“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
Community Groups are centered on 3 simple things in order to foster Christian connection and communion with Jesus: Fellowship, Bible, and Prayer. Nothing radical here! These are the proven (and biblical!) ways for Christians to connect more deeply with each other and with Jesus. Each evening together we’ll spend roughly one third of the time with each of these (30 minutes each for a 90 minute community group). These groups meet on a variety of nights with some day time options, most likely between 7:30 - 9:00 pm. Community Groups will meet September through May with December and summer being optional.
Fellowship
We’ll be gathering in host homes (which may or may not be the leader’s home). Refreshments will likely be a part of each group’s gathering (I know it will in mine!) along with sharing of our lives in informal conversations.
Part of this time will be a more focused sharing, of actual Christian fellowship, of building koinonia. How often have we called something Christian fellowship and it was just random chatting?! We’re going to bring intentionality to our fellowship.
Prayer
Have you ever been in a group that takes forever sharing prayer requests and then you run out of time and so the leader just asks someone to close? You never really get to praying together! We want our groups to actually pray!
Some of the prayers might be in response to the time in the Bible as part of the “answer” to the third question. Others may be a prayer journey provided as a resource to the leaders. Rather than sharing prayer requests, we might try sharing our needs by praying them! The bottom line is that we want to grow together and grow towards Jesus by spending time in prayer.
Bible Time
When we meet together in God’s word, we meet Jesus and are transformed by the Holy Spirit in our relationship with God and with each other. For our time in the Bible, we’ll be basically asking three questions: 1) What is God saying? 2) What is God saying to me or to us? 3) How do I/we want to respond to God?
All groups will be asking these same questions for the same scripture text for the upcoming Sunday’s sermon!