One of my favorite parts of my job is picking out books and leading my small group. All of our small groups are great. We have dedicated leaders who have full time jobs AND put in countless hours discipling our students. I can’t believe how blessed we are to have gone from one to NINE small groups over the course of two years. That’s a lot of recruiting and a lot of growth.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall in all of our groups. To hear the things on their hearts, the laughter over inside jokes, the struggles they face as they navigate school, family, their paths in the future, and just life. I wish I could, but unfortunately I can’t. So I go off of what the leaders share. I love hearing the wins and struggles of their groups. It shows life.

All of our groups study different things. I like that. It shows diversity and caters to how each group of students may grow. Some may do lessons, while others do books. One group pulls bible verses out of a jar each week and talks about what that verse means to them. Either way, students are talking about Jesus on a weekly/biweekly basis. That’s pretty great.

My group typically does books. We recently did Speak Love by Annie Downs. If you haven’t read it, you need to go do that right now. Our girls learned what it means to speak love, about others, those around us, in our prayers and conversations with God, and about ourselves.

It’s going to be hard to top that. Our words are so important. They make up who we are. So what are we supposed to cover after THAT? I thought about the things that have helped me grow in my faith. The books that have helped shape my faith and who I am.

So we’re reading Crazy Love.

And here’s why:

Francis Chan has a great way of making us feel unworthy. Why? Because we totally are. At no point should we ever feel as though we DESERVE Grace. At no point should we ever feel entitled to be forgiven every single day because this was a gift. Not just our life. Not just the fact that every morning we wake up and complain about going to school or work or the weather or what menial tasks we have to accomplish every day. We get to serve a God that we sometimes can’t even come up with adjectives to describe because He’s just that awesome.

It will be my prayer that as we read this book, scripture will come alive and we will stand in awe before a God who is more powerful than anything and everything.