Why meet in groups?

‘Community is what you were created for. It is God’s desire for your life. It is the one indispensible condition for human flourishing. According to Jean Vanier, ‘A community is not simply a group of people who live together and love each other. It is place of resurrection.”’ (John Ortberg, Everybody’s normal till you get to know them)

We know that for all of us we have an in-built desire to belong and to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Why? Because God created us that way, because community is the essence of who God is – three in one – and therefore is at the core of our being.

All the research has shown too that having people around us is beneficial for our health.

A recent relationships study in America – tracked 7,000 people over 9 yrs and found that isolated people were 3 times more likely to die than those with relational connections! People who had bad health habits ie smoking, obesity, alcohol issues etc but had strong relational ties lived significantly longer than those who had had great health habits but were isolated. In other words my conclusion is its “better to eat crisps with good friends than salad alone!”

A place to relate

As our church grows however, we know that the key relationships we build with each other cannot just grow out of meeting at a Sunday service. It is difficult to have meaningful conversations with more than one or two people at the end of a service and clearly as churches grow beyond 50 and into the 100’s they have to find other ways of people forming community together.

“For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them”

(Matthew 18v20)

From the word ‘go’

Acts 2 gives us an amazing picture of how community can be formed through people sharing lives together and although we cannot all live in the same house(!) we can choose to go deeper in our relationships with one another, giving time and space to each other and encouraging spiritual growth. This is where our clusters and small groups support us in choosing into community.

“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another”

(Hebrews 10.25)

Clusters

Each of our clusters has a flavour to it such as family, young adults, business, and holds social events from time to time to invite people to. The cluster then is aiming to provide for a mid sized group of around 50 people and is somewhere to invite friends to that is non threatening and a seamless way into the life of the church. Check out our clusters and groups page.

Small Groups

Within that cluster we also aim then to have small groups operating where a smaller group of people (i.e. 3 or more) can meet regularly together. This will be a small enough group to

Be honest with each other and pray and discuss spiritual matters
Pray for friends and family
Encourage people to discover and use their spiritual giftings and to serve each other
Care for one another particularly when things are difficult

This means that our basic day to day love and care for each other as a church will work best through our small groups and gives it a structure to help ensure people don’t get lost but can find a place to serve and be served and to belong.

Practical things to do…

If you’re not yet connected to a cluster go along to some cluster events to get to know a few people. This Sunday (18 April) there are lots of information boards around to tell you more – there’s also lots of info on the website.
If you’re connected to a cluster but not a small group see if you can get along to a small group or start up your own. There are questions that you can use on the notice sheet each week and you could just meet with a few people over coffee to start things off and see how it goes. Let me know if you do this so that we can support you with it. Talk to your cluster leader about starting new groups as well.

Ali Summers, 17/04/2010