Here are three easy ideas for your small group to serve together and make a difference this summer:

1. Motel church. Your group will serve breakfast for people living in a motel, providing food and fellowship to the homeless and working poor in several cities around the Southland. This is a family-friendly ministry. To learn more or get started, email karin@motelchurch.org. (For Irvine Campus motel outreach – register here:  June, July, August)

2. At your campus. Look for opportunities to volunteer as a group at your campus.

Many campuses have cleanup days, or you can serve together at the Rancho Capistrano retreat center.

3. In your community:

Good Neighbor Laguna Hills & Anaheim –  contact Bonnie at bonniet@saddleback.com
Good Neighbor San Clemente & Huntington Beach – contact Dawn at dawnm@saddleback.com
Good Neighbor Lake Forest & Santa Ana – contact Matt at mattb@saddleback.com
Good Neighbor Lake Forest Seniors & Irvine – contact Michelle at michellet@saddleback.com
Good Neighbor Compton, San Juan Capistrano & Corona – contact Steve at steveb@saddleback.com

Summer means doing small group a different way at times. Make summer a fun time and your group will make plenty of memories this year.

1. Meet at the beach, a lake or a park a couple times this summer on your normal meeting day and invite friends to join you and check out the group.
2. Schedule several BBQs during the summer. Try having front yard barbeques and invite curious neighbors to come join the party.
3. Ladies in the group, have a “girls night out” for dinner, coffee, a movie or whatever the girls like to do.
4. Guys, do the same with a “guys night out” for Indoor Kart Racing, Bowling, a movie, Paintball, or whatever the guys like to do.
5. Mix up what you study:
   1. Use the “Talk it Over” sermon discussion notes and new video clips for really lively conversations.
   2. Get Pastor Buddy’s study “Finding God in the Desert of The Soul” and enjoy the sweeping visuals and insightful thoughts.
   3. Read through particular chapters in the bible as a group (see 9 below).
   4. Share each week from a daily devotional or Pastor Tom’s daily DriveTime Devotions.
   5. Check out the small group curriculum Lending Library at the Lake Forest campus. We may have just the study you have been wanting.
6. Go to a movie together and then have dessert or dinner afterward and discuss the biblical themes in the film.
7. Do a serving project together. What a great time to help out at your campus, fix up a group member’s house or apartment, do some yard work for someone who is not doing well, or serve one Sunday morning at the motel ministry. See our list of three easy ways for groups to serve here. Or, for a huge list of ideas, go here.
8. Commit to have your regular meeting even if it’s just one person. Rotate leadership and homes. Hosts, if you’re going to be out of town, ask someone to have the group meeting at their house. This is a great way to start sharing leadership, if you aren’t already.
9. Pick a book of the Bible and have everyone read a chapter a week and come ready with at least one question for the group to answer. Bring a commentary, a Serendipity Bible (available at the Pavilion), or other study materials to help.
10. Grab your group and head for the outdoors. How about an overnight retreat together? Find a campground, plan an overnight or two-day outing, meet up around a campfire at night and eat, sing, and have a devotional. Oh yeah!

Okay, here are five bonus ideas for groups with lots of kids - grab all the kids in the group and everyone goes for picnics at the park with games, a day at a water park, a day at the beach, or even a hike around Newport’s Back Bay , kayak the Back Bay, or a group bike ride on the many trails of Orange County and the Inland Empire. End with a picnic and have one member of the group share a quick devotion.

And, the two final words on the subject – ice cream! Summer is the perfect time for ice cream so have sundae night, banana split night, best ice cream dessert contest, root beer float night, and after trying all of those have a Daniel Plan night!

Check out this verse. “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25

So, keep going and have fun this summer. Together.

So, do you have a Facebook account? How about a Pinterest account? Instagram? Twitter?

All of these social media options are great for building community, which is exactly what your small group is about. And If you don’t have accounts with these social media channels, what are you waiting for? They’re free and they’re fun!

Consider just a few of these ideas:

·         Facebook. Planning a small group activity or have you just had one? Maybe your group served together in a ministry or you helped out one of your members. Post some photos ·         or a quick paragraph about it on your Facebook account. And, create an album for your small group photos. Be sure to tag all of your group members in photos. Your friends will learn more about you and your small group so when you invite them to visit the group they’ll already be interested. And, your small group can enjoy the photos.

