Better Together

Welcome and thanks for joining us at First Conyers.

Wherever you're watching or listening from, we're so glad you're here.

We pray this message encourages your heart and strengthens your walk with Christ.

If you would like to know more about the mission and activities at First Conyers, please visit our website at firstconiers.com.

Good morning, church.

Yeah, it's a great privilege and honor to stand before you today to give a few words about our small groups.

In my role as education pastor, I give oversight to all the small groups in the church.

Our emphasis today will be Sunday morning small groups.

I said this because I know we know that we have expressions for small groups during the week.

We have some running on Tuesdays, some running on Wednesdays.

But our emphasis this morning would be Sunday morning small groups.

Of course, we have one also that runs on Thursday evening.

Yeah.

So I'd like to start on a note of appreciation for all our teachers.

All small group teachers from the cradle to the senior adults.

And if you would join me, every of our teachers and assistants, either you are putting on the t-shirt or not, please rise.

Can we celebrate this month, please?

Thank you so much for your service.

Thank you for all you do for the kingdom.

The Lord bless you indeed.

In Jesus' name.

Thank you so much.

And it will interest you to know that we have 75 teachers and assistants.

Wow.

Yeah.

And and that's awesome to the glory of God.

We have um uh the last count, we have about 250 people that attend small groups uh on Sunday mornings, and I want to challenge you today.

If you do not have any class, it's your day today to join, and we trust that the hands of the Lord will lead you in the right direction today.

In Jesus' name.

So I want to say this that um all small groups in this church, we have about five C's that we pursue.

We pursue Christ as Lord, we take care of ourselves, we are a community that bonds together and a place of connection, and above all, we learn through the use of curriculum.

I like to say this that by the grace of God, effective next Sunday, the church would start using a unified curriculum from credo to the senior adults.

That means either your child is in the in the um K to 2nd, second, uh third to fourth, up to the senior adults will be using a unified curriculum.

In our classes, by God's grace, today you will have the lessons for next Sunday to take home.

And if you have attended the morning small group, go by your class.

You are still going to get some copies before leaving the church today.

On this note, on behalf of the pastor of the church and the entire church leadership, I want to singularly appreciate Dr.

Mapes.

Dr.

Mapes had been one of our small group teachers that has taught for 23 years.

And this year he has asked to step down from teaching.

So as a church, we celebrate you, Dr.

Mapes.

We are honored to have you as God's servant, and we pray that the Lord will continue to increase you and all that belongs to you in Jesus' name.

Yeah.

So this time around, I want to give room for um testimonies.

To be honest with you, I know every class has one person or the other will want to share testimony.

But because of time, in fact, this morning I still have to lovingly say no to someone.

But we just take two individuals to share their testimonies of what a small group, uh, small group has meant to them or what benefits or blessings they've had in their small groups.

Please invite as I well uh celebrate with me as I welcome Sister Andrea and Brother Steve, please.

Let's come, let's do this.

So ladies first, right?

All right, Sir Andrea.

I'm used to being first having um a name that starts with A.

Um, so some of you guys may know me.

We've been coming here for about six years.

I have two daughters, Daphne and Delilah, um, ages 13 and 10.

So, you know, we're in the throes of preteen and teenager attitudes.

Um, so being a part of a small group has impacted my walk with God by showing me that God still shows up for the small things.

And while he still answers big prayers, he answers the small ones too.

Recently, God showed me that when I asked my small group to pray that God would send a math tutor for my ambitious eighth grader who is taking algebra one for high school credit.

Three days later, he answered that prayer through two different people who had no idea that there was a need.

Um being in a church is great.

Being connected to a small group is where growth and doing life together starts to take root.

Life is hard, but doing life without connection or support is even harder.

The picture that comes to mind is when Israel was fighting the Amalekites in Exodus 17.

Moses stood on a hill, and as long as his hands lifted were lifted up, the Israelites were winning, but his hands were getting tired.

So Aaron and her each supported his hands so he could keep them lifted up until the Israelites defeated them.

For me, that is that has been the biggest blessing of my small group.

