We Are Family... who GROWS in small groups.

Pouring it on thick about small groups today.

Do you feel that in the room?

Pouring it on thick.

So my little disclaimer this morning is that you might be, you know, watching or listening online.

You might be here in the room.

And sometimes when we talk about something that very specific and logistical, if it's something you've not done and you're still not sure you want to, it's easy to be like, you know what, I'm just going to kind of like check out a little bit, lean back and not really think too much about this because I'm not in a small group.

Maybe I've never tried a small group.

Or it could be even that you have tried, did not have maybe the greatest experience, maybe didn't quite make some of the connections you heard Missy describe in the video.

So you're just kind of on this, like either on the fence or like running from the fence.

Like, I don't know about this small group stuff.

So I want to say all that to say if that is you today, and it could very well be, I think we're seeing that currently here at Hickory Grove, we have about, I want to say 60% of those in attendance on Sundays are in a small group.

That's pretty high for a church.

So a lot of churches don't have, but maybe around half or even less than half of their Sunday morning attendance in some type of small group.

So first of all, you're not alone if you're like, I'm not in this.

And so I'm kind of feeling this urge to take a step back away from this topic.

But what I want to say to you today, and we're in this new series just for a couple more weeks after today, called We Are Family.

Think about this question, and maybe this helps blank that slate a little bit.

How does a person who believes in Jesus mature in their faith?

How do they grow spiritually?

Really think about that as the baseline question because the reason we're even kind of spoiling a little bit here, but the reason we're even talking about small groups is because it is part of the answer to that question.

And I hope that you will see that today as we look in scripture together, uh, that you will see that that the only reason that we would ever spend so much time uh trying to prepare on-ramps for people to be in a small group is because it is crucial to spiritual growth.

Now I will say, and I know school has just started back in the last couple of weeks, uh, as I thought about small groups and talking about it with you that guy today, the one thing that comes to my mind is something that I very, very much hated in school.

I hated, hate's a strong word, but I borderline hated group projects.

No, not a group project.

And I think it was because I was definitely a perfectionist and I, in an unhealthy way, probably had to get an A in everything I did.

And therefore, when it was a group project, like, uh, even if if I if we get if I get assigned people that don't want to do it and they're not into it and they're not driven, I know who's gonna be having to do a lot of typing or do a lot of the work.

And I just kind of dreaded it.

At least if it was just an individual project, I could control the pathway very well to what I believed would get the A in class.

So I've always kind of felt a little bit of a loner when it comes to things like that.

And I do believe that there are areas of our lives, many areas of our lives, and some of it's our personality and our wiring, where we just tend to go it alone.

And we tend to do that.

You may have said this before.

If I want to get that done right, I might as well do it myself, right?

And there's sometimes a lot of truth to that.

And when we've had an experience where that's worked out better, to be like, you know what, I'm just gonna do this myself.

It's gonna take a lot longer, it's gonna be a heavier load, but it will be done in the way that I think it needs to be done, in a way that I think is best.

We do that often enough, and we find ourselves thinking that's the best way to do our lives, perhaps even when it comes to following Jesus.

And there comes a point in your life when you cannot do that, where you have to have others.

I'm at that age now where you know how when you get a box, a delivery, or you buy something from Lowe's or Home Depot and it says team lift, and you're like, I got this, you know, and you I need somebody to help me, but it's kind of frustrating because there's certain things you're like, this needs to get done, but I'm gonna have to ask someone and work with them to get this done.

The beautiful thing about having moments in our lives as silly as that sounds is that is the natural, crucial, vital rhythms of our spiritual growth.

We were never, ever, ever meant to do it alone.

In fact, I'm learning that to go back and read some of the passages of scripture in a little bit of a different lens, and you come to understand just how uh congregational, if you will, just how relational, just how familial everything is about following Jesus.

And yet we tend to go with alone.

I need my people.

And I've learned that sometimes the hard way.

But I'll also say I don't want to advertise, hey, try a small group because there's gonna come a point when you desperately need people.

I would argue if you're in a point and season in your life right now where you can say, I don't think I need my people, I don't think I'm things are good right now, that's when you really do need your people, when you feel like I don't need my people.

