Why Community Groups?
If you distilled all the letters in the New Testament down to their irreducible minimum, to the essence of what they are all about, we believe you would find one word…
C O M M U N I T Y
Think about it. Each book in the New Testament is about imperfect people, learning to love, forgive, embrace and relate with other imperfect people. Each book is saturated with relational language: forgive, serve, share, encourage, stimulate, build up, honor, respect, speak truth, be compassionate. Each book is at the core, a call to authentic, life enhancing and life-changing community. In community groups we learn to live together like Jesus lives—in loving obedience to the Father and in loving commitment to one another.
Needless to say, while community is essential, it is far from easy. Community means each person makes a “common commitment” to know others and be known by others, to allow the Scripture to define what is true and what matters most, and to be answerable to others for our progress in maturing spiritually. And while that scares us, deep in our hearts, we know it is exactly what we long for because we were made to live life this way.
We believe the hard work of community pays off in real joy, real life and real hope as we discover those things in life that really are worth living for.
So what does living in authentic, biblical community look like at Fellowship? It’s being part of a community group of 12-16 adults who are committed to:
Accountability
- Loving encouragement to grow
- A willingness to ask the tough questions
Biblical truth
- Studying God’s Word together
- Keeping the Bible as the ultimate authority to govern our lives
Caring relationships
- Living out the one another passages
- Place to love and be loved, serve and be served, know and be known
Discovering and expressing your gifting
- Helping one another discover their unique gifting (to serve and reach out to others)
- Encouraging one another to give their lives away for Christ
Authentic biblical community . . .
- Enjoys what we have in common...it recognizes that we are part of the same eternal family.
- Embraces each other even in our differences.
- Engages passionately - knowing that community is not a commodity - it takes a risk to reach out.
- Encourages others to become all that God has designed them to be.
- Expects life-change to happen over time by the power of the Holy Spirit.
