Community
My church has changed from "bible studies" to "core groups" to "community groups". For a long time I honestly thought they just could not decide what they thought about wording. That annoyed me as an English major and someone who did not want to keep referring to the groups I attended weekly by the wrong term.
When we were bible study it was solely a word study and sometimes people would get upset if there was too much fellowship or people went off topic. While studying the word is clearly an important thing, sometimes other things, such as fellowship and prayer, need to take place as well. This was something I feel our leadership knew, but did not know how to implement.
Shortly after that we switched to core group. It was a good idea because the emphasis was put on creating networks for people to get to know one another better. To understand what was going on in one another's lives and to support each other in agape and prayer. It was a brilliant plan, but there was still a large emphasis on biblical teaching and always keeping the topic on God and only "holy things".
Now we are community group and I think it is quite the brilliant change. It puts the emphasis on something that Jesus was a rather large fan of - relationships between people, things, their God, and to themselves. We cannot serve God if we do not know ourselves and we cannot serve God if we do not love people. God LOVES all of his children. Not the ones that are easy to get along with, not the ones that are appealing to the eye, not the ones that have "enough money", but the ones that have a ridiculous amount of acne, the ones that say the wrong thing, the ones that give us the heebie jeebies.
We as humans have this adorable personality flaw that makes us desire comfort. We like to feel good. We like to feel cared about. We like when people respect and look up to us. We want nothing more than to be accepted. This trait is the exact problem for almost everyone. I am not saying that wanting these things is wrong. I am saying that receiving affirmation for our existence from anyone other than God will mislead us every time. God is the only one who can make our existence worth anything.
Every time we seek our worth in sex, drugs, money, status, worldly things we come up emptier than before. It is almost like we take the little bit we do have and sacrifice it to the idol we are choosing to worship instead of coming to our God, submitted, humble, and saying "Daddy, I feel empty and incomplete. I need you. Please come fill this void in me. Fill me so full that I never want another thing". Why are we so terrified of seeming submissive or out of control?
When we were bible study it was solely a word study and sometimes people would get upset if there was too much fellowship or people went off topic. While studying the word is clearly an important thing, sometimes other things, such as fellowship and prayer, need to take place as well. This was something I feel our leadership knew, but did not know how to implement.
Shortly after that we switched to core group. It was a good idea because the emphasis was put on creating networks for people to get to know one another better. To understand what was going on in one another's lives and to support each other in agape and prayer. It was a brilliant plan, but there was still a large emphasis on biblical teaching and always keeping the topic on God and only "holy things".
Now we are community group and I think it is quite the brilliant change. It puts the emphasis on something that Jesus was a rather large fan of - relationships between people, things, their God, and to themselves. We cannot serve God if we do not know ourselves and we cannot serve God if we do not love people. God LOVES all of his children. Not the ones that are easy to get along with, not the ones that are appealing to the eye, not the ones that have "enough money", but the ones that have a ridiculous amount of acne, the ones that say the wrong thing, the ones that give us the heebie jeebies.
We as humans have this adorable personality flaw that makes us desire comfort. We like to feel good. We like to feel cared about. We like when people respect and look up to us. We want nothing more than to be accepted. This trait is the exact problem for almost everyone. I am not saying that wanting these things is wrong. I am saying that receiving affirmation for our existence from anyone other than God will mislead us every time. God is the only one who can make our existence worth anything.
Every time we seek our worth in sex, drugs, money, status, worldly things we come up emptier than before. It is almost like we take the little bit we do have and sacrifice it to the idol we are choosing to worship instead of coming to our God, submitted, humble, and saying "Daddy, I feel empty and incomplete. I need you. Please come fill this void in me. Fill me so full that I never want another thing". Why are we so terrified of seeming submissive or out of control?