Like you feel that very confidently right now.

Here's why I'm gonna show you five things that are true really quickly.

First, you have blind spots that you can't see.

And this is true of every single one of us.

And I tell you what, it kind of stinks when someone points out your blind spot.

Like this is an area that you thought you were really good, but you're really not that great in this area.

And it's humbling to experience that, but it is so good for us to learn our blind spots.

You are not as self-aware as you think.

That is so true of every single one of us.

Someone else has godly wisdom that you need, and that is so true.

Fourthly, there is someone who has the encouragement you need, but also you have the encouragement that someone else needs.

And you find this when you begin to connect.

I've even seen it with our very simple little thing that we do about four or five times a year with our guys, where we just meet at a restaurant, call it Dudes and Foods.

And there's, you know, we just do it very simply.

You show up at a restaurant and every each by everybody buys their own little meal, and you just find a seat and you just hang out and eat and talk.

But I've literally witnessed these stories.

Like, it's kind of cool how God works where this person's had just sits by this person they've never met.

Turns out they both served in the military, and they start talking and sharing stories and start encouraging one another, and you're like, boom, that is awesome that that happened.

Because you'll never know what encouragement you could have unless you put yourself out there to actually connect with other people.

And they start sharing their story.

You're like, I thought I was the only one that had a story like that.

You have a story like that too?

This is incredible.

That's the kind of thing that God does when you connect with others.

There's a saying that we've said for many years, especially back when we first launched churchwide small groups.

I actually marked it in my calendar to remember that on October the 5th, 18 years ago, this coming October 5th, we launched churchwide small groups.

It was kind of a big deal for us as a church.

We believed it was so important that people got connected in some type of small group that we needed to even remove something off the regular calendar to clear space for it.

And so we had been doing what a lot of churches have done for many years and some still do, where we had not only Sunday morning worship, but also Sunday evening worship.

Where we're like, you know what?

We're gonna we do worship weekly, but we don't do small groups weekly, and we don't make it clear for everyone to get to do small groups weekly.

So it took us like literally two years to pray this through and prepare he could grow for this big move.

But we took Sunday night off the schedule and added small groups and said, we've cleared space.

So try it, give it a try, have small groups, and that was 18 years ago that we did that.

And we said this a lot then.

We maybe don't say it as much now like we should, but there are some things that God can only do in your life in circles, not in rows.

And you heard us talk about this last week.

The rows are awesome.

Gathering and worship, what we're doing here is so good for us, and it is so good for us spiritually, and it's so good for this community that people are gathering in worship.

That's a light that shines each and every week.

But there's some things that can only be accomplished in circles rather than in rows.

So why groups?

Well, we see it a long, long time ago starting.

A lot of people would say that the church as we know it today was born on the day of Pentecost.

And we find that in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read to you verses 41 through 47, but just to give you a little context, the disciples were just kind of hanging out, waiting for the Holy Spirit to arrive.

Jesus had told them that once I depart from you, when I do that, that's good, because then the Holy Spirit can come.

And he did.

And if you go back and read Acts chapter 2, you can see it was this miraculous, powerful moment where the Holy Spirit came upon the believers and the disciples there in Jerusalem.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And it turns out it was during a holiday festival.

And because of that, there were a lot of people from other countries in Jerusalem.

They had made the pilgrimage to be there.

And so the disciples began to speak the gospel in other languages.

And they had never done Duolingo.

You know what I'm saying?

So it's like they were, it was this miracle that everyone that was there for this feast, for this festival, for this holiday in Jerusalem got to hear the gospel in their language.

And then the apostle Peter stands up and preaches a powerful, convicting message of the gospel.

That's where we take up verse 41.

It says, So those who accepted his message, Peter's sermon, were baptized.

And that day about 3,000 people were added to them.

This is the birth of the church of the New Testament, the first century church.

And it goes on to describe how they did their lives.

Verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles.

Now all the believers were together and held all things in common.

They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all as any had need.

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house.

They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

Every day the Lord added to the number those who were being saved.

It's just a powerful, beautiful description of what church was like there in the first century.

