FindCommunity: LifeGroups

This mixed-gender group of 10-20 people is the starting point for relationships, spiritual growth, and service both inside and outside of Life Church. Friendships are formed in this context for future D-Groups.

Authentic Christian Community happens in smaller groups. At Life Church we will establish this authentic Christian community through Life Groups. The focus of these groups will be spiritual transformation that leads to replication of disciples and groups.

What is a Life Group: A life group is a community of 10-20 people that gather in a host home that is the starting point of relationships, spiritual growth, and service both inside and outside the church.

In our culture today, people are more likely to gather at your house than at your church. This, then, is the mission field. As Life Groups gather to devote themselves to the Word of God, to Christ-centered fellowship, to the sharing of food and prayer, we pray that people from their workplace, neighborhood, etc. come to see what’s going on. It is a place where people can belong, believe and become

Threefold Pattern of Spiritual Transformation

Belong: people are welcomed and accepted/respected in Christian community.The

church should be the front runner in our culture for showing respect.

Believe: This will be a place where people encounter Jesus and His Word – hearing the Word and application in our lives. We see so often that people feel they need to change before they follow and believe. This is the same attitude the pharisees and other religious leaders had. They said, “How can Jesus meet with tax collectors and sinners.” (Matthew 9:10-13) Jesus says follow me and you will change. He meets us at our sin but will not leave us there.

Become: The Life Group is where people can become disciple makers and group multipliers. The local church should be a group of co-workers in the Gospel. All those that have been adopted into the family of God have a place in that family. There may be different roles, but the entire family is working in unity towards a common goal – in our case, The Great Commission. And this commission or command applies to all who follow. But how can we disciple others if we ourselves have not first been discipled? Life Groups are a place where people become disciple makers and group multipliers through community.

Life Groups are modeled from Jesus’s model to invest in a few to change the world. We see the result of this in the forming of His Bride the Church in the book of Acts. Let’s see how they gathered.

Devotion of the Early Church

“So those who received His Word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:41-47)

What we see here is the early church directly after Pentecost. As the 120 disciples gathered to pray that morning they had no idea that 3,000 more would be added to them. But as their numbers grew, their devotion to the Lord did not waiver. Let’s look at the devotion of the early church.

Model of Devotion

Devoted to God’s Word: The now large group were a people devoted to the Word of God, both reading and teaching from what we would call the Old Testament but also the Apostles teaching of Jesus Christ and that he was the fulfillment of the prophecies; that he was and is the promised Messiah, that he was killed, buried and rose from the grave, to which there were eye witness accounts.

Devoted to Fellowship: This is not coming together for the purpose of spending time together. The church was devoted to King Jesus. The Greek word for fellowship here is koinonia: communion with God or fellow Christians. Koinonia happens only when there is a central focus on Jesus Christ, when the reason for coming together is Jesus. It is very easy to gather as followers and this not take place. As the early church gathered it was clear why they gathered. They gathered because of their focus on Jesus.

Devoted to Breaking Bread: This was in the form of what we know as communion, the remembrance of Christ’s body broken and His blood shed. It was also in the form of being unified in large and small meals together.

Devoted to Prayer: The apostles had been shown how to pray and the necessity for prayer by Jesus. They were devoted to prayer for others, for the church and in thanksgiving to God as they gathered together. As Life Groups we are striving to devote ourselves to prayer – to spend more time in prayer than in prayer request.

From Acts 2:42, we see how important both the corporate gatherings, most likely at Solomon’s Portico, and these house meetings were to the early church.

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Result of Devotion

Their Devotion Resulted in Mutual Care: We see this in Acts 2:44-45, “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” This was not socialism or communism. No one was telling the church that they must do this. This was an overflow of the transformation of their hearts. They valued others more than they valued what they had. It does not say they gave everything they had but did give and were not mad about it.

Their Devotion Resulted in Unity: Verse 44 tells that they “had all things in common.” Looking ahead to Acts 4:32, “the full number of those who believed was of one heart and one soul.” They were united in Christ by the Spirit of God.

Their Devotion Resulted in Missional Living: Acts 2:46-47, tells us that they met at the temple; they came together in smaller groups at their houses; they were “praising God and having favor with all the people.” The way that they treated others, even those outside of the church, was radically noticeable. People recognized that there was something different about this group of people, those who followed Jesus. Authentic Christian community is noticeable to the world around you. The Life Groups aren’t just for the people of the church. They will affect those outside the church as well. Jesus’ followers are on mission every moment of every day.