Sep

6

Community

September 6, 2007 |

Mary DeMuth in her book Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture writes:

Community shapes our souls. The people around us sharpen our hearts, sand off our rough edges, and love us when we’re unlovely. I venture to say we cannot grow in our walks with Jesus outside of it. If we isolate ourselves, our souls will atrophy.

Amen, Mary. That’s why I love small groups. They form—or have the potential to form—transformational communities where people can change and grow in a safe setting. What are you doing to make your community safe and transformational this year?


Comments

3 Comments so far

  1. Mary Doherty on September 6, 2007 6:22 pm

    In our church, we’ve changed course to call small groups ‘growth groups’ as that’s what they cause and we encourage. What I’m personally doing is leading one, which in and of itself is not so unusual or outstanding. But I think that continuing when you don’t feel like it, welcoming those challenging people in to the group, reaching out to new people to encourage them, and praying for your group members can be lifechanging for you and for them. We recently gave ourselves the summmer ‘off’; not as most groups do, by not meeting, but by meeting and just sharing our hearts and praying for one another. Nothing heavy, no curriculum, memory verses if you wanted to, but just coming together gettting to know each other better. It’s been beautiful, culminating in a great night of bowling and dinner, where we howled laughing at our own antics. I recommend getting into a growth group and step out to lead one when the Holy Spirit prompts.

  2. Mary Doherty on September 6, 2007 6:24 pm

    In our church, we’ve changed course to call small groups ‘growth groups’ as that’s what they cause and we encourage. What I’m personally doing is leading one, which in and of itself is not so unusual or outstanding. But I think that continuing when you don’t feel like it, welcoming those challenging people in to the group, reaching out to new people to encourage them, and praying for your group members can be lifechanging for you and for them. We recently gave ourselves the summmer ‘off’; not as most groups do, by not meeting, but by meeting and just sharing our hearts and praying for one another. Nothing heavy, no curriculum, memory verses if you wanted to, but just coming together getting to know each other better. It’s been beautiful, culminating in a great night of bowling and dinner, where we howled laughing at our own antics.
    I recommend getting into a growth group and step out to lead one when the Holy Spirit prompts.

  3. patsikora on September 6, 2007 8:12 pm

    Mary, thanks for your comments. You’re right. Good things happen when we take time off to just be community together rather than always feeling so driven to study all the time. Not that study is bad, but so often we get off balance. I believe that God loves it when we have fun together.

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