·         Or, create a private Facebook group where only your group members can participate. You can continue the conversation from the meeting, add new ideas or links to resources, or even post a YouTube video that you think is an interesting addition to the discussion.

·          “Friend” us at Saddleback Small Groups on Facebook. Then add a post about your small group with a photo or two so that other small groups can learn from your group. You’ll spark a conversation between groups and your group could just help a group that is trying to solve a problem.

·         Twitter is not a very local channel, but you can still use it for your group. Get each member of your group to start a Twitter account and follow each other. Be sure to link your Twitter account to your Facebook page. Then tweet about small group activities and they’ll appear in both Facebook and Twitter. As you learn new things in your small group, or the group takes a great new step of faith, tweet it out! Your world needs to hear about it. And you’ll be helping other people discover the wonderful things about being in a small group.

·         Instagram. Use Instagram several ways. It’s a great tool to attach photos from your smartphone to your tweets, to Flickr, to Tumblr or to Facebook. You can also email them to others. Shoot a pic of a page in a small group study book in which you have circled a key point, or a photo of your group doing an activity like eating or talking or just meeting. Then modify it with any of Instagram’s cool filters and then send it out with Twitter or post it on Facebook.

·         Pinterest. You can “pin” (upload) pictures to your bulletin board for people to comment on. Like Instagram, Pinterest is all about images – graphics, photos, etc. So, capture your small group, capture your small group thoughts or ideas, inspirational faith quotes, Bible verses or experiences (visually, of course), and pin them on your Pinterest board. Example, if your small group has a summer picnic - create a board called summer fun and search the term "summer picnic" in the tool bar. You will see images of decor, food, activities... Pin those to the board! (Many ideas courtesy of Crystal Hansen.) Others will see them and pin to their boards too! You’ll get great ideas from others who comment, your group can enjoy the images, and you’ll be exposing other people to the awesomeness of small groups! For a quick tutorial on using Pinterest, read more here.

1. Google Drive – the perfect way to share a list that everyone can work on at the same time, create a form that your members can use to sign up for food or serving, provide a copy of your small group guidelines or other group documents for everyone. Google Drive lets you create spreadsheets or documents or upload existing ones and even PDFs.

2. Skype – if members of your group travel occasionally, have them Skype in to your group instead of missing the meeting. Probably one member of your group has an iPad or smartphone with a camera. Just have them install Skype (it’s free!), do a quick setup and voila – your remote small group member is now present via video. Facetime is another way to do that using an Apple device.

3. Zoom – a great way to have a video conference with members of your group. Why would you want to do that? Easy: to plan an upcoming meeting, a serving project, or a potential new study - between meetings, without needing to gather everyone in the same place at the same time. How cool is that? Maybe you want to “hangout” between meetings but members live too far from each other. Zoom together!

Some people just don’t want to sing. Some people don’t want to hear other people sing. But worship isn’t just about singing. Here are some ideas on how to bring worship into your small group:

• Find a beautiful spot in nature and meet there. Go to Heisler Park, Emerald Vista Point, Julian, Idylwild, Torrey Pines, Angeles Crest Highway, or just go to your favorite, quiet beach. Then gather everyone together and read Psalm 46 out loud. Ask people to think about verse 10 and then spend 10-30 minutes (your choice) walking or sitting to just “be still and know that I am God.” You can follow that by using Talk It Over! to discuss the weekend’s message as the study portion of your meeting. Afterwards, finish with food with a group picnic or at a local restaurant.

• Read a chapter from Psalms out loud. Have each person read one verse and then stop after each verse for 5-10 seconds while the group thinks about what was read. After the chapter has been completely read, have the group discuss what they liked about the experience or what verse particularly spoke to them.

• Listen to music. Some of the most beautiful are instrumental praise songs. Just put in a CD or a DVD and play two songs and ask the group to just quiet their minds, listen to the music and think about God. You can suggest that people can even pray while the music plays, if they have trouble just sitting and listening. After the music is finished, ask a few questions – Which song did you like best? What was going through your mind while the music was playing?

