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June 2018

Cultivate Truth

Embraced VLOG: Week 2

Cultivate Truth: 100 Days in the Word

 

Welcome to Week 2 of our Cultivate Summer VLOG series. Each Friday, members of our Cultivate Teaching Team are sharing personal insight and practical truth through Lysa TerKeurst’s best selling devotional, Embraced. If you missed last week, check it out as Tammy Brown, our Cultivate Founder, shares how you can grow spiritually wise with us this summer. Don’t forget to set aside time to answer our weekly discussion questions so you can not only listen and learn, but cultivate God’s word into your heart and life.

This week, we welcome Noemi Alexander as she shares a word on the power of prayer.


Are you sometimes afraid to pray brave prayers? Do you feel like maybe you’re unqualified or not righteous enough to pray brave prayers? The truth is our actions don’t qualify us to pray…but they don’t disqualify us either. As daughters of a Good Father, we have been made righteous through Jesus Christ and we can boldly go before our Father and pray brave prayers.

Join me as together we learn why we can bravely pray for what we need, because God is capable of doing infinitely more than we could even ask for or imagine.

With love,

Noemi



Let’s Dig Deeper:

This week, read Days 8-14 of Embraced. Answer the following questions on your own or discuss them with a friend and/or your community group:

  1. What are some of the thoughts, images, or actions that come to mind when you hear the word “righteous”?
  2. Conduct a search of the word “righteous” using a dictionary or even an online resource, like BibleGateway.com. What are some of the verses you find in the Old Testament (Genesis through Malachi)? Now, look at how the word “righteous” is described by Jesus and others in the New Testament (Matthew through Revelation)? How are they the same or different?
  3. What prayers are you too timid to pray? What do you think is holding you back from offering those prayers to God? What would it take for you to surrender that to God?
  4. Together, we learned that our faith in Jesus qualifies us to go before Him and be brave in our prayers. Commit to praying boldly before Him, even praying out loud with your group so you can support and cheer one another on!

Noemi Hernandez Alexander is a professor of Political Science and Public Administration and a member of the Cultivate Teaching Team. She loves mentoring women and is in awe of what women can do for God’s Kingdom when they support one another. The joy of her life though, is being the wife of Dex, the Executive Director of Creative Services at Sandals Church, and the mommy of Zoe & Zeke.

 

 


Registration for our Cultivate Conference & Marketplace is OPEN! You’re invited to experience Cultivate Women and our vision of spiritual growth in a community of kindness. Join us for worship, teaching, marketplace vendors and more. In addition to our special guest speaker, best selling author Lysa TerKeurst, you’ll be encouraged by our Cultivate Founder, Tammy Brown and Melody Workman, Cultivate Lead. Save the date, invite your friends and join us for a weekend of exceptional kindness!

September 21 & 22 | Sandals Church Hunter Park | For pricing, information and to register visit cultivate.sc/conference

Cultivate Truth

Embraced VLOG: Week 1

Cultivate Truth: 100 Days in the Word

 

Welcome! We’re so glad you’re joining our Cultivate Summer VLOG series. Each Friday, our Cultivate Teaching Team will share personal insight and practical wisdom through Lysa TerKeurst’s best selling devotional, Embraced. You’ll find our weekly teaching videos packed with REAL truth from God’s word as together we grow spiritually wise. In addition, we’ve included questions to encourage you and/or your community group to dig deeper and cultivate God’s word into your heart and life.

This week, we launch our series with a special word from our Cultivate Founder, Tammy Brown.


Hey friends,

I’m so excited that you’ll be joining us this summer for Cultivate TRUTH: 100 days in the word. When I think back on the hardest times of my own life—when I was not growing spiritually wise, when my relationships were a mess, when I was the most emotionally unhealthy—it was when I was experiencing what I refer to as “the dehydrated soul.” The opposite is also true. When I’ve been the best version of myself, growing spiritually, relationally and emotionally healthy, it’s because my soul is hydrated by the living water talked about in John 4:14.

“But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again”
John 4:14 NLT

My heart is that together, for the next 100 days, we will all thirst for God’s word in new ways and experience a new level of spiritual hydration and connectedness to God, growing even closer to the best and healthiest versions of ourselves that He desires us to be. I’m personally looking forward to knowing that each day the same scripture I’m reading, you are too! How cool is that!

I love you!

Tammy



Let’s Dig Deeper:

This week, read Day 1-7 of Embraced. Answer the following questions on your own or discuss them with a friend and/or your community group:

  1. What does your practice of spending time with God look like?
  2. What might the benefits be of giving God your first moments each day?
  3. Have you ever experienced a dehydrated soul? Describe what this looks and feels like for you specifically?
  4. Read James 1:21-22. According to this verse, what is the benefit of making a habit of not only reading, but applying God’s word to our everyday life?
  5. Read John 4:14. What is the remedy for the dehydrated soul?
  6. On day 3, Lysa says to STOP READING YOUR BIBLE. Clearly, she DOES NOT mean to not read your bible at all, rather to STOP reading in order to check it off the “good christian girl” list. She wants us to thirst for God’s word. What are some ways you can stop reading the bible as an obligation and start reading it SO THAT you can connect to God and learn what He knows you need for your everyday life?

Tammy Brown is the wife of lead pastor, Matt Brown, as well as a licensed minister at Sandals Church. As the founder of Cultivate women’s ministry, Tammy is passionate about inspiring kindness among women and creating a place for women to cultivate God’s word into their everyday lives and circumstances so that they grow into the healthiest version of themselves. While Tammy is overwhelmed with joy over all that God has allowed her to be a part of at Sandals Church, her greatest joy has been being wife to Matt and mom to their three children Madison, Kennedy and Ethan. In her free time, you’ll find her grabbing lunch with friends, practicing yoga or skiing down the mountain.


It’s not too late for you to join our Summer VLOG series! Just purchase a copy of Lysa TerKeurst’s devotional, Embraced, from your favorite book retailer. Then, visit us right here every Friday, through August 10, for video teaching, discussion questions and REAL truth from God’s word. While you’re at it, why not grab a few friends and connect in community as we grow spiritually wise this summer!