And you can see that they had these rhythms of they were meeting in the temple, in the temple courts, and they had these larger worship gatherings, but they would also go house to house as well.

So I wanted to give you a quick list.

When I look at that passage, I see what I would say is a list of the content, if you will, of the early church.

This is what they did, this is what they were a part of.

It was the apostles' teaching, for one.

So these are the 12 guys that walk with Jesus, talk with Jesus, live with Jesus.

They actually ended up doing a whole little thing, meeting together where they found a guy that replaced Judas Iscariot.

And so they still had 12 apostles in the early church.

And for us today, this would be biblical teaching.

This would be the Bible.

This is the centerpiece of the content of the early church.

They also had fellowship.

That Greek word there is koinonia.

And if you were to do a little word study of the Greek word koinonia, you know, when I think of fellowship, I'm thinking chips and salsa.

I'm thinking pizza slices, you know.

It's just we think about this.

Oh, we're going to hang out together and just have fun.

But for them, fellowship koinonia, it was a partnership.

It was a relationship that was deeper than just acquaintanceshi or just relaxing together.

It was this like we have a bond.

We are part of something together.

That was the fellowship.

Breaking bread, this was just simple meals together.

They ended up having these bigger meals together that were ended up being known as agape feasts.

Agape is the Greek word for love.

But also they had communion.

It was literal communion together.

This happened house to house together.

Then prayer, generosity, praise.

And it said at the end that God was adding to their number daily those who were being saved.

So they were proclaiming the gospel.

They didn't hold back the name of Jesus and all that they did.

And this was the content of the early church.

The first century growth of the church, especially once the believers in Jerusalem were dispersed due to heavy persecution.

Yeah, they're in Jerusalem right now as we read this passage, but ultimately there was a great persecution that came upon the believers there.

And one of the culminating moments is when they stoned Stephen to death.

And Saul, who became known as the Apostle Paul, literally guarded his clothes while it happened.

And it was a big culminating event where believers in Jerusalem started moving away from Jerusalem.

But what was good about that is God took the gospel to all those new cities where all those believers dispersed to Galatia, Ephesus.

They took up to everywhere that they went.

But also what I would say about that is imagine just in this moment.

We stop at Acts 2, the end of that chapter.

We see that what they were doing is they were meeting in the temple courts to worship.

They were going to their houses and breaking bread together, having a small group, if you will.

And then if we just stopped there, wouldn't you just want to keep it like that?

That's awesome.

It was great.

It was going so well.

And maybe over time the believers were like, our large worship gatherings have to happen at the temple.

Because, I mean, that that that's always where things happened.

For centuries, for millennia, when it comes to Yahweh God, it was the temple, you know what I'm saying?

Like, so it had to be there.

But this dispersion that happened due to persecution really helped the people to see that the church wasn't a building, it wasn't an address, it truly was them.

They are the church.

So wherever they went, as they dispersed and moved to different cities, they still found ways to gather together in larger groups and be together intimately in smaller groups wherever they were.

Now, when I started going to church as a teenager, and I went to church probably about at the age of four or five, a few times a year up through maybe third grade.

And so I just remember maybe you do too.

I mean, this might have been your experience.

It was Sunday school, you know, it was Sunday morning worship, Sunday night worship, and I had Wednesday night youth.

There was also some discipleship classes on Wednesday nights, Wednesday night prayer meeting, if you will.

And so that was the rhythm.

It was like Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

That was the rhythms, right?

Maybe that was your experience if you had some growing up in church as well.

And so I say that because I remember when we were first doing some studies about doing small groups churchwide, and we went to different places to see what God was doing in some other churches.

And one of the things that we were hearing is that actually some people were thinking that small groups was this really newfangled thing, this new hip trend in church that maybe was trying to replace something else.

And nothing could be further from the truth because we see it right there in the first century that they were in homes together, smaller groups together.

In fact, I mentioned this church before, one of our local northern Kentucky, Greater Cincinnati churches is called Living Church.

And if you ever drive by the courthouse in Independence, there's a little church really close to the courthouse.

It was for many, many years it was Grace Baptist Church.

Once they began to decline and they were selling their building, they sold it to Living Church.

Living Church is a network of house churches.

They meet in their homes every week.