• Play some music for the group that you wouldn’t normally listen to – country gospel, hip hop praise, traditional hymns, classical music (think, Handel’s Messiah), or worship songs sung by mainstream music artists.

• Play a spoken word video from YouTube for the group. Go to YouTube and search for videos on “Christian spoken word.” Then find one that intrigues you and play it for the group. Spoken word is simply spoken poetry. Afterwards, ask different people in your group to share what they thought about what was said in the video.

• Take communion together. Make it a special moment with soft praise music in the background, a table with tablecloth and candle, round bread loaf and small cups of grape juice. Ask someone to read 1 Corinthians 11:23-30. Pray. Follow some easy directions here.

• Look at religious art. Most of the world’s greatest paintings from famous artists (Michelangelo, Raphael, da Vinci, Rubens, Botticelli) were commissioned by the church to help people worship God. Find some of those famous paintings in a book or online. Spend a few minutes as a group looking at each image and discussing what you see about God in each picture or sculpture. There may also be a local exhibit that your group can visit together. Some examples from years past are an exhibit of religious iconography at the Getty museum and the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Natural History Museum in San Diego. These exhibits are now gone but a quick search online might find similar exhibits.

Looking for the next thing to study? Consider this list of possibilities in four categories of small group studies:

1. Financial Stewardship

            Managing Our Finances God’s Way

2. Dealing with hurts, habits, habits and temptation

                Life’s Healing Choices

                The Invisible War: Winning the Battle Against Temptation

3. Small group studies based on the current message series, Follow Me

                    Talk It Over!

4. Studies from recent speaker, Francis Chan

                    Crazy Love

                    Forgotten God

You’ve been hearing about The Bible, the great new television series that Pastor Rick has helped with that starts Sunday, March 3, on the History Channel.

Great news - it is now available as a 5-week  small group study.

You can buy copies for your small group at the Celebration Lunch Sunday at 20% off. You must be present at the Celebration Lunch to get this deal and it is only available there.

Here’s an important tip to Hosts: Be sure to have your small group members reimburse you for the cost. A good way to handle this is to add up the cost of all the study guides, plus the cost of the DVD, and divide by the number of people in the group. That’s the cost for each member. Remember, that the law of perceived value says that something is worth what I paid for it, so to get your group to value and commit to this study have them pay their share. Of course, if someone doesn’t wish to purchase the study guide, just bring it back in new and unused condition within a week for reimbursement.

Remember, after the end of the What On Earth Am I Here For study, take the next meeting to celebrate what God has done in your group. We’ll have some ideas for you in next week’s eNewsletter. 

A day before your meeting, spend a few minutes with the study guide. Read the short introduction on pages vi through vii. Then read through the resources on pages 67-73. And then, glance at Week 1 on pages 2-10.

Before your group arrives for your first meeting, think about where everyone will sit. Make sure that you have enough chairs and that people can sit where they can see each other and the tv set where you’ll play the videos.

Just before everyone gets there, put on the coffee or get out the soft drinks or water and glasses.

When people sit down, have everyone tell a little about themselves – where they live, why they came to this study and what they hope to get out of it. Don’t ask anything too personal or uncomfortable, just a little information to help break the ice.

You agreed to Host a small group at your home. Who’s going to come? And how do you get them interested? How do you get them to come back?

Plan on finding the people for your group, meaning don’t count on getting people sent to your group from the church. This is the most important thing you can learn, and you can do it.

Let’s tick through a bunch of ideas on how to get people for your group:

Who do you know? Make a list of your friends, another list of your local family members, another list of your co-workers, and a list of your neighbors. These are your potential group members.

Invite them personally.

Don’t send an email, or drop a flyer on their doorstep.

Do take a few minutes per person to talk to them. Tell them you’re planning to have a group of friends and neighbors meet at your home at ______ (day of the week) for a six week study examing the question, "What On Earth Am I Here For." Invite them to come. Tell them a little about how you think the study will help you. Then make sure they have your phone number and directions to your home.

Here’s a tip: if you sit in the same area at church at the same service every weekend, invite the people around you. Just ask them, “are you in a small group?” If they so “no,” invite them to come to your group. Some groups have filled their groups with people just this way.