We support each other, not only when life is easy, but most importantly when life is challenging.

Uh rewind back to uh Memorial Day weekend.

I started uh the weekend on in on Friday in the Piedmont Newton ER and found out that I had a very angry gallbladder that needed to be removed, so they told me I needed to stay and get that taken out as soon as possible.

Saturday morning, after I finally got admitted into the hospital, uh when things started settling down before the surgery, I posted a prayer request on our small group Facebook page, and almost immediately it lit up with people praying.

And you can imagine what a mental comfort that was.

And here I didn't even know what a gallbladder was.

I I could tell you exactly where I was located, but I I didn't know what it was.

And uh that was a great comfort, but it just seemed like for the for the next three to four days when everything was transpiring, um God was just making the path straight for us.

I encountered six doctors in various capacities during those days, none of whom I'd ever heard of before, I'd ever seen, including the surgeon on call, and all of them were wonderful.

All of them were exactly who I needed at that time.

And the medical staff was wonderful, the nurses were wonderful, nurses were wonderful.

And uh I had some great conversations at crazy hours in the night.

I even got a stack of graham crackers as a treat the night after the surgery when they had to wake me up and take my vitals in.

That may sound like a little thing, but I'm I'm gonna assure you that was a big thing at that time.

It was enough to make me believe in angels when they brought that.

But uh just I think it's just a common theme here.

Uh small groups is a way that uh you can develop a community of friends that are there for you and can support you and and you're for therefore them.

Uh Friday or Saturday morning at three o'clock in the morning, late on a journey.

I never thought I would be up here justifying about prayer from our small group, but praise God.

Thank you so much, Bras Steve and Sister Andrea.

I know our pastor is still gonna emphasize uh more about the modalities for the fare after the worship, but I'd like to say this today we are privileged to know that Jesus fed 5,000 individuals with five loaves of bread and two uh pieces of fish, right?

Do you know?

Have you ever thought about how they got the records?

The Gospel of Mark said Jesus told them to sit in small groups of 50.

Yeah.

Now you know.

Please choose to sit in a small group.

Thank you.

Nobody knows what a gallbladder is until you have problems with it.

Amen.

And then it's the biggest part of your body.

Thank y'all for the testimony.

So this morning we are going to be speaking of small groups, and I can't think of any better way within a body of Christ to connect and fulfill community within a small group of individuals that you meet with on a regular basis, centered around the Word of God, expressing the one another's that are found in Scripture as we are a part of the body of Christ.

Will you pray with me as we begin to look at this topic this morning that I've entitled Better Together?

Father, we ask that God, you would move in our hearts, uh, God, towards community.

Father, not just simply to gather together to have coffee and donuts, but God, to center our lives around your word and around the fellowship that you have given to us, made available to us in the body of Christ.

God, I pray the Holy Spirit would draw those to get connected into a small group that are maybe timid, that have not done that.

Or, Lord, if it's a step of commitment they need to take.

God, I pray that you would move hearts this morning.

Father, I pray that you would uh revive the hearts of those that are in small groups, God's small group leaders, Lord, to uh to really endeavor to build the community that you've called us to be.

We ask it in Christ's name.

Amen.

Well, I have entitled this morning's message, Better Together.

And if you ask me, is there a prescription for small groups within the Bible, I would probably have to answer that as no.

I don't think there are definitive prescriptions that you must be connected into a small group.

However, we find throughout the New Testament and also the Old Testament where there are descriptions of how those who are Christ's followers and those who are the children of God gather together in groups for encouragement and primaria means of discipleship and growing.

But in order to do that, when you take the Sunday morning gathering and we're all assembled here in rows this morning, well, my encouragement would be that we maybe we go from rows to relationship, and that's where they're built mostly, is in small groups.

We find one of those descriptions early in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 2, verse 42, where it speaks of those early Christ followers there in Jerusalem who had trusted Christ as their salvation.

Acts 2:42

They began to gather together as a body.

And the verse says, and they devoted these believers, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and prayers.

The early believers we find throughout, particularly the book of Acts