Life Groups

What are Life Groups? A Life Group is a small group that consists of six to twelve adults who meet once a week to discuss real life issues. The intent of the group is to increasingly know who God is, and who he created us to be. Each Life Group is different – they meet on different nights – they have differing age groups – and they also have different mixtures of children involvement, but each group is also very similar. Each Life group leader is given a list of questions each week that helps the group take information from Sunday’s message and apply it to life. The group leader is not a teacher, but a trained facilitator. At each meeting, people are free to voice their confusion, disagreement, struggle, or affirmation of Sunday’s message.

Below are some questions that each of our Life Groups talked about after a Sunday message that was given on the power of our words:

1. Have you ever given the power of your words much thought?
2. Name a time, either negative or positive, when you felt the power of someone’s words.
3. Name a time when you saw the powerful effect of your own words on other people. The power could be either negative or positive.
4. Why do your words have power?
5. Name a time when you said nothing to somebody, but experienced a negative side effect.
6. We are a community that seeks to bring life to each other and to those who are not yet among us – with our words and actions. We all have learned behavior that is not in accordance with God’s word, how can we move toward breaking this negative, life stealing behavior, and replace it with positive, life giving behavior, which honors God and each other?

Life Groups don’t just talk about Life, though, they do life together. Once a month, our meetings are completely social. We’ve had ice cream parties, chocolate fountain parties, game night parties, Super Bowl parties, Nascar parties, movie nights, pumpkin carving nights, homecoming football nights, Bowling nights – you name it, you can do it – the group decides! The thing that grows people together is fun, time spent together and people who care about each other and not just about themselves.

From time to time, Life Groups also participate in expressing God’s love to others in our communities. We will be having free car washes and numerous other events where we will seek to show God’s unconditional love to people by giving to them without expecting to gain anything in return.

My Life Group is my second family. The people in each Life Group sign on to love, support, encourage and care for each other. In many instances, our Life Groups are stronger and more supportive than the family that we come from.

Life Groups, then, are not just about attending an event! Instead, Life Groups are about journeying together in healthy, interactive ways that help us to find out, more and more, who God is, and who he created us to be.

Here’s a couple of illustrations to help get the point of Life Group across:

When you see geese heading south for the winter flying along in a “V” formation, you might be interested in knowing threat science has discovered why they fly that way. Research has revealed that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately behind it. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own. (People who share a common direction and sense of community get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on one another’s thrust.)

Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone. It quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front. (If we as people have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation and so will those who are headed in the same way we are.) When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the “V” and another goose flies the point. (It pays to take turns doing hard jobs). The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front6 to keep up their speed. (What do we say when we honk from behind?)

And finally, when a goose gets sick, or is wounded and falls out of formation, two other geese follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with the goose until it is either able to fly again or dead, and then they launch out on their own or with another formation to catch up with their group. (If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that).

At a Midwestern fair, many spectators gathered for an old-fashioned horse pull (an event where various weights are put on a horse-drawn sled and pulled along the ground). The grand-champion pulled a sled with 4,500 pounds on it. The runner-up was close, with a 4,400-pound pull. Some of the men wondered what the two horses could pull if hitched together. Separately they totaled nearly 9,000 pounds, but when hitched and working together as a team, they pulled over 12,000 pounds.

Life groups are a place where we all join our efforts together; a place where we are all going in the same direction, and because of this, we grow further, faster. Life becomes better.