Follow up

Call or visit a few days before your first meeting. Take time to see how they’re doing. Be interested in their life and not just in whether or not they’ll come to your group. Mention that the study is based on the best-selling book by Pastor Rick Warren that has sold 32 million copies worldwide. Then ask if they’ll be able to come.

The first meeting

Help everyone feel comfortable, and help each person get time to talk. If you have talkers and quiet people, ask questions of the quiet people to encourage them to share.

After the first meeting

Send an email to each person, thanking them for being at the first meeting and for being a great part of the group.

Many small groups are looking for places to serve over the holidays. This year, your small group can be a blessing to others on Thanksgiving.

Here’s how your small group can help:

·  Make sure everyone in your small group has somewhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner – especially singles or couples without family in the area. Set extra places at your table and invite them to your house.

·  Plan to serve together as a small group on Thanksgiving Day. Serve a Thanksgiving meal at a homeless motel, or pick up and deliver food for homeless events. For more info: contact adam@motelchurch.org. 

·  Take your small group to help out at Ralphs stores throughout South Orange County as they gather donations for feeding those in need at Thanksgiving. For more info or to sign up go to Bringing Hope to the Table.

We’ve researched some exceptional tools for your small group.

Great news! They’re all free:

• http://www.saddleback.com/resources/spiritualhealth/ - the Spiritual Health section of the Saddleback Church website. Access an extensive collection of discipleship resources like archived messages, DriveTime, the Spiritual Growth Center, TalkItOver and small group curriculum.
• http://www.e-sword.net – Bible study software with Bibles, commentaries, parallel Bible, and more
• www.youversion.com – Online Bible with multiple translations and reading plans
• http://www.biblegateway.com – 34 different online translations and paraphrases of the Bible in English, plus in 57 other languages
• http://www.blueletterbible.org/ - study tools, concordances, study courses and more.
• http://www.saddleback.com/lakeforest/adults/smallgrouplife/hosttraining/ New verse-by-verse video training. Click on the Advanced Training tab on the right side of the page to access the training.

Of course your small group is looking for places to serve together. Serving others together is a great way for your group to grow closer.

Here are two great opportunities for your group this month:

Clean up Compton

By giving up a few hours on a Saturday, your small group can make a lasting impact on Compton by helping paint and clean up the community. Bring your whole group, your family, and invite your friends, and join over 1,500 people from the churches in Compton for their next serve day on Saturday, October 20^th from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. For more information and to register please email sbresler@saddleback.com.

Holiday Food Drive – next weekend

Get your small group to bring holiday food items to church next weekend and help us provide holiday meals for those in our communities who are less fortunate. Make this a small group serving project.

Every month the Saddleback Food Pantry serves over 3500 people, but during the holiday months the numbers double. Not only do families need help with basic food items, they also turn to the church for help with holiday meals. Rather than providing boxed holiday meals to families, this year the Food Pantry will let families select from holiday meal items to create their own holiday meal. They can choose fresh produce, side dishes, breads, proteins, and many household items. This new personal choice area is a great way for people to choose items they like and what is best for their families and also gives them a sense of dignity in making choices of their own. Once they have selected their food a volunteer walks them to their car and shares the love of Jesus. Over 1500 people have given their lives to Christ in our food pantry parking lot!

Here is a list of items to choose from to bring to your campus next weekend:

• $20 Gift Card for Turkey or Protein
• Boxed Stuffing
• Jars of Gravy
• Canned Cranberry Sauce
• Muffin or Corn Bread Mix
• Canned Sweet Potatoes or Yams
• Canned Soup or Broth
• Canned Vegetables
• Canned Fruit
• Canned Evaporated Milk
• Canned Pumpkin or other Pie Filling
• Boxed Pie Crust

This is an easy small group serving project that can include everyone in the family. When your group brings food items to your campus next weekend you will be helping us provide over 2000 families with food needed to celebrate Thanksgiving & Christmas this year.

Music isn’t the only way to bring Worship into your small group, but the most obvious way to most people is to sing. Here are a couple of ways to do that:

A new app has recently been released called iSingWorship which provides completely flexible backing music for worship. As the song plays, the leader can repeat a section, add an instrumental, go back to the first verse etc.

