Doing Life Together...
“All the believers were together and had everything in common…every day they continued to meet together…they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts…” – Acts 2:44, 46 NIV
You know something, I have discovered in our ‘privacy fence’ world, that people are crying out for relationships…true lasting relationships, ones in which we can rub elbows and do life together. However, from privacy laws to privacy fences, many of us erect barriers to keep ourselves shielded and protected from interacting with others. And think about this, many of us come and go from our homes without even seeing, waving or heaven-forbid interacting with our neighbors. Perhaps this accounts for the reason that personal loneliness ranks at the top of our culture’s problems. We all need to be needed…to love and be loved!
Enter in the church, that is God’s ‘assembly of believers’, a FAMILY unit that truly loves and cares for one another…a body of believers who have everything in common. In fact, this is exactly what boldly defined the early New Testament church so much so that it grew daily! Why? Well, because the world – the culture took note of how much God’s family were authentically caring for one another. The result – they wanted to experience it themselves. God’s family were doing life together…together! So let me ask – can the same be said of us here at Central Christian? Are we connecting, growing, serving, reaching and worshipping in such a way that the community at large is truly taking notice and being drawn to Christ? I believe that should be our ultimate goal!
This is exactly why we believe our Small Group Ministry, i.e. LIFE GROUPS, here at Central Christian is so vital! We believe that our small home groups, men’s, women’s, singles and support groups, along with our Sunday morning adult education groups are the perfect arenas to relive and reenact Acts 2 so that our local community will be drawn to Christ. Why? Because we love one another…we are truly doing life together. Neal McBride said it best, “small groups are where many people ‘connect’ with others to talk through and work out the real issues of the Christian life.” How true! My wife and I have personally been involved in small ‘home-based’ groups for years now and have thoroughly enjoyed the fellowshipping, connecting, growing, reaching, serving, worshipping, laughing, crying, eating, praying, loving and supporting that we have experienced. In fact, there were times that we could not have made it through life without them.
With this said, I invite YOU to become involved in Central Christian’s LIFE GROUP Ministry as we collectively seek to fulfill Central Christian’s MISSION statement: ‘To connect the unconnected to Jesus Christ and together grow in full devotion to Him.’ We believe small groups, LIFE GROUPS, are one of the best environments to fulfill our stated mission. So, I invite you to stop by the ‘LIFE GROUP…Get Connected’ table in the church foyer, pick up a brochure which highlights our many classes and groups and let’s begin to DO LIFE TOGETHER!
Doing Life Together – Doug Reed