But about twice a month, they'll gather in a bigger gathering.

Multiple house churches come together to one gathering.

And it's right there in that church that used to be Grace Baptist Church there in Independence, Kentucky.

And there's another site in Cincinnati where the Cincinnati house churches gather.

In a way, uh Mark Mark Jones, who is the pastor of that network of home churches, the vision of that is let's try this and see how God uses this because this is probably exactly how it was done in the first century.

And small groups coming together in a home or anywhere really in a small group in the name of Jesus to have community, to surround ourselves around the teaching of the Bible, to experience fellowship that goes deeper than just chips and salsa.

None of that is new.

It's not trendy.

It's baked into the very birth of the church in the first century.

And it matters because it does something transformative in our hearts and in our lives spiritually.

And to really show us that today, I want to look at one more passage.

I'm going to look in Galatians chapter 6 with you.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

And as we go through this passage, we're going to sort of get an inventory, inventory, if you will, of what small groups does in our lives.

If this is good enough for me that it was a part of the first century church, it was part of their rhythms, that's awesome.

We offer it here.

You've heard Missy talk about a lot.

You've heard me talk about it a lot.

Sounds really cool.

Maybe you don't really need convincing, but I want to show you what every single person can experience when they find themselves in Jesus-centered, biblical-based small group community.

Galatians 6, starting in verse 1, it says, Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won't be tempted.

I almost hesitate to start with this as the list, but in a small group, I receive gentle course correction.

Who wants some course correction in their life?

Who wants somebody to say, I think you might be wrong about that?

Most of us, we don't want that.

Give me the encouragement and the accolades and the attaboys, but not necessarily course correction.

But I will tell you, it's so good.

It's so good.

One and one, I vividly remember one of my small group sessions that I was in years ago.

We were going through a study of the five love languages.

Maybe you've heard of that.

It's really a helpful tool for all relationships, but especially in marriage.

And I do a lot of weddings, and I incorporate talking about the five love languages in premarital counseling before I do a wedding.

So we go over the five love languages now that I'm putting myself on the spot.

It's acts of service, quality time, touch.

Someone help me out here.

Words of affirmation loud and clear down front there.

And gifts is the other one as well.

So there's those five of them.

So literally every single wedding that I've officiated, the groom and the bride do not have the same primary love language.

Super common.

It's extremely rare they have the same.

But I thought me and Sherry were the rare different couple.

I went around telling everybody we both have quality time as our primary love language.

Until I have the study in my small group where in front of everybody I learned her qual her actual love language is acts of service.

And I felt my chin drop, like, really?

All this time, all these years, I'm planning dates for us, and you just want me to load the dishwasher.

You know?

So I started having to change my ways.

I was like, that is crazy, you know.

And it was kind of a I was slightly embarrassed, if I'm gonna be honest with you, that here I am.

Bragging about the love language identities of us that I was wrong about.

But man, this is what can happen.

That's a little tiny, not a big deal thing, but I tell you, in small group, people can help us to see things maybe a little differently, like we mentioned earlier, just to cast a little light on a blind spot to make us a little bit more aware of the things about ourselves that need to grow, that need maturing.

Verse 2 says, carry one another's burdens.

In this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.

This one I'm really, really, really, really passionate about.

In a small group, my burdens are known, felt, shared, and carried.

Our staff here at Hicker Gove has a pretty cool experience each and every Wednesday morning where every single one of us stop what we're doing.

We meet together in one room and we pray.

Everybody, uh, assistants, custodians, we all come together and we pray.

We look at the cards that you write prayer requests on.

We look at the ones sent through the web form on our contact page on our website, anything sent digitally every single Monday, I believe.

Our church app sends out a notification.

Let us know how we can pray for you.

We read those, they're anonymous, but we pray over all of those in this room.

And let me just tell you right now, in this very room, there's a lot of stuff going on, man.

There's a lot of heavy, hard burdens being carried right there.

Maybe someone right next to you, in front of you, behind you, because we see it in the anonymous prayer requests we get.

Like we do not know who that is, but they are going through it right now, man.

Burdens.