For more info you can go to www.isingworship.com or download the app for free from Apple's App store with a free trial song.

Also, if you have a way to get to the Internet from your TV you can go to YouTube, as many groups do, and choose from a large variety of songs that have videos with lyrics on the screen. This is a great way to sing along with contemporary praise songs and have lyrics on the TV.

Got another great way to access music for your small group? Send us a comment and we’ll share it with all Saddleback small groups!

We have finished a project that we hope will help more of our small groups study the Bible. We have filmed four short video segments to show Hosts how to use blueletterbible.org to plan a verse-by-verse Bible study or answer questions they might have on certain passages of scripture. Using this web site you’ll have access to different translations, parallel translations, Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias, concordances, and several commentaries. Some of the commentaries are available in text or audio format. Of course, this tool is meant to complement 40 Days in the Word and that study should be done first if your small group has not already done so.

You can access this great video resource by clicking on http://www.saddleback.com/lakeforest/adults/smallgrouplife/hosttraining/ then click on the Advanced Training tab on the right side of the page.

Breakfast Together Outreach is more than going to a motel on a Sunday morning. It’s serving a hot breakfast. It’s being with people you would normally not meet. It’s finding out they’re just like you and me. It’s laughing with their kids. It’s your kids laughing with their kids. It’s making a few friends. It’s realizing we’re all in this together. Come be part of building a bridge between two different worlds – you and me, and those who are less fortunate. It’s a blast and it’s a blessing. For info, email Max at breakfastoutreach@gmail.com.

Every Sunday there is a gathering in nursing centers around Orange County. Residents gather together to worship God and have a time of fellowship. We’re there to be with them, to worship as brothers and sisters in Christ, and to show them they are loved. This is a great ministry for small groups. You can start this ministry in any city and we will help – or join an existing ministry serving a specific nursing center. For more info call Ralph at 714-317-3792.

Come on out to the Ranch – we have a variety of projects and needs on all skill levels.  WE LOVE VOLUNTEERS and we cannot do what we do without you.  Volunteers are the heart of Saddleback Church!  Please come and serve with us!

Here’s where you are needed:

During the week and on the weekend:

LANDSCAPE:  The two most immediate needs are:  Plant waterer (can use a garden hose to water areas around the Ranch) and (riding) Lawn mowing.  Other areas are weeding, planting, pruning, pic and shovel work!

LAKE MAINTENANCE:  Cleaning, caring, as well as trimming the reeds around the lake.

CAMPUS CLEANING/BEAUTIFY:  We need help during the week with “touch up” to help with the conference rooms in preparation for the weekend retreats and conferences.

PAINTING:  Lakeside 2nd Floor Rooms, tearing carpet out, prepping walls for paint and painting.  Moving bedroom furniture back into painted rooms.  This is a GREAT project for Small Groups!

TOOL TIME/FIX IT PROJECTS:  Are you the “handy-man” to help with smaller projects around the Ranch?  There's always a project or something that needs fixing.  Bring your tool kit if you have one.  Or if you're available to be "on call", please let us know.

Saturdays only:  ORGANIC FARM:  We need many hands to help with weeding, planting and watering.

During the Week:

OFFICE/ADMIN help in RANCH Office:  Monday – Friday, 8:30 am – 1 pm; 1 pm – 5 pm, or all day.  Would you be able to help respond to the guests and vendors who come to us?

Per event:

WEDDING, FOOD SERVICES and SPECIAL EVENTS:  If you’re interested in serving for these events at the Ranch, please contact Janelle Grose at janelleg@saddleback.com for further information.  Serving opportunities include Front and Back of the House, Wedding Hostess as well as Set-up and Break Down crews.

We’re looking forward to celebrating these special family events in the coming months:

September is Family Month!

Grandparents Day – Sept 9^th – celebrate and serve together on Saturday, Sept. 8^th at the Ranch

Stepfamily Day – Sept 16^th – celebrate and serve together on Saturday, Sept 15^th at the Ranch

October Fall Festival – Small Group Day – October 6^th – Bring your small group on Saturday, 10/6, to the Ranch to serve together.

