Life Group? What's that?

(in our Life Group, people just hang out until late in the evening - here's our guys' favorite thing to do: play hacky sack... somehow though, they're the only ones who can do it... as hard as we try, us girls are really shamefully bad at it...)

Life Groups are a small group of people that get together on a given day for fellowship (hanging out), Bible study, prayer and evangelism. In a constantly growing church, it's so easy to come and go and get lost in the crowd. But not with Life Group. Personnally, I think it's the bomb! Life Groups have changed my life, and I don't know where I'd be today without them!

Today, I lead a "small" group averaging 20 some people in weekly attendance, mainly all young adults. They're an awesome bunch of peeps, and each one of them adds to the life of the group in a unique way with their diverse personalities, backgrounds and testimonies. It's unusual for a group to stay that big, but we have a unique strategy geared toward young adults. See, it's common knowledge that young adults, especially single ones, are very social people. So, where most groups would multiply into smaller groups meeting in different homes once they reach 12 or so we're kinda sticking together, but then branching off for discussion time into smaller groups of 6 or 7. It's been working very well, and we've got new people coming in every week. We always have an awesome time!

My greatest joy in leading our Life Group is to see God working in people's lives. We have 2 brand spankin' new believers that are just awesome, Myriam and Matt. And then we have some people who accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior not even a year ago, but who are growing leaps and bounds spiritually, totally on fire for God, and letting the Holy Spirit work on their character. Then, there's the answers to prayer that spark up the excitement. And we always have some fun and funky parties, social events and outreaches that bring others peering in with curiosity.

Our group is swarming with talent too. Many of the people in the group can either sing or play an instrument, or both... So our times of praise and worship are always a blast, and sometimes we just don't want to stop!



Now, we didn't start there though. When I multiplied out of Cameron and Sandra's Life Group, I had a vision to see this kinda thing happen, but I had no idea how much work, prayer, patience, and not-about-me-ness was involved in the whole deal... I can easily remember the days when there were just 3 of us meeting weekly, praying for God to use us to tell others about Him, praying for people to come and join in with our vision... It was like that for a couple years. But God honors faithfulness, prayer and just sticking to it. I love how Pr Les puts it: "too stupid to quit"! I guess that was me... and now, look at what the Lord has done! He's so awesome!!

This has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever been involved with. I hope to keep on doing it for the rest of my life!