And if you're not in a circle and you're only in a row, you can walk in here, sit down, and you can get up at the end and walk right out of here, and no one will know anything you're dealing with.

And that's not good.

We should want to carry each other's burdens, if nothing else.

Like, I don't know what that feels like.

I have no idea what to even say about what you're feeling, what you're going through, but I love you and I'm gonna pray for you daily.

And honestly, that is the answer.

That is the best thing you could ever do for anybody.

Man, you you you need others to know what you're enduring so that you don't have to endure it completely alone in isolation.

Goes on in verse 3 and says, For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

Let each person examine his own work, and then he can take pride in himself alone and not compare himself with someone else.

I love this.

In a small group, we come together in humility as fellow strugglers.

This is how we we walk in and ground level in small group, man.

Just every single one of us all having the same need, and that is the need of Jesus Christ to do something in our lives that only he can do.

It's a place of humility, and I love that.

And we do have to remind our group leaders and our group attendees, like, don't forget this.

Like, the more you're together over time and you're reading God's word together and you experience spiritual growth in your life, sometimes you begin to compare yourself.

Like, I feel like I've grown in this area.

Have I grown more than that person?

You know, this person seems like maybe uh they're not quite where I am right now.

You start doing that comparing thing, and that verse says, do not do that.

We're all fellow strugglers.

We come together in humility to help one another follow after Jesus.

It continues in verse 5, for each person will have to carry his own load.

Let the one who is taught the word share all his good things with the teacher.

Don't be deceived.

God is not mocked.

For whatever a person sows, he will also reap.

Because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.

This is kind of a big deal because we just talked about carrying one another's burdens, but at the end of the day, our spiritual growth is our responsibility.

We have to own it.

Are we going to do the things that we learn from the biblical teaching, even in small group?

You can attend this worship gathering each and every week and hear sermons based on scripture.

You can go to small group every week.

I think it's a lot harder to ignore the instruction.

There's a lot more accountability baked into a circle than there is a row.

But still at the end of the day, you have to walk away from that gathering.

You have to walk away from that circle and say, Am I going to do this on a Tuesday, on a Wednesday, on a Thursday, on a Saturday?

Am I going to choose Jesus' way over my way?

In a small group, I learned Jesus' way is better than my way.

And it is up to me to personally choose his way.

Will I live by the flesh, as that scripture just said, or will I walk in his spirit instead?

That's the question.

I've been in small group situations.

I'm thinking of one right now that is so deeply confidential and personal that I don't even think I want to share the reason behind it.

But literally, this lady was almost laughing about here's what I did last week.

And I was like, I will say, I was like, oh, I don't think I would brag that you did that that week this past week.

That is not the Lord's will for any of us to do those things.

And it was kind of like this palpable silence in the room.

And I am the small group leader.

So I literally watch all the eyes look at me like, what you gonna say about that, bro?

And honestly, I don't remember a thing I said, but I just know I had to say, hey, do you do you think that's what God would have?

Something to the effect of, I don't know that that was the Lord's desire for you.

I don't know how I said it, honestly.

All I remember is I said some things, and I watched her smile go to utter tears.

And I saw other people come around her and we pray for her.

It was this weird moment where I actually think, in almost jokingly bragging about the things that happened the past week, that she was craving a connection.

Like, like we're kind of used to, like, hey, am I right?

Get a laugh together, you're with me on this, right?

And when all of a sudden, just very humbly, non-judgmentally, like, hey, you know what?

I don't know that that was God's best for you.

And realizing in that moment that I already knew that.

Deep down I already knew that.

But to hear it in this space with these people who didn't just quietly say nothing and leave the room and keep judging me till I was there next week.

Instead, say something and love me anyway.

Man, that's what this is about.

That's what can happen in a small group.

I can learn his ways better and actually choose that personally.

Verse nine says, Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don't give up.

In a small group, my people keep me going when I want to give up.

And that is the truth.

I think this is one of those things we can see in so many other areas of our lives, right?

Uh I don't know if you uh are connected with coworkers who keep you going when you're like, oh, I am so done right now.

Like, dude, it's hard.

You might be doing one of those jobs where you're making a big difference in life.

Like, I always think I was having this conversation just earlier this morning, talking about how sometimes people who serve others get treated so bad.