November Thanksgiving Month – Saturday, November 3^rd – Come with a thankful heart to serve at the wonderful Ranch that God GAVE to us!!

Do your kids needs volunteer or community service hours?  We can help you out with that here at the Ranch!  Send ‘em on over J

Please email Janelle Grose at janelleg@saddleback.com or call at 949-609-8182.

Looking for time away with God?  Then take your small group to one of the upcoming day or overnight retreats at Rancho Capistrano.  These weekend retreat experiences offer pastor led teaching, prayer and personal reflection time.  Spend the night at our beautiful retreat center at Rancho Capistrano, or just take a day away.   

Here are a few upcoming retreats:

• Saturday, August 25: Living a Life of Prayer
• Saturday, September 8: Surrender
• Friday, September 14: Prayer
• Saturday, September 22: Prayer

In the Surrender retreat your group will explore what it means to surrender your lives to God and will begin to take steps in deepening your relationship with the Lord.  The newest retreat on Prayer looks at the challenges so often found in our prayer lives.  Explore as a small group family what it means to live in constant abiding relationship with God in prayer.  Both of these retreats are offered in day and overnight formats.  

For more information and to register, visit the retreats website: www.saddleback.com/retreats.  Look for the “Upcoming Retreats” box on the right hand side of the page and select your desired retreat. 

Motel Outreach - various

For thousands of people all over Southern California, a motel isn’t a vacation, it’s their life. For many families, the grandparents, parents and kids all live in one motel room. To see a quick video from one Southern California kid’s life, watch this - https://vimeo.com/40017382. The kids grow up here and don’t know anything except for motel life. Breakfast Together is a great outreach that allows your small group to visit a motel on a Sunday morning (Saturday from the Irvine campus), provide a breakfast for people living there, and show them hope. Next weekend July 14-15 a motel room is being constructed on the Lake Forest campus. You and your small group can tour a full-size replica of a motel room and see the space that thousands of families live in. For more information on how your small group can help share the love of Jesus Christ at a motel, send an email to breakfastoutreach@gmail.com. (Irvine Campus motel outreach: July, August.

Blood Drives – Corona and Lake Forest

The Corona campus will be holding a Blood drive and marrow screening in conjunction with LifeStream on Sunday, July 8 at Santiago High School. Your small group can come and give the gift of life in less than one hour by making a donation of life-giving blood. For more info and to register.

The Lake Forest campus is holding a blood drive in conjunction with the American Red Cross on July 8 on campus from 8am – 2pm. To make an appointment contact Laura.Rudd@redcross.org, 949 439-0551. For eligibility questions go to www.redcrossblood.org

Small group meals make a difference – Orange County

A meal is like a “thousand words of love” to a church family member in need. When a family or an individual who attend our church cannot make meals for themselves or for their family because they are recovering from a medical issue, or because of difficult circumstances, making and delivering a ready-to-eat meal can bring relief and show that we care as a church family. We have seventeen Meals Ministry Teams of volunteers around Orange County. If you think your Small Group would love to cook meals or prepare meals for someone in need, join us.

How your small group can join the Meals Ministry

1. Choose a “point person” to represent your Small Group to contact Allen Salibo at 949.609.8384 or allens@saddleback.com.

2. You (the Point Person) will be contacted by our Orientation Coach to be assigned to an existing Meals Ministry Team based on the city of your Small Group. We have seventeen Meals Ministry Teams that exist by city in Orange County. Our Orientation Coach will explain how your Small Group serves with a Meals Ministry Team and will explain our guidelines and procedures of delivering a meal, and how a meal schedule works.

Beautify your campus serving opportunities - various

Summer is a great time to be outside, doing gardening, cleaning and other beautifying activities. Now your small group can help our campuses be at their best.

Saddleback Lake Forest - Saturday & Weekday serving.  Fun, fun, fun!  Gardening, cleaning, painting, organizing and other special projects to help keep our Lake Forest campus beautiful for guests visiting from around the world. For more info please email or call Janna Roberts jannar@saddleback.com, 949.609.8090.

