What is the Purpose of a Home Fellowship Group?
- A Place to
Meet With and Experience Jesus Christ in Our Midst
- The primary goal for the Fellowship Group meeting is to experience
Jesus Christ in our midst in his presence and power. We want him to
be at work by His Spirit ministering to us and through us to one another-towards
the end that people are cared for and encouraged to live God-pleasing
lives. We desire Christ to transform and change our lives as individuals,
as small communities, and through us, the larger communities of which
we are a part.
- A Place For Fellowship and Friendship
- Fellowship can be defined as seeking to share with others what God
has made known to you while letting them share with you what they
know of him as a means of finding strength, refreshment, and instruction
for one's own soul. The Scriptures give us numerous commands concerning
how we should interact in fellowship with one another. We are told
to encourage one another, correct, instruct, sing to, build up, accept
and love one another. There is no better way to put yourself in a
position to fulfill these commands than by becoming part of a Home
Fellowship Group.
These groups also
serve as a key way to integrate people who join our community and
as a way to keep the leadership aware of the concerns and troubles
which face the members of our congregation which might otherwise remain
hidden.
- A Place Where Gifts Are Exercised
- The church is sometimes compared to a football stadium where you find
22 people who desperately need rest and thousands of people who desperately
need exercise. Fellowship Groups are a place where spiritual gifts
are discovered and exercised within the group itself, within the larger
church, and to the world. They are a place where a vision for ministry
and service are developed.
- A Place to Discover Christianity
- Home Fellowship Groups are a place where individuals who are seeking
truth can be invited and encouraged to enter into a relationship with
Jesus Christ. In addition, they serve as a place where we can remind
one another of our call to share the gospel and pray for those with
whom we are sharing the good news that God has reconciled us to himself
in Jesus Christ. The claim is sometimes made that small groups can
either be used for evangelism or for discipleship, but that they cannot
do both at the same time. It is true that if you aim at edification
you will probably lose the attention of the non-believers in your
midst. It is also true that if you aim at evangelism, you will eventually
bore the believers in your midst. But those are not our only options.
If we aim at experiencing Christ in our midst, we will find that we
are both building up believers and challenging non-believers.
- A Place to
be Reminded that We Are a Part of a Gospel Movement
- Because these groups are expected to be reaching out to seekers and
inviting newcomers in the church to join them, they must have a vision
for multiplying new groups and developing new leadership. This dynamic
will change the way we think about our friendships. A good group will
have us exclaiming, "I want my friends to have fellowship and
friendships like this!"
How Do Home Fellowships Groups Fit into the Church as a Whole?
Fellowship Groups
are the primary place for pastoral care at Grace. Churches do one of
two things: They either practice systematic care and encouragement of
the congregation or systematic neglect of the congregation. Our network
of fellowship groups is the means through which we seek to practice
the former. While some congregations may have small groups, our congregation
is small groups. Our network of Fellowship Groups functions as the nervous
system of our church. In them, the gospel is used to motivate people
towards a richer relationship with God. In them, the gospel is a balm
to apply to the wounds we incur in this broken world. In them, the gospel
is used to call and motivate people into the service of God's kingdom.
In response to God's grace, people are urged to develop lives of moral
beauty, integrity, and other-centeredness and to discover and use their
gifts to carry out ministry both within the congregation and to the
world.
