SERIES PREVIEW

Who are the people you enjoy hanging out with most? Your friends, right? They laugh at your jokes, reply to your Snapchats, invite you to the movies, and hang out with you, even when you smell bad or show off your terrible dance moves. And whether you have a huge group of friends or just one BFF, they can have a huge impact on who you are now and who you become later. Our group can sway us toward good decisions . . . or bad ones. There’s a lot of influence in who we hang out with, including our friends and people we look to for guidance. And there can be a lot of pain when a friendship ends. Perhaps that’s why the Bible has so much to say about these topics. As we look to the Bible for advice, we’ll discover how we should choose our friends and mentors, and how we should handle those friendships that fade over time.

• Week 1: Your friends will influence you, so choose them carefully.

We all love to be surrounded by people who agree with us and have our backs, right? There’s strength and safety in numbers—unless those we’re surrounded by are headed in the wrong direction. When it comes to friends, we can either cruise aimlessly through life or we can befriend those who will help keep us on the best path. Solomon, the writer of most of Proverbs, encourages us to use caution when choosing our friends. As we unpack this truth, we’ll discover that if we want to follow Jesus, we need the right companions for the journey.

• Week 2: Wise people can help you, so choose to learn from them.

Frodo had Gandalf. The Karate Kid had Mr. Miyagi. Luke Skywalker had Yoda. This week, we’ll turn our focus from choosing our peer groups to the importance of having step- ahead mentors. The fact is, there are loads of things we have no idea that we don’t know. So this week, we may just find that having someone older and wiser who walks through life alongside us, offering encouragement and wisdom, can not only help us, but can also make us stronger and better in our lives and faith.