Corona – contact davidw@saddleback.com

Huntington Beach – contact mosesc@saddleback.com

Reclaim Compton – all campuses

Saddleback Church is partnering with Compton churches to paint Centennial High School in Compton on July 21^st.  This a great opportunity for you and your kids to join parents and students from Centennial High to make a difference.  For more info email steveb@saddleback.com.   

Your small group may be wondering how you can get involved with The PEACE Plan. Maybe one or two of your group are already talking about the 12 cities, but everybody else is wondering how they can get involved. Well, you’re in luck because we have some great ideas for you and your group.

12 City Travelling Teams

Help form the foundation of a new Saddleback Church and PEACE Base in one of the 12 cities by joining a 2012 or 2013 trip. The PEACE Plan has multiple trips scheduled for Amman, Bangalore, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Freetown, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Manila, Mexico City, Moscow and Tokyo. If you’re interested in traveling to one of these cities to help lay the foundation, please email peace@saddleback.com. They will train you with everything you’ll need to Go Global.

12 City Home Teams

We ALL have a role in the 12-City Initiative.  You don’t have to travel or be a pastor to be involved.  We need home teams for prayer (carolynb@saddleback.com) (see following paragraph),  intelligence gathering/research (Jeffl@saddlebackvolunteer.com),  marketing communications (marcom@saddleback.com), language translation (katherines@saddleback.com) and city demographic studies/real estate leasing (kylec@saddleback.com) in each of the 12 cities. 

12 City Prayer Team

Your small group can play an important role by praying for the unreached people groups (UPGs) outreach to the 12 PEACE Cities and Rwanda.  More info:  http://bit.ly/NaWZqm. You may want to “Adopt” a City to pray for and the associated Unreached People Group Ambassador and Ambassador Team.  Click on any city folder and you’ll find prayer requests that you can copy and forward to the people in your small group.  Please sign up for the City that you are praying for – there is a sign up sheet on the site accessed by the link.

12 City Leadership Search Team

Our most important need in each city is to locate God’s chosen Pastor, Operations Manager, Worship Leader and Kid’s Leader.  Those people may be in your network of friends.  If you know someone with a background in any of these areas and think they might be a good fit for one of our Saddleback Global locations, please ask them to complete an online application at Leadership Search Application and send an email to LeadershipSearch@saddleback.com.

 12 City Scaffolding Team

If you feel a call to serve on the core launch team for 90 to 120 days in one of the 12 cities, the PEACE team would love to talk with you. They will equip you with the proper training and teach you how to raise funds.  If you’re interested, please email scaffolding@saddleback.com.

Looking for a new small group study? How about a way to chew on the message from the weekend? A great answer is the new Talk It Over with video clips. You group can download the PDF study guide and watch a short video of points from the weekend. It’s a ready-made small group study and you’ll find that your group gets more out of the weekend message than ever before.

Is Talk It Over the ministry for you?

Do you love small group discussion? Are you passionate about helping others grow in understanding God’s Word and applying it to their daily lives? Are you a gifted writer or communicator? If you answered “yes” to any or all of these questions, then Talk It Over might just be the ministry for you.

If you’ve used the weekly Talk It Over small group discussion guides, you already know they are drawn from the Saddleback weekend message and are intended to help small group members better understand and apply God’s Word, as revealed in the message principles, to their lives.

How it Works

The Talk It Over ministry is comprised of four teams of approximately three to four volunteers. Teams rotate, so no one team is serving more than once a month or so. We meet directly after the 4:30 service at the Saddleback Ministry Center on the Lake Forest campus to create the lesson. Each team member writes 1-2 questions based on the lesson and then the team edits the assembled lesson together. The lesson is then posted in the Saddleback media center, where it can be downloaded by individual or group that wants to use it.

If this sounds like a ministry you’d like to check out, please contact pegr@saddleback.com. Bless you as you seek God’s place for you to serve!

