Jacob Armstrong's Worship and Devotional Series
Jacob Armstrong has written three creative worship and devotional series based on sermons he's preached at Providence Church. Jacob is the founding pastor of this vibrant young United Methodist church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, reaching 1,000 people each week.
The individual titles in the series are: Upside Down (4 weeks), The God Story (6 weeks), and Loving Large (4 weeks). Each series has two components: the Daily Readings book and a Flash Drive.
The Daily Readings include:
- 7 daily devotions to prepare your congregation for your weekly sermons
- a Scripture for the week to be read in it's entirety with a focus passage for each day
- a short prayer and reflection for each day
- suggestions on using the devotional
- view the Daily Reading books: Upside Down (perfect for the New Year), The God Story (perfect for Lent), and Loving Large (great for after Easter).
Here are a few of my suggestions:
- encourage devotional time and study
- recommend to small group leaders and Sunday school teachers use the Discussion Guide available on the Flash Drive
- make sure copies of the Daily Readings are available through a book table or scholarships so everyone who wants to read-a-long with the series can
- let leaders know the cost so individuals or groups who can purchase the books—and perhaps contribute to a scholarship fund—can do this easily
- plan to lead a small group for those not already in one, so that they have a place to discuss the content and meet new people
- invite someone to co-lead with you (perhaps someone who is interested in being a new small group leader)
- for new group members, plan to purchase their books
- be sure to invite your pastor(s) to come greet everyone the first night and participate in the study (make sure to communiate that participation is optional and they won't be asked to lead)
Resources included on the Flash Drive:
- four complete sermons and a sermon outline form
- “How to Use” section—advice from Jacob and his team on how to accomplish your goals with the sermon series
- a month-long free subscription to MinistryMatters.com with links to helpful commentary information and reference
- ideas for worship, prayer, and service activities
- small group leader guide for groups reading the Daily Readings together
- tweetables—excerpts ready for tweeting for each week
- promotional art (poster, web banner, art for print banner, cover images, bulletin cover, postcards)
- promotional trailer—four videos that lead into the weekly sermon (each 90 second trailer reinforces the overall theme and introduces the sermon topic and scripture)
- PowerPoint templates
- view the Flash Drives here: Upside Down, The God Story, Loving Large
My suggestions for using the Flash Drive:
- there is a lot of content so plan to sit down and review it individuallly and then with your team
- Jacob includes an outline and a full manuscript of each of his sermons for each week; use what you want or use it to spur your creativity.
- additional content will assist you in planning with your worship team
- if don't have a worship team—use this resource with a group of people who are interested in helping with worship but want to do more techy/social media kinds of things
- don't forget to invite youth to be on the team.
Ministry Matters is excited to offer additional Bonus Material for each of the series, content is available with a free subscription to Ministry Matters for one month after you purchase. More details are on each series page link below:
- http://www.MinistryMatters.com/UpsideDown
- http://www.MinistryMatters.com/TheGodStory
- http://www.MinistryMatters.com/LovingLarge