Community Groups
Definition (What a Community Group is...)
1. Community Groups are an "official" ministry of South Point Presbyterian Church. What we mean by "official" is that we are committed to the ministry of our Community Groups and we will work hard to equip, resource, and provide leadership for each group to help assure its success.
2. Community Groups are the primary place for connection, pastoral care, and ministry at South Point.
3. It is our desire that everyone who considers South Point their church home to be actively involved in a Community Group and are able to connect, receive pastoral care, and use their gifts in ministry.
4. Community Groups are gatherings of 8 to 12 people meeting in individual's homes and apartments throughout the region during the week to live out the gospel in community with one another.
Explanation (What a Community Group looks like...)
Community Groups are where people come to know God and to experience His presence, community is developed and fostered, and people are nurtured, equipped and released for God's work in the world.
Community Groups provide an opportunity for intimacy, mutual support, practical love
and service, learning about the Christian faith, prayer, God's word and sharing of what we see God doing in our midst.
Community Groups are led by trained lay-leaders from the congregation who are given on-going support. Each Community Group leader has been trained and has a coach to help them effectively shepherd the needs of their group.
Community Groups are intentionally open, always recruiting others and are intended to grow and multiply.
Goals (What Community Groups hope to accomplish...)
Connection
A Place to Meet and Experience the Power of the Gospel - The primary goal for the COMMUNITY GROUP meeting is to experience Christ Jesus. At South Point we believe that because God himself is a community, he has created us to live in community with Him and with others. We desire for Christ to transform and change our lives as individuals, as small communities, and through us, the larger communities of which we are a part. It is in Community Groups that the real community happens as the gospel is lived out.
A Place For Fellowship and Friendship
Fellowship can be defined as seeking to share with others what God has made known to you while letting them share with you what they know of him as a means of finding strength, refreshment and instruction for one's own soul. The Scriptures give us numerous commands concerning how we should interact in fellowship with one another.
Pastoral Care
Encourage One Another Daily - Scripture tells us to encourage one another, serve one another, rejoice and weep with one another, correct, instruct, sing to, build up, accept and love one another. In a COMMUNITY GROUP we pray for and carry one another burdens as we fulfill theses important biblical mandates. Many churches do one of two things: they either practice systematic care and encouragement of the congregation or systematic neglect of the congregation. Community Groups are the way that SPC seeks to care for the pastoral needs of our people.
Keeping Watch Over the Flock
Another biblical mandate is to "keep watch over those who the Lord has entrusted to us". Community Groups serve as a key way to integrate those who join our church into the body, and as a way to keep the leadership aware of the concerns and troubles which face the members of our congregation which might otherwise go unknown.
Ministry
A Place Where Gifts Are Discovered and Exercised - The church is sometimes compared to a football stadium where you find 22 people who desperately need a rest and thousands of people who desperately need exercise. Community Groups are a place where spiritual gifts are discovered and exercised within the group itself, within the larger church, and to the world. They are a place where a vision for ministry and service are developed.
Serving Our Community
Community Groups are a place where individuals who are seeking truth can be invited and encouraged to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. In addition, they serve as a place where we can remind one another of our call to share the gospel and pray for those with whom we are sharing the gospel. The claim is sometimes made that small groups can either be used for evangelism or for equipping, but that they cannot do both at the same time. It is our conviction that this should not be the case. If we aim at experiencing Christ in our midst, we will find that we are both building up believers and reaching out to challenging non-believers. Because these groups are expected to be reaching out to seekers and inviting newcomers in the church to join them, they must have a vision for multiplying new groups and developing new leadership.
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