What are Life Groups?
At Grace Community Church, Life Groups are small groups of people who gather together regularly for the purpose of:
… doing life together, sharing our joys and our pains…
… and doing life application, allowing the gospel of Jesus Christ to transform our everyday lives…
… in order to multiply followers of Christ and gospel transformation in our communities.
Life Group values: The guide rails for our journey in transformation
The Word
The written Word of God, or Bible, grounds and guides the vitality and experience of our Life Groups. We recognize that truth communicated within the context of meaningful relationships is one of God’s primary means for transformation in our lives. As we journey together in following Christ, Life Groups help us to understand and apply God’s Word to our everyday lives…to our thoughts, attitudes, affections, will, behavior, relationships, and circumstances. We strive to grow as followers of Christ who are maturing in knowledge, understanding, and application of the word.
(Psalm 1; Matt 4:4; 2 Tim 3:16-17; James 1:22-25)
Community
As human beings, God has designed us for relationship with Himself and others. It is through authentic loving relationships with God and fellow Christ followers that we experience the freedom and transformation of the gospel. Life Groups seek to foster an environment of authentic Christ-focused relationships characterized by living the truth in love. We desire to encourage and care for one another as we live life together. We believe that God has given us one another so that we might be built up together into the image of Christ. Doing life together also means that Life Groups have fun and play together as an expression of our joy and freedom in Christ.
(John 13:34-35; 17:20-23; Acts 2:42-47; Heb 10:24-25; Eph 4:7-16)
Prayer
Through prayer Life Groups exercise our faith in and dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit and the Sovereignty of God to intervene in our lives and the lives of others. Prayer in Life Groups is an essential means by which we care for each other’s souls. Members regularly pray for each other and rejoice together as they see God work in powerful ways. Life Groups also serve as a place to pray for people who are not yet followers of Jesus.
(Acts 2:42; Col 4:2-6; Eph 6:18-20)
Mission
Life Groups function as the mission outposts of the larger church family. We’re a community of Christ-followers who are partnering together for a common mission of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Life Groups are both internally and externally focused, precisely as God calls his church to be. Life groups find creative ways to “bridge-build” into the lives of people and our communities.
Through our Life Groups we strive to intentionally engage the world around us by…
Inviting new people and non-believers to experience the authentic loving community we share with each other and with God. Life Groups creatively find ways to attract non-believers to their groups or take their groups into spaces where they can interact with non-believers.
Being holistic and missional. This involves both demonstration (i.e. loving our neighbors, meeting physical needs) and declaration (i.e. sharing our faith) of the gospel to a world that desperately needs Jesus Christ. Life Groups are missional in the sense that they are intentionally focused upon multiplying mature Christ followers and they do so by being in their local community rather than waiting for members of their community to come to church.
Multiplying leaders. Our goal is that everyone within community groups would grow toward maturity in Jesus, and many people would be equipped for leadership. In order to multiply gospel transformation in our communities we must multiply Life Groups and leaders. Life Groups are committed to the multiplication of new groups. Groups continually and prayefully ask, “Who can we send out to start a new Life Group?”
(Matt 5:13-16; 28:16-20; Acts 1:8; 6:1-7; Jer 29:7)
