The season is here. Amid the bustle or the quiet of the hearth, there is one thing we all share in common: our God, who is with us. Jesus, our Hope, our Peace, our Joy, our Love. And maybe we don’t exactly feel that or see that this season. That is okay. We are storytellers who share God’s incredible work.

So this Christmas, we asked NCC to share stories of God’s incredible work in the past (and His ongoing work). Over the next four weeks, we have stories to reflect on of God’s incredible work in the lives of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ at NCC. And we have scripture to read together or individually for your household.

This guide helps parents know more about the troubling incidence of suicide and self-harm in the lives of young people.  Like other Parent Guides in this series, this tool provides knowledge, references, and faith-based encouragement on the subject to help parents connect with their kids.

Death has been called the ultimate statistic: 10 out of every 10 people will die. And although some professions come face-to-face with this reality on a more regular basis (doctors, nurses, police officers, butchers, the military), this conversation can feel quite difficult to begin because much of American society is structured to keep the rest of us from really thinking about it. So how do we respond when death comes crashing back into our awareness? How will your teen handle news of school shootings, virus outbreaks, and opioid overdoses? This is the world that your teen is navigating, and they need your guidance. In courageously facing the reality of death, there is an invitation for you and your teen to focus on what really matters in life.

FOMO is the fear that something interesting or amazing will happen without us, causing us to miss not just the experience, but also the camaraderie that inevitably blossoms out of experiencing it with others. Unfortunately, it’s a broken way of dealing with our God-given desires to live purposeful lives and be in community. God did not intend for us to live in a constant state of fear! Reclaiming our own boundaries and helping our kids reclaim theirs is well within our grasp, but it does require diligence, wisdom, and intentionality.

For many teens, privacy = autonomy, so they can tend to fight tooth and nail for it. But what’s a biblical view of privacy? Very few people are writing about it, especially not in terms of teens’ privacy, so this Guide seeks to understand it better and help you apply it in a way that allows teens to gain true freedom as they become responsible adults.

Even if your kids are young, you have the opportunity to shape how they view singleness and marriage now. But even more importantly, you have the chance to help them love God more than they love love itself, to the point that they’re willing to follow Him wherever He leads–including even a life of singleness. Doomed to be alone? This Guide helps you & teens rethink that!

What would it be like to imagine that the Bible has the power to change how we live from the inside out? How would it change the way we read or talk about the Bible? How would it help our teens to view the Bible as relevant to their everyday lives, rather than an outdated list of arbitrary rules to follow? What if the Bible helped us start more conversations and ask more questions, rather than ending conversations and winning arguments? We’ll use Florence’s words “hear” and “host” to structure a conversation about how we can read the Bible well and teach our teens to do so, too. It sounds strange, but we want to get it inside of us, as if we are being infected by a benign virus that spreads and changes us!

During the Christmas season, many Christians sing the hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," which depicts the longing of the people of God for their Savior. This hope for the Savior is grounded in the Old Testament and its revelation of the Messiah. In this plan, we will look closely at the Old Testament promises about the Messiah and see how Christ perfectly fills that role.

At times, the world can seem like it is full of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear. As humans, we are never really in control of our circumstances. Amidst all this uncertainty, how can we Christ-followers find the courage to work and create boldly? That’s the question we’ll answer in this three-day plan.

Self-discipline—whether with your time, food, or money—is a good and God-honoring thing. But it can easily become an ultimate thing and thus turn into a soul-sucking idol. How can you avoid crossing over to the dark side of discipline? That’s the question you’ll answer in this 3-day reading plan.

The New Testament asserts that Jesus Christ is equal to, and identical with God, performing works that only God can do. As the Son he is distinct from the Father he is of identical being with him and the Holy Spirit.

For the next 14 days, we will be reading the Bible with Dr Katherine Thompson, whose devotions are drawn from her book The Discipline of Suffering. In her writing, Dr Thompson explores how our understanding of suffering, which takes the form of stories, can be informed by our culture, our own personal narrative, and the individual thought patterns that we adopt. When these stories and thoughts become harmful, we can partner with the Holy Spirit using practical strategies to change them and redeem our brokenness to find healing. Author: Dr Katherine Thompson Dr Katherine Thompson is a mental health social worker and academic. In her book, The Discipline of Suffering: Redeeming Our Stories, Dr Thompson integrates faith and psychotherapeutic strategies to help use move from a place of brokenness to redemption.

Jon Kehrer (Old Testament and biblical languages professor at Ozark Christian College) will teach the good news about Jesus according to what Isaiah has to say. Jon will show the glorious picture of what God laid out for us in the coming of the Messiah and how his coming can transform our lives today.

The humanity of Christ refers to the reality that in his incarnation, the Son of God assumed a complete human nature with all its limitations (but without in any way surrendering his divinity), so that he might serve as humanity’s representative, substitute, and example.

Incarnation is the term that refers to the supernatural act of the triune God, whereby the eternal, divine Son, from the Father, by the agency of the Spirit, took into union with himself a complete human nature apart from sin. As a result, the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, now and forevermore exists as one person in two natures, our only Lord and Savior.

Christians must be equipped for the unseen cosmic conflict that surrounds us. This companion study guide to Chip Ingram’s bestselling series, The Invisible War, will prepare to withstand Satan’s tactics and to stand firm in victory over the Enemy.

The New Testament ascribes to Jesus the very names of God (God, Lord) and describes his identity and mission through a variety of titles rich with Old Testament symbolism.

An eight session journey that will help you and your community to grow and deepen your prayer life.

We are to treat a promise of God as reality, as someone treats a check. We are to take the promise and endorse it with our own name by personally receiving it as true.

"The Root Of Bitterness becomes a destructive force in people. It is a spiritual cancer, and left unattended will destroy a life..." Learn how to stop bitterness, uproot it and get it out of your life and stop it from poisoning your sphere of influence.