous Sunday. Basically we ask three questions:
1. What do you see? (Observations, questions, comments on items of interest from the sermon.)
2. What do you hear? (What might be things that the Spirit is particularly bringing to your attention, why might that be?)
3. What are you going to do next? (What's a concrete - or as close to concrete as possible - step you can take to begin to live into this passage more fully.)
We find that having the sermon beforehand helps get discussion going, and the open format allows for us to explore the passage/topics around it as we want. Also, it's been helpful to us because really anyone can facilitate that format as opposed to needing a leader who has to do lots of prep. But some of that could just be because of the dynamic of our group. :)
Posted in: Does Your Church Still Sing Psalms?
We are blessed to have a worship leader (shout out to Aaron Antoon) who writes contemporary songs based on the Psalms. We usually sing at least one of them every week - it's a great way for us to stay engaged with the songbook of God's people.
If you're interested in hearing some of the songs he's written, he's posted a number of them to his website.
Posted in: Young Adult Bible Study Ideas?
Our Young Adults group (more in the late-20s demographic) does a simplified lectio divina on the passage that was preached the previous Sunday. Basically we ask three questions:
1. What do you see? (Observations, questions, comments on items of interest from the sermon.)
2. What do you hear? (What might be things that the Spirit is particularly bringing to your attention, why might that be?)
3. What are you going to do next? (What's a concrete - or as close to concrete as possible - step you can take to begin to live into this passage more fully.)
We find that having the sermon beforehand helps get discussion going, and the open format allows for us to explore the passage/topics around it as we want. Also, it's been helpful to us because really anyone can facilitate that format as opposed to needing a leader who has to do lots of prep. But some of that could just be because of the dynamic of our group. :)