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What’s in a Name?

Why LIFEGroups?

This is the fifth and final chapter devoted to answering the question: Why LIFEGroups? So far we’ve talked about how LIFEGroups help connect people at Calvary to God and to each other. We’ve also discussed the role LIFEGroups play in building formative and caring relationships. LIFEGroups help people grow in their faith and become more like Jesus. They also help people get through the tough times of life by the people in the group caring for each other. This week we’re going to talk about how LIFEGroups help people impact the world around them.

Every LIFEGroup is built on three foundational relationships. And by now you probably know these by heart. At Calvary we want every LIFEGroup to have formative, caring and missional relationships. In the previous weeks we’ve looked at formative and caring relationships. Let’s take a moment and discover what it means for a LIFEGroup to be missional.

A LIFEGroup is missional when the community find’s it’s purpose as it adopts the mission of Christ in the world. The purpose of a LIFEGroup isn’t just to get together to do a Bible study. A LIFEGroup is more than that. A LIFEGroup is more than a group of Christians getting together to care for each other and meet their own needs. There comes a time when the group must take the things it has learned through studying the word and serving each other and bring that to the world around them.

It is all too easy to forget that outside of our Christian groups there is a dying world. The world we walk into everyday is full of people that have needs that only God can meet. They have spiritual needs. They need to learn about who God is and what God has done for them. They need God’s forgiveness. They have physical needs. They need food and clothing.

I can’t help but think of the time when Jesus healed ten lepers. Only one came back and placed himself at the feet of Jesus. Those who have been healed and forgiven by Jesus need to submit themselves to His work. That is part of what is so exciting about belonging to a LIFEGroup. In a LIFEGroup we learn about God’s plan. We learn about how to care for each other. Then we go out and learn how to love this broken world the way Jesus loved us when we were broken. That’s why LIFEGroups.

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