Creating a safe place for one another to share, build trust and nurture personal spiritual growth is not an easy feat. Many have been church-burned or crucified by fellow Christians. We all have degrees of woundedness, some people have excessive personalities, unusual ideas and just plain annoying habits. Through community we must protect and bear burdens for one another with all the love we can muster. I want to share a sample covenant agreement you can consider for everyone that comes to your group. I suggest you renew this covenant every year and have individuals sign this agreement. This is just a sample and the group can and will adjust the covenant language as they see fit. There are many versions available on the internet for you to copy, so don't feel you have to re-invent the wheel.
The Purpose of [Name of the Small Group] is to lead people to a life-changing connection with Jesus Christ by building a healthy small-group
community.
We agree to the following expectations:
This group will normally meet every __________________________________
Actual meeting time is to begin at _____________ and end at _____________
We will meet at __________________________________________________
Refreshments or meals will be handled in the following manner: ____________
_______________________________________________________________
Childcare will be handled in the following manner: _______________________
_______________________________________________________________
We agree to the following values:
1. Priority. Because we believe in the value of community, we agree to give priority to our group
meetings. If we are running late, we will call ahead.
2. Confidentiality. We agree that whatever is shared here stays here. This includes what is
shared through phone calls, e-mails, etc. We want this group to be a safe place to grow.
3. Participation. We agree to encourage, support, and stand behind one another, choosing to
see ourselves linked together.
4. Accessibility. We agree to give one another the right to call in times of need—even in the
middle of the night.
5. Openness. We will seek to be open and honest with each other. Our small group is a place
where we can take off our masks, be ourselves, and be accepted for who we are.
6. Respect. We agree to communicate in ways that are respectful, and to give advice only when
it is requested. We will strive to be available to one another and listen, encourage, support,
and tell the truth in loving ways.
7. Open Chair. We agree to keep an empty chair for others and seek to reach out to people like us who
need this place of caring and growth.
__________________________________________ __________________
Signature/ Date
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Birthing Small Groups
Starting small groups is like herding cats.
Nothing is more essential to Body Life, yet believers resist. Do they think that attending worship services on Sunday mornings is enough of their time devoted to growth?
Worship time is corporate, a net designed to draw people into community. To have a net, without a community life blocks the natural progression and spiritual growth. Practical application is desperately needed. Not having small communities of believers to plug into, is like catching fish then leaving them to rot in the boat.
First, we must gather small group hosts. These do not need to be spiritual giants, but common people yielded to the Holy Spirit. What is required is AVAILABILTY. What you need to facilitate (I didn't say lead) will be given to you. Shepherding is the way of the small group. Walking together through life's journey. It is uncomplicated: caring, exploring and sharing life together. A humble heart and the open scripture goes a long way on the journey. Everyone I know who has been a host has grown into their role, like an on-the-job-training of the Holy Spirit.
Next: Small Group Covenants
Nothing is more essential to Body Life, yet believers resist. Do they think that attending worship services on Sunday mornings is enough of their time devoted to growth?
Life is not meant to be lived alone. We were created to experience life with other people, and that’s why we encourage believers to get into a small group.
A small group is a group of three or more people who gather each week in a home, workplace, a local eatery, wherever people care to meet. In a group we hang out, study the Word, and pray together. Worship time is corporate, a net designed to draw people into community. To have a net, without a community life blocks the natural progression and spiritual growth. Practical application is desperately needed. Not having small communities of believers to plug into, is like catching fish then leaving them to rot in the boat.
First, we must gather small group hosts. These do not need to be spiritual giants, but common people yielded to the Holy Spirit. What is required is AVAILABILTY. What you need to facilitate (I didn't say lead) will be given to you. Shepherding is the way of the small group. Walking together through life's journey. It is uncomplicated: caring, exploring and sharing life together. A humble heart and the open scripture goes a long way on the journey. Everyone I know who has been a host has grown into their role, like an on-the-job-training of the Holy Spirit.
Next: Small Group Covenants
The Secret of the Christian Life
What have you been told is the secret to the Christian life? Pray and read your Bible? Go to church? Witness? Speak in tongues? Tithe?
Let me go on record. I do not believe anything on that list even comes close to the issue of how to live the Christian life. All have one inherent flaw. The fatal flaw? Every item on the aforementioned list assumes that it is possible to live the Christian life. Can you live the Christian life? The answer is no, a resounding NO! You cannot live the Christian life.
That list takes for granted you can live the Christian life. Also note that you are the center of every item on that list. Call it "you-centeredness." You out there living the Christian life. You cannot live the Christian life. Jesus Christ could not live the Christian life. None of us can live the Christian life! If Jesus Christ cannot live the Christian life, what makes you think that you can? You can give up trying to live the Christian life! We can all testify what a colossal failure we have been at trying to live the Christian life.
God the Father lives the Christian life. "How does God the Father live the Christian life?" He doesn't. He is the Christian life. He is the highest life. God the Father is the wellspring, the source, the first motion, and the fountainhead of the Christian life.
The Father indwelt His Son here on this earth for thirty-three years. The Father lived the Christian life inside Jesus Christ. It was the Father's life, and the Father's life alone, which lived the Christian life inside your Lord. It is the Father's life, and the Father's life alone, that ever lives the Christian life. It is the Father's life, and Father's life alone, which will live the Christian life in you. Embrace a formula or a list in order to "live the Christian life," and you are doomed to frustration.
But on the day you quit trying to live the Christian life ...then you will finally give Him the freeway to live out in you what is so easy and so simple and so organic for Him to do. Hopefully, you just got set free from a long list of do's and don'ts (the "do's" you can't do, and the "don'ts" you always do). Why look so shocked; stop and think about it. You never were any good at living the Christian life. Admit it.
From: The Secret of the Christian Life
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