Mother’s Day Weekend is a wonderful way to honor, celebrate, and empower the women in your church to use their gifts for exponential impact. Even more, you have been given the opportunity to minister to all women in all stages of their lives. Everyone has a spiritual next step. How can your church be a place that nurtures the discipleship process during this season coming out of the stay at home order and moving forward into summer? Here are some things you could offer: 
Marriage and parenting series this summer, fall or New Year

Every spouse and parent could use a little more support and a few more skills. Plan a church-wide alignment with your sermon series during the summer, fall, or New Year. While we at LifeTogether usually don’t promote summer series, this year is unique since everyone has been isolated for so long. Summer will be a great time for groups to come together and work on their relationships that might have gotten a little strained during quarantine.


Create a Church-wide Discipleship Series

This could be a core values series or discipleship curriculum on how you grow in your faith.Choose a book of the Bible to explore. Rick Warren is currently teaching through the book of James at Saddleback. You don’t have to start with something entirely new. Dust off some notes from a past series, then align your weekend message with a small group study.

 Encourage Next Steps or Membership Process
Your church may have increased with new visitors to your online service. A Next Step Series is a great way to help your new visitors get started in their relationship with God and with your church. Whether they live nearby or several states away, your Next Step or membership process will help them remain connected to your church. 

 Create a Men’s Bible Study Series to Launch Off of Father’s Day

Maybe the best gift a man could give his wife for Mother’s Day is the goal of becoming a better man, a better husband, and a better father. What topics are relevant to your men? If you’re not sure, check out the latest offerings for Father’s Day at sermoncurator.com. This could spark an idea for a new series and study to launch online or in groups next month.

 Dinner Parties
Remember the old Dinners for Eight? Four couples or pairs of singles each bring a dish and enjoy a meal together. It's a great way to help people get to know each other and to break forced isolation once things in your community allow it. This is also a great way to start new small groups starting with casual dinners. 

Lifestage Curriculum Package
Develop curriculum for women’s groups, men’s groups, or a couples series. Use your video teaching to challenge every man, woman, and couple to take the next step into groups. Whether you want to use a high production team or shoot video with your iPhone, your people want more of your teaching. Lead them where you want them to go next.



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Bible Study Reading Program
If you know where you’re headed this summer, then creating a reading guide for your congregation to follow along. Whether you print and distribute books or provide a downloadable resource, your people can go deeper in your weekly topics. Wives could encourage their husbands with help from the pulpit. Groups could come together to discuss the weekly reading.

Couples Banquet and/or Retreat
Take your couples to the next level with the goal of catalyzing groups. Bring in a favorite speaker or speak at the event yourself. The idea is to use an event to launch new groups. In the next few months, this could be an online event or an in-person event depending on your circumstance. The goal is simple -- better marriages and better relationships can’t go on autopilot during a pandemic.
Every week Create a Small Group Edition of the Weekend Sermon
What does that require? After you’ve completed your message for the weekend, shoot a five minute version for groups. This could be either a summary of the message or a supplement with a little bonus teaching you aren’t including in your sermon. Then, write 6-8 good questions and provide a downloadable study guide with a link to your teaching video. Help your people take their weekend into their weeks.
Turn Past Sermons on Relationships into a New Couples’ Series
Most pastors have plenty of content. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel in order to create a new study. Research your files. Find a series or even just a couple of sermons on relationships, then use the points of your sermons for the weekly topics in a new series. Write 6-8 good questions, and you have a new curriculum. As you peruse your content, you may discover there’s more than you thought. You might even have enough for a book!
Summer Relationship Series
Promoting a relationship series is a good way to get both husbands and wives into groups. One spouse might be reluctant to join, so create an opportunity where both need to attend. 
Encourage Couples to Read a Devotional Together
As a first step toward possible fall small groups, encourage couples to make a daily practice of reading a devotional together and discussing a single question. This pattern can develop into not only a daily practice to strengthen their relationship, but also an opportunity to connect them into a group in the fall.
For more information on any of these programs, please contact Allen White at 949-235-7428 or [email protected] .
Looking for more resources or insight? Contact us
Semi-Custom Campaigns

We’ve already done all of the hard work for you. You start with our five study guides that follow the themes of Connect, Grow, Serve, Belong, and Go. The study guides are done. The scripts are written. The worship videos and testimonies are in place. All we need is for you to shoot your own video and send it in. We’ll put it together for you, and you will have a new series for Summer or Fall for your online (and hopefully in-person) groups.