Life Groups bring spiritual awakening

 Life Groups bring spiritual awakening

The Faith Community here is made up of a wonderful group of people who have for the most part grew up together. They come on Sundays and say hello to one another attend the worship service and go to fellowship time briefly after service. But something has happened here. Since the beginning of our life groups last January God has been moving in incredible ways. People are acting different. There are more hugs more smiles and people are praying for one another like never before. At one service, a woman made a prayer request. And after service, for the first time every person came up to pray around her. People are moved to stay longer during fellowship time. Meetings are now filled with laughter instead of arguments. The people at Caliente umc are experiencing a spiritual awakening in their relationships that Is changing their lives. And the result is they want to know more and do more.

What happened...

Our church needed to connect together spiritually before we could do anything else. So I decided to start life groups using a study by Andy Stanley that I had previously used in my church plant. It had great results. We found a simple and easy study for people to grasp no matter where they were at in their faith journey.

The study is called Community. Your pathway to progress. We only ask the questions of the book. No home work. There are six sessions. Three sessions using a dvd where Andy gives a 15 to 18 minute message with discussion questions. This study introduces the importance of what a life group is for a believer. We only purchase the leaders book and the dvd. Total cost is about 25.00.

The second Life Group study, we tried a new study by Andy Stanley. Christian. This is a brand new eight week online series that so far, has been excellent as the next step after Community in our Life Groups. Andy gives a clear definition of the difference between a Christian and a Disciple of Jesus Christ. And it’s free. We watch the series online and then go through the discussion questions.

I required my leadership to go through the Community life group this summer. It has been amazing in connecting us together as a team. And the leadership has shared numerous stories in how they have been affected by this study. They are now beginning the second life group series. Presently we have over half our church going through these life groups. People want to go to a life group because they see a difference in the others.

Two weeks ago we celebrated 15 baptisms two rededications and two child dedications.

Blessings

Pastor Teresa Adams Caliente Community umc