GROUPS@central
Throughout the teaching of Jesus and the Bible as a whole it is clear that relationships are what life is really all about. Jesus says the most important Old Testament laws are to love God with everything we have and to love other people as we love ourselves. And throughout the New Testament we see that really the “church” was not a building or an organization. Instead it was (and is) an ever-extending network of relationships of people who are seeking to surrender to God’s loving rule in their lives, to truly allow Jesus to be Lord.
And so it is our strong conviction that the best place to grow in our love for God and other people is in the place of true, deep, growing relationships. This is really what GROUPS@central is all about. Our approach is simple and open. We have developed a four prong “philosophy” for groups that we encourage every group to actively and creatively live out: share, enfold, serve, and engage.
This video shows Jeremy sharing about our approach to GROUPS at the GROUPS Info Night in September 2011.
Share our lives. Once again, we believe that truly shared lives is the place where spiritual growth can occur. Share our lives means more than sharing space. It means being open, honest, truthful, and vulnerable with each other, moving past formality and ritualistic relationships. It means loving each other like Jesus loves us. Sharing our lives means actually being the people of God.
Enfold others. Jesus was a man on a mission continually moving, continually seeking to invite people into the Kingdom of God. And so we seek to enfold others into our lives. Enfolding others means we grow a special active love for those who believe differently than us. It means we intentionally move away from an “us versus them” mentality, and we see ourselves as existing for the benefit of those who are not part of our group, especially the needy, the unchurched and those with different beliefs. Put simply, enfolding others means we welcome others into “sharing our lives.”
Serve others. Jesus’ command to love other people can feel quite intangible. What is love? But Jesus clarifies that the love he’s speaking of is an active love, a visible love, a love that sacrifices to help those in need around us. And so serving others means following Jesus’ example by actively loving others in his name. It means our group exists for more than our group. Serving others pushes our focus outward. It’s amazing to realize that many of those in our culture who are not excited about Jesus ARE excited about serving, about giving their time for the sake of the needy. And so serving others means seeking to take the lead in an area that our culture is already excited about and an area for which our leader (Jesus) gives the perfect example and strength to follow through.
Engage with God. And of course, the goal of all of this is that we would come to know in greater and greater ways the truth and love of the God of the universe. Engaging with God in GROUPS means pursuing relationship with God together. It means more than a pursuit of head knowledge, more than religious exercises and definitely more than an individual focus. As we track with all kinds of different people in GROUPS, our goal is to keep the pursuit of relationship with God through Jesus as our primary focus.
If you are interested in learning more about GROUPS@central or joining a GROUP, please contact Pastor Al or Pastor Jon.