Now that summer is here, make this the best summer yet for your small group with these great ideas:

1. Meet at the beach, a lake or a park a couple times this summer on your normal meeting day. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or well planned. Just meet at your regular time at an agreed upon location, have everyone bring some food and do your study. If someone plays guitar, great. Or, bring a digital music player and speakers. Play your favorite music, eat, enjoy each other’s company, and have one person in the group share a devotion. This is perfect for inviting friends to check out your group by participating in a fun activity.
2. Schedule BBQs at different members’ homes during the summer. Instead of the usual backyard barbeque have front yard barbeques – have everyone bring food to grill and also lawn chairs. Then bring a grill to the front yard, cook up some great food, and invite the curious neighbors to come join the party.
3. Ladies in the group, have a “girls night out” for dinner, coffee, tea or whatever the girls like to do.
4. Guys, do the same with a “guys night out” for Indoor Kart Racing, Bowling, Golf, Coffee, Paintball, or whatever the guys like to do. Food fits in there somewhere!
5. Mix up what you study:
   1. Use the “Talk it Over” sermon discussion notes and new video clips for really lively conversations.
   2. Get Pastor Buddy’s new study “Finding God in the Desert of The Soul” and enjoy the sweeping visuals and insightful thoughts.
   3. Read through particular chapters in the bible as a group (see 9 below).
   4. Share each week from a daily devotional or Pastor Tom’s daily DriveTime Devotions.
   5. Call the small group office (949.609.8701) and ask about the small group curriculum Lending Library. We may have just the study you have been wanting.
6. If a lot of group members will be out of town one week, suggest that whoever is still in town go to a movie together and then have coffee or dinner afterward and discuss the biblical themes in the film.
7. Do a serving project together. What a great time to help out at your campus, fix up a group member’s house or apartment, do some yard work for someone who is not doing well, or serve one Sunday morning at the motel ministry. See our list of three easy ways for groups to serve here. Or, for a huge list of ideas, go here.
8. Commit to have your regular meeting even if it’s just one person. Rotate leadership and homes. Hosts, if you’re going to be out of town, ask someone to have the group meeting at their house. This is a great way to start sharing leadership, if you aren’t already.
9. Pick a book of the Bible and have everyone read a chapter a week and come ready with at least one question for the group to answer. Bring a commentary, a Serendipity Bible (available at the Pavilion), or other study materials to help.
10. Grab your group and head for the outdoors. How about an overnight retreat together? Find a campground, plan an overnight or two-day outing, meet up around a campfire at night and eat, sing, and have a devotional. Oh yeah!

Okay, here are five bonus ideas for groups with lots of kids - grab all the kids in the group and everyone goes for picnics at the park with games, a day at a water park, a day at the beach, or even a hike around Newport’s Back Bay , kayak the Back Bay, or a group bike ride on the many trails of Orange County and the Inland Empire. End with a picnic and have one member of the group share a quick devotion.

And, the two final words on the subject – ice cream! Summer is the perfect time for ice cream so have sundae night, banana split night, best ice cream dessert contest, root beer float night, and after trying all of those have a Daniel Plan night!

Check out this verse. “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25

So, keep going and have fun this summer. Together.

Here are three easy ideas to get your small group serving together. Check out how your group can make a difference this summer:

Motel ministry. Your group will serve breakfast for people living in a motel, providing food and fellowship to the homeless and working poor in Orange County. To learn more or get started, email breakfastoutreach@gmail.com. (Irvine Campus motel outreach: June, July, August)

Senior connect mobile church. Your group visits the elderly and disabled for fellowship and outreach. To learn more or get started, contact Linn at llance@cox.net or at 949.367.9123.

Jail ministry. This a great ministry to encourage and bring hope to people who are in jail. Your group can sing, share a devotional or share your own story. To get started or learn more, contact saddlebackjailministry@yahoo.com.

Get your group ready. Beginning the weekend of March 10-11 and taking us up to Easter, Kay Warren will be teaching a four-week series called ALL ACCESS in weekend services. During this series Kay will share life-changing truths about the Tabernacle and we’ll learn what it means to live in God’s presence today.

Every week you can take each weekend’s teaching deeper in your small group by using Talk It Over, the weekly downloadable discussion study guide produced from the weekend message.

A special part of this new series is the All Access Experience, a full-scale replica of the Tabernacle in the wilderness that will be erected on the Lake Forest campus. You and your group can participate in a multi-sensory experience of communion with God by taking a 55-minute audio driven journey through the Tabernacle, participating at each of 9 interactive stations. For more information, click on ALL ACCESS.