New Life Group!

tea, coffee, and discussion

I am posting to talk about an exciting new change that is happening at the Jabriya Life Center.  We are launching a new life group this week, so we would like your prayers! We are praying that it would grow both in numbers and in spiritual and relational depth, and that the members who attend would be eager to serve and be open to each other.

A life group (also known as a cell group, care group, small group, etc.) is just an opportunity for people to gather together outside of church to connect on a deeper level with one another and grow in their relationship with Christ.  While any church service is a critically important time to gather as a body and worship God, give, and receive teaching from God's word, it is not sufficient for caring for each other.  As our service has grown to consistently include 100 or more people, we can no longer know everyone in the church well enough through only a short greeting time or after the service.  The Bible also mentions meeting together outside of the corporate meeting: "And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes...."(Acts 2:46).  This shows that people gathered in large groups (temple, or the church) and in small groups (in the home). 

For the past four years, I have been leading a life group at the Jabriya Life Center.  I've mentioned this in a previous post, but it started as a tiny 5 person group and has grown to more than 20 people during its life span. However, it wasn't all continuous and amazing growth without any problems.  I made mistakes along the way, and there have been times when the group has contracted as well as expanded. 

One of the issues that I have struggled with over the last two years is the size of the group.  As the group has grown to around 20 people, it is no longer easily manageable as a gathering.  Besides the general struggles of accommodating an assembly of that size and keeping everyone engaged in prayer request and the discussion, there is the spiritual issue of caring for all of the individuals every week. A life group leader is not just a guy who facilitates discussion questions from the previous week's sermon.  The life group leader is truly a leader, a mini-shepherd who tries to love, encourage, care about, pray for, and spend time with the people in his charge.  With a group that size, I always felt like I was leaving someone out, leaving someone behind, or just neglecting certain individuals.  It's a tricky situation.

tortilla chips count as breaking bread together

At the beginning of this school year, after four years of leading the group and much prayer and deliberation, my wife and I passed the responsibility to another godly couple who faithfully attended the previous year and were willing and interested to lead the group.  This freed me to serve in other capacities, including helping other "younger" groups within our church grow and encouraging those leaders. But, the large size of the group remained and the life group grew even more with new people coming to our church and getting connected. With over 20 people coming on certain weeks, it was too much to ask of the leaders to keep it as one group. 

After talking it over with the leaders, the members of the small group, and the pastor, we figured it would be best to open another life group on a different day in a different location.  This would naturally allow people to choose a life group that would be a little closer to their area, because we had people coming from different neighborhoods to the one life group.  We also wanted a different day because three life groups from our service already meet on Mondays and we don't have any that meet on Wednesday. This could allow additional people from the church to join who possibly couldn't attend on the days life groups were currently offered. 

So, our first meeting is tonight and my wife and I will be leading the group.  The tentative plan is for me to lead for a few months, and then to hand it over to another couple who is interested in leading the group after attending for a while. 

Even though it's painful to not see everyone in the same life group, I think it's exciting because of the opportunity to form new friendships and continue to grow friendships we already have.  Please pray for its growth, and if you are living in Kuwait, please feel free to stop by and see what it's like!