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:
- How are your words like good drugs (anitbiotics)? How are they like bad drugs (meth)?
- Have you ever given the power of your words much thought?
- Name a time when you felt the power of someone’s words. The effect of their words may have been positive or negative
- Name a time when you saw the powerful effect of your own words on other people. The effect could be either negative or positive.
- Why do you think your words have power?
- Name a time when you didn’t speak up, and then experienced a negative side effect from not taking action.
- 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, 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 parties, homecoming football nights, Bowling nights – you name it, you can do it – the group decides! Fun times strengthen relationships and help each group grow tighter and stronger. As groups grow together, it allows them to go deeper with each other as they learn to trust and love one another.
From time to time, Life Groups also participate in expressing God’s love to others in our communities. We mentor kids in the elementary school, give free car washes, do facilities and landscape maintenance at the schools, help people who are struggling, and anything else that we can find to make a positive impact on our community.
My Life Group is my second family. The people in each Life Group sign on to love, encourage and care for each other. In many instances, 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 hard after becoming God’s best version of “us”.