And I've literally witnessed healthcare professionals get treated so bad.

And I'm like, what are you doing?

They got a needle in their hand.

You should be so nice to that person, right?

They're trying to make you better, and you're gonna be so mean to them.

And so, even people who are like, you know, the kind of work that I'm doing, I can see it's really helping, it's making a difference.

But there's gotta be some of those 7 a.m.

or 7 p.m.

shifts that you walk into St.

Elizabeth or wherever you work, and you're like, I'm not feeling it at all right now.

I think I'm done with this life.

Just trying to help people, but people be people, and I'm done with people right now.

And then that one other coworker just at the right time in the right way says something.

So we see this across the board in life, but imagine that you can have this regular rhythm of a huddle of people who love you, who love Jesus, and when you're feeling the struggle, they're right there to say, Hey, but you know what?

God's not done with you yet.

God's not done with this yet.

He's got you.

Actually, I went through that too, and here's what I had to do to sort of be encouraged.

Like that can happen in small groups.

Keep you going.

For me, I'll be honest with you.

My favorite thing about being in my small group is that in that moment, I've been very blessed over the years to have small groups that for the very most part, I don't have to be a pastor in that room.

I could just be Bill Clark.

And I can just let my hair down, what little I got, and just be real and just be silly and just be goofy and just like and just then walk out of there and say, Man, I I needed that.

I needed a space where I didn't have to be on, I didn't have to have all the right answers, I didn't have to be a public persona.

I could just literally come in there and just be a child of God, be one of his creation.

And to some extent, every single one of us need a space like that.

Verse 10 says, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.

I love this.

In a small group, I experience the goodness of being in God's forever family and help bring others into it.

Let us work for the good of all, it says.

Like even in our small group gatherings, somehow, some way, it's making a difference in the actual entire world.

And I've seen this to be true.

I've had neighbors talk to me about my busy driveway.

Like, man, you guys have some things going on over there sometimes.

I that's my small group.

You know, when when when if it's in a home that you have a small group and cars are pulling in and and uh snacks are going in with them and there's laughter and and and it happens on a regular basis, it's just there's something there that shines a light in that neighborhood.

And then somebody goes through something.

And maybe what someone notices is while you're recovering from that surgery or grieving in a in a terrible way, people see those cars come one by one bringing food.

Meal trains are evangelistic, man.

When you're able to say, you know what, when someone asks, you know, what's been going on?

Like, well, you know, this has been something my family's been dealing with, and my people, my church family just started bringing some meals over because we were just unable to do that.

Like, that is evangelism.

I mean, Jesus Himself said it in John 13, 35.

They will know you're my disciples by how you love one another.

Literally, how we love one another is Jesus' evangelistic plan.

And that's why the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved in Acts chapter 2, because people on the outside said, I don't know what's going on over there, but I want that.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I need that in my life too.

And that rhythm of small group makes that happen.

And as small groups stay together for a while and begin to mature together, I was talking to one small group leader just last week where they on a monthly basis actually get out and serve in the community.

They go and feed homeless uh in northern Kentucky or in Cincinnati and they do that together.

And I had one of the leaders say, our group went to a whole new level when we started serving together because we're in the trenches together and we're getting out of our comfort zone together, and that makes a big difference.

So, yes, in a small group, I experienced the goodness of being in God's forever family as we serve one another, as we love one another, but also that shines a light to others.

We help bring others into his family by doing good for one another and doing good for others outside of our group.

People will see the goodness of God's family through small groups.

And Sherry and I, my wife and I, Sherry, uh, we've experienced that goodness since we launched doing small groups, as I said, about 18 years ago.

Um, we've had several small groups.

There have been about three or four that lasted like four to six years together.

And all of those people in those groups, man, our friendships still run so, so deep together.

We've laughed till we've cried in groups, or we've just simply cried.

We've learned so much, we've changed so much.

The amazing people that God has brought into our circle through small groups, I can't put a value on it.

And that's why, that's why we talk a lot about it.

We don't want anybody to miss the opportunity.

We don't want the reason someone isn't able to try a small group is because they just didn't have enough small groups.

