Everything you need to lead your Grace Group, in the order you'll need it
Grace Groups are discipleship groups that commit to meeting weekly for a minimum of one year, learning together how to love and follow Jesus and live out the Gospel in daily life. Every group studies The Gospel-Centered Life the first semester.
This page collects the guides, weekly plans, and documents behind that year. Find where your group is and start there.
Guidelines, leader guide, first meetings.
The Gospel-Centered Life, week by week.
Choose a study. Add the Heart Check.
Story work, then 3–5 minute stories.
Gentle and Lowly, with a leader guide.
Continue or close — and how to close.
Be the model and the connector
Share with vulnerability, and connect participants to each other — not just to you. Be more curious than certain about your group members. Study them. Get to know them.
Schedule 2–3 social times each semester, and try to get one-on-one time with every member at some point in the year.
The unspoken questions shift as trust grows.
Getting Started
Read the guidelines yourself before you hand them to anyone. Then get the group's first three weeks on the calendar.
Use the get-to-know-you questions the first few weeks of meeting. It helps participants join the group by hearing their own voice out loud and sharing facts about their life — before anything harder is asked of them.
Semester 1
All groups study The Gospel-Centered Life this semester. Use the weekly plan as a guide — it doesn't have to be exact timing for your group.
Simply get to know each other using the get-to-know-you questions. Provide snacks and drinks. Read the Group Guidelines together, and remind participants to purchase the GCL book.
Use the get-to-know-you questions again and walk through how to use the GCL book together. You are welcome to do Lesson 1.
Ask 1–2 get-to-know-you questions. Practice doing a weekly check-in, using one of the options. Do Lesson 1 or 2 in GCL.
Continue a get-to-know-you question each week, continue the check-in together, and continue lessons in GCL.
Plan a social gathering.
Keep going in GCL — nine lessons total. Schedule 2–3 social times this semester and start booking one-on-ones with each member.
The Gospel-Centered Life
Nine-week study with discussion questions, articles, and exercises on how the Gospel shapes all of life. Remind members to purchase the book in week 1.
Semester 2
You choose the study this semester. Talk with the Discipleship staff once you've decided, and if you took a break between semesters, schedule a time to catch up before starting back.
Move to the Heart Check
Building off the weekly check-in, this semester you incorporate a Heart Check — a more detailed way of checking in each week. Use the guide and form to create a new rhythm in your group.
Keep the calendar honest
Two to three more social times this semester. Continue scheduling a one-on-one with each group member through the year. As trust builds, keep modeling listening and vulnerability so members do the same for each other.
Model grace and care by giving words back when a member shares something costly. Three that work:
“Thank you for sharing that with us.”
“I know that wasn't easy for you to share, so I appreciate you trusting us.”
“I don't know what to say, but I'm with you in this.”
Study & Reading Library
Every group’s second semester starts with a choice. These series are already vetted — pick one and tell the Discipleship staff what you chose.
Gospel-Centered Life Bible Studies
Brief teaching, interactive questions, and gospel-centered application. All of the study and work is done together in the group setting.
Knowing the Bible
Twelve-week studies that lead you through a book of the Bible with reflection questions that engage the text at a deeper level, while highlighting Scripture’s overarching redemptive story.
At His Feet Studies
Great for learning how to study God’s Word. Each lesson reads the Scripture, answers observation questions, reads commentary on the passage, then answers application questions. Observation questions are homework; the rest is done together.
The Good Book Guides
Uncover the meaning of the passage, see how it fits the big picture of the Bible, and apply what you learn to daily life.
Tim Keller Studies
Bible study plus a reflection exercise to help apply the text to your life. Work can be done both at home and together in the group.
Under His Smile
Get to know the God who loves us and longs for our freedom. Learn how to break free from the need to perform and to trust the power of the Savior.
John Stott Studies
Inductive guides with observation, interpretation, and application questions plus commentary. Work can be done together in the group or at home.
Jen Wilkin Studies
Individual study, applicable Scripture, a group discussion guide, and a leader's guide — teaching group members how to study God's Word and apply it. Each session includes a video with Jen teaching that can be shown in the group or taught by the leader.
Choose a topical study when the group has a shared question in front of it: work, neighboring, anxiety, or a hard season.
Placed for a Purpose
A theologically rich framework for neighboring that helps us live missionally wherever God has placed us. Well thought-out discussion questions and intentional learning objectives that are practical for real life.
Go Forth
Reimagine your workplace as an arena where God's character is on display. Key passages, discussion questions, and practices that explore the beauty and brokenness of work — from the first lines of Scripture to the last page.
Gospel-Centered Community
Learn how the Spirit shapes diverse people into a Christ-centered community that reflects Jesus.
Gospel-Centered Life at Work
Build a bridge from your personal faith to your work, using Scripture to see how Jesus's work for you transforms the difficulties and drudgery of the daily grind.
Serge Gospel Studies
Living by faith, spiritual disciplines, faith and repentance, the power of the Spirit, and how identifying with the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ grows us to be like Christ. User-friendly group activities and questions rooted in Scripture.
When I Am Afraid
Learn to deal with anxiety and worry from a biblical perspective. Includes meditations and discussion questions to guide group conversations.
The Gospel in Hard Times
How suffering can be a catalyst that deepens our understanding of God's plan. Real-life stories for discussion, biblical application, suggested video clips, and an action plan showing how Jesus identifies with our sorrow.
Devotionals supplement the weekly study — they are not a substitute for it. Useful when members want something for the other six days.
31-Day Devotionals for Life
A tool for meeting with Jesus and applying his truth to your heart through the day, written to guide you through specific situations or struggles.
Devotions by Tim Keller
Daily devotions in the Psalms, Proverbs, and across the New Testament.
A Small Book About a Big Problem
EHS Day by Day
The ancient discipline of the Daily Office — an intentional stop to be with God more than once a day. Each day offers Morning/Midday and Midday/Evening pauses of five to twenty minutes.
Heart of the Matter
A quick read before the day starts: reorient your day, lift your eyes toward God, and live with Gospel hope.
Saving Grace
Gospel-saturated selections from Paul Miller's sermons on forgiveness, relationships, temptation, prayer, joy, and perseverance — a fresh exploration of the everyday life of faith.
A lighter summer rhythm that keeps the group together without a full curriculum.
Gentle and Lowly
This book takes you into the depths of Christ's very heart — a heart of tender love drawn to sinners and sufferers. The leader's guide includes group discussion questions.
Story Sharing
After the second semester, each member shares part of their story so the group can know both God and each other more intimately.
Summer Reading
A lighter summer rhythm that keeps the group together without a full curriculum.
Gentle and Lowly
This book takes you into the depths of Christ's very heart — a heart of tender love drawn to sinners and sufferers. A leader's guide is available and includes group discussion questions.
Read a chapter or two between meetings and talk about it when you gather — no homework, no lesson prep. If your group would rather keep a daily rhythm through the summer, the devotional sets in the library work the same way.
Ending Well
Ending is a decision the group makes together, not a calendar event that happens to it.
Ask the group
After a year of meeting, check in with your members to see whether they want to continue or are ready to end.
If you continue
Refer back to the semester two offerings and choose a new study together.
Tell the Discipleship staff
Share your decision either way with a member of the Discipleship staff.
Then end well
When you decide to end, follow the Ending Work document rather than letting the group trail off.
Every document, in one place
Church documents live in SharePoint — sign in with your Westside account if prompted.
Stuck, or something came up in your group?
Tell the Discipleship staff what study you chose, when your group decides to continue or end, and anytime a member's situation needs more than an hour and a few friends. That last one is not an interruption — it's the point of having pastors.
