Life Groups & The Moose

The highlight of the day is the start of a Life Group here at our home.  Small Groups, Care Groups, Community Groups, Life Groups - all the same concept.  At the chapel small groups were topic driven: "marriage, parenting, Ephesians." At our home church  community groups are more activity/fellowship based: "running, games, praise dancing."  Here, Life Groups are Sermon centered.

They are "designed to take our discussion Sunday mornings a  little further...into the world in which you live...there is no way to truly have a conversation and meet people right where they are at in a large group setting. It's our desire and calling to partner with people on their journey of becoming and we feel that becoming happens better in smaller circles, rather than in larger rows. It happens best when we learn from each other; hearing the questions others have, seeing the ways Truth can be applied in other real-life situations, and having personal input in the conversation. It's just better together!"  From Church's website

Goodies we didn't touch. LOL We DID sell them later. 

I think all the small groups I've seen have worked well at building community. We are currently attending the Life Group we started attending months ago on Wed nights. We will lead one in our home on Thursdays. Obviously, it would be a bit redundant to hear the same sermon 3x a week!  These groups are not simply a "retelling" of Sunday's sermons. It's a great place to wrestle out some of the truths from the sermon,  discuss questions of application, or see how others understood a point on which one may be fuzzy. Each group has its own personality - and while the talk goes in a similar direction in each group - the applications and questions from the leader and participants lead to a varied experience.

I DO miss the other types of small groups I've been involved in  - but  we are content to follow the vision of our church leadership, and to wait until God opens opportunities for a variety of groups.  AND if we got up in time for Sunday School that would serve as a Bible Study based small group. In this season, God has been telling me to choose where I invest my time and "relationship seed" carefully. I'm out of the home a minimum of 3 days a week with Michael's treatment. It would be very easy to get busy and "see a lot of people," without getting to "know" a lot of people.

In other news - our collared moose is back. She likes it here.