Why Group Ministry?
We have committed to walk together with brotherly love, exercising Christian care and watchfulness over each other, participating in each other’s joys and bearing one another’s burdens. We refer to this process of walking together as we learn to cherish Christ as discipleship.
To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be a learner of Jesus Christ. Both making disciples and being a disciple require learning who Jesus Christ is and what His finished work means for every facet of our lives. Jesus modeled for us what the life of a disciple should look like so very clearly. He gathered a group of people who were not disciples, and taught them what it means to be disciples. He didn’t just do it in a sterile classroom environment but he brought them along with him in everyday life.
Our group ministry strategy has four goals:
Reach people for Christ and church membership.
Teach people God’s Word.
Minister to people’s needs.
Develop new leaders committed to reaching people.
Life Groups (Sunday School + Small Groups)
We strive to offer a robust Life Group ministry. These are open and long-term groups designed to reach, teach, and minister to one another and their community while developing new leaders and multiplying new groups.
Each group should meet regularly, study sound doctrine, pursue prospects (unsaved and/or disconnected), and prepare leaders for the next group to be ‘born.’
A life group is an environment of biblical community where people can feel welcome and accepted (BELONG), encounter Christ and His Word (BELIEVE), and make disciples and group multipliers (BECOME). Our groups spend time in God’s Word through sermon-based curriculum, and each group is encouraged to study the Bible weekly, hang out together monthly, and serve together quarterly.
Equipping Classes (Sun./Wed. Evening, Sunday AM)
Our mission is to bring glory to God by being disciples that make disciples. Equipping Classes strive to provide adults with knowledge and skills to grow toward “fullness in Christ” and better enable us to be Spirit-led disciples of Jesus Christ.
Classes are gospel-centered and are designed to be taken for a season while leading to permanent, Spirit-led change. These are open and short-term. The classes are typically 4-8-weeks in length.
Discipleship Groups (Various)
A D-Group is a 6-12-month intensive closed group. The recommend size is 3-5 people (including the leader). A D-Group consists of believers who desire a deeper walk with Christ. It is not evangelistic in its form or function, but in its fruit: it makes disciples, who then make disciples.
The setting of the D-Group is completely different. It is the shift from a lecture atmosphere with one teacher facilitating a discussion of a room full of students to an intimate, accountable relationship with a handful of like-minded people.