Who Will You Do Life With In 2012?

Deep relationships are an essential part of the growth that God desires for us. We need a trusted group of people around us to celebrate our successes, support us through hard times, and encourage us to trust Jesus more and more.

That’s why we want you to take the step this year to join a Community Group.

Every year in January and August, we host GroupLink, a two-hour event where you can connect with other people in your stage of life and area of town to form a Community Group.

We hope you’ll join us later this month at one of the three GroupLink events here at Buckhead Church:

Men’s GroupLink is Thursday, January 26, at 7:30 p.m.
The groups formed at Men’s GroupLink are for single men or a mix of men at different stages of life: married, single, divorced, and those who are widowers.
Women’s GroupLink is Friday, January 27, at 7:30 p.m.
The groups formed at Women’s GroupLink are for single women or a mix of women at different stages of life: married, single, divorced, and widowed.
Married Couples’ GroupLink is Saturday, January 28, at 7:30 p.m.

Registration is now open at http://www.buckheadchurch.org/grouplink. Sign up and mark your calendar.

See you at GroupLink!

Jill Roberts & Misti Mancini ::: Groups Assimilation ::: Buckhead Church

A College Girl’s Step Of Obedience

You might not know that we have hundreds of college students walking through our doors every week. We are grateful that these 18- to 20 year-olds choose to be involved in Buckhead Church, despite so many other things that are competing for their time.

Emily Rahm is one example. Emily has been a faithful student in our college ministry since she first came to our Tuesday night environment, The Living Room, 18 months ago. Emily quickly joined a small group, started serving on our host team, and most recently has been training to be the lighting director for The Living Room. This coming spring she will return to Haiti for the second time with our Georgia Tech spring break mission trip through globalX.

Emily is making the most of her opportunities in college and is fully engaged in our mission to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. She was baptized this fall, as you will see in the video below.

Brad Horton ::: Director of College Ministry ::: Buckhead Church

Your 2012 Bible Reading Plan

Since it’s almost the New Year (and time for resolutions, fresh starts, and/or recommitments to disciplines that have faded), we wanted to give you some tools that will help you “resolve” to do a better job of reading the Bible in 2012. As a church, this is assuredly one of the most vital practices we can do together. Psalm 119:105 reminds us that “[God's] word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” Simply said, if we’re not reading our Bibles this year, we’ll be walking in the dark.

The Bible is a collection of ancient manuscripts—66 to be exact—not a book. Several dozen authors wrote these manuscripts. Readers who approach it like a book—beginning with page one and proceeding to the end—can find themselves lost in a bewildering maze of ancient history and lists. Not to mention, busy schedules and limited confidence can end up discouraging us from spending time in these amazing words from God. A good Bible-reading plan will help overcome obstacles like these.

We’d love for you to adopt one of the plans below and use it to structure some of your reading this year. Each approach offers an effective strategy for pushing beyond a limited understanding of the Bible—including how to read the Bible topically (to get a concentrated view of a certain theme or subject), to see a “bird’s eye view” of the high points of the biblical story, or to read through all the manuscripts. See the links below for reading plans we have found to be especially helpful.

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Two-Week Topical Study Plan: Use this link to download a reading plan that contains two-week sections that each concentrate on a different topic. Content includes: the life of Jesus, the life and teachings of Paul, the Old Testament, on becoming a Christian, and many more.

Two-Week Topical Studies (PDF)

30-Day Plans featuring important biblical topics and stories:

30 Days with Jesus (PDF): Thirty days of readings about the life and ministry of Christ.
30 Days for New Christians (PDF): Thirty days of passages for those new to the faith.
30 Days in the Psalms and Proverbs (PDF): Thirty days of Psalms and Proverbs for worship and wisdom.

“Bird’s Eye Overview” Plans: The following plans offer a bird’s eye view of the biblical story at three different levels—60, 90, and 180 days. The daily readings consist of selected passages that make up a “guided tour” of the Bible’s high points. This arrangement will convey the Bible’s “plot” without reading all of it.

60-Day Plan: Read an overview of the Bible in 60 days (PDF).
90-Day Plan: Read an overview of the Bible in 90 days (PDF).
180-Day Plan: Read an overview of the Bible in 180 days (PDF).

New Testament Study Plans: These plans help you study the New Testament.

New Testament in a Year: Get the PDF here.
New Testament (five minutes a day/five days a week): Get the PDF here.

Read Through the Bible in a Year: The link below will give you a PDF that will help you navigate the Bible in a year.

Straight through the Bible in a year from Genesis to Revelation. Get the PDF here.
Old and New Testaments together to read the whole Bible, with something from each Testament every day. Get the PDF here.
Read from four places each day, with passages from two books, Psalms, and Proverbs. Get the PDF here.

Read Online: Lastly, if you haven’t already discovered www.youversion.com, you need to. This is an online Bible (in many translations) with a ton of online reading plans (http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/all). What’s great about this approach is that you check off your reading each day online. Also, it syncs with many different mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android). So, whether you read online or on your phone, it keeps them in sync as to where you are in the plan.

Again, Happy New Year! We are excited about walking together this year using God’s Word as a “lamp to our feet.”

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(Note that the links above are all presented as downloadable PDFs, so you might need to save them in a way that works for your computer. Some of you may be able to download with a simple click of the link and others might need to “right click” and “save as.”)

Be Rich: Operation Christmas Child Update

As we celebrate all that God has done through Be Rich this year, I wanted to make sure you received an update on our Operation Christmas Child shoebox collection. Each year we ask families to fill shoeboxes with gifts and toys to send to children in need all over the world. I love that we ask children in our church to give to children their same ages. What an opportunity to teach our children about generosity! Last year, all of our campuses packed over 8,700 shoeboxes. Our goal was to beat that number this year. And because of your generosity, we did. This year, we collected 10,331 shoeboxes and 1,800 of those came from Buckhead Church.

Thank you to every family that grabbed a shoebox, took their kids to the store, collected items to bring to the packing party in Transit, and made it a priority to have a family night using the KidStuf Takeout. While it can be difficult to keep kids focused on what this season is REALLY is all about, your generosity proves that many of you are helping your kids understand that because God gave his Son to us, we are to give generously to those in need. Way to go Buckhead families! Looking forward to what God has in store in 2012.

Emily Meredith ::: Children’s Ministry Director ::: Buckhead Church