They just didn't have enough on-ramps.

I didn't really know about it.

I heard it was happening, but I didn't know how to get into it.

That's why we talk about it a lot, guys.

It we just want everybody to know the way, to really grow together.

It's kind of a maybe a little bit of a reach with the analogy, but if you were here a couple of weeks ago when our youth minister Jack Myros had a grapevine up here and talked about how we're a branch, Jesus is the vine, we're a branch, we can't bear fruit.

But I actually went grape picking with uh my daughter Molly down at Huber's Farm in Indiana, not far from Louisville where she lives.

And man, there were some crazy grapevines over there at Huber's Farm.

And we were picking grapes, it became like a game.

Like, I'm gonna find the plumpest, juiciest, perfect grapes to pick and put in the basket.

What I noticed though is that they had this bit of a fencing by those vines, and maybe you've seen this before.

They give a place, they give some framework, if you will, for the multiple branches off the main vine to kind of come together and support one another.

In fact, the best grapes I found, I had to kind of pull branches up and see where they were intertwined.

And right in there were the good grapes.

And it just made me think of small groups.

It's like, yes, you are a vine on the branch.

But when all these vines begin to intertwine together and support one another, man, the kind of fruit that can be produced in that environment is absolutely incredible.

You need it.

I need it.

I will never, ever, ever stop needing it.

And that's why we offer it to you.

Yeah.

Uh no uh surprise here.

We talk about a next step at the end of every message on Sundays.

Our next step to you is try a small group.

Maybe you've never tried one.

Try one.

Maybe you used to be in one, but you're not in one currently.

Jump back in.

Maybe you've tried multiples and they just didn't work out and you've given up on it.

Don't give up.

Try again.

There's this graphic you've seen already many times that's got the QR codes on it.

Uh, and we have little cards on a table right in the middle in the rear here that you could just grab and take home.

But we have many more in the lobby.

And Missy and I are actually going to be out in the lobby today rather than in this corner.

And just ready to help you.

You can ask us questions about the small group connection opportunities that exist.

If you're not great with technology, and I'm finding I'm becoming less great with technology by the day, uh, we can just take information down and help you if QR codes and links and all that aren't working for you.

Here's the question I want to leave you with before we sing one more song.

What if your next step is to simply go to a small group, get real, and let God do something in your life through relationships that would have never begun if you hadn't just shown up?

One more little anecdote about that.

Back in the spring, um, actually it was kind of late winter, we did just the six-week groups for guys.

Um, we had like four different options.

We're doing this again in the fall, and it's gonna be one bigger group instead with round tables so that we can break up into smaller groups.

Chad Cadell's gonna lead that.

But but the idea was if someone had only come to Dudes and Foods and literally just had the chips and salsa and that's it, but they're looking for something more, come to this.

It's only six weeks.

Bunch of other men will be there, and let's just see what God does.

What I was blown away with in that environment was how quickly guys were like, let me tell you what I'm going through.

There was a hunger to just say, I'm carrying a burden, and I just need someone else to know that burden.

And we're like, man, we we got you.

We got you.

We're gonna pray for you right now.

Let's pray.

That happened within like the second week of us meeting together.

Guys who had never met each other, talked to each other before.

I love this.

This is what God does.

What if that's your next step?

Is just simply go to a small group.

If you're feeling that urge, so clear from God, just to try one, don't leave here without stopping by in the lobby, talking to us, taking a QR code picture, whatever you need to do.

Give it a try.

Sign up, ASAP, and see what God can do.

Let's pray together.

Father, I thank you for your amazing grace towards us.

I thank you that you save us, but you don't want to leave us where we are.

You want us to mature, you want us to grow, you want us to continue to become, and you want us to bear fruit.

And Father, you have made it very clear from your word and through the history of the church and through what we're seeing happening already in this church that you've created this amazing, simple idea that if we just gather in small groups around your word and love one another well, amazing things will happen in us and through us.

Father, speak to our hearts and nudge us into community.

Pull us into community with your family, oh Lord.

Help everyone here begin to experience the difference of actually being vitally connected to their church family because we all need it so, so much.

God, we love you and we pray all these things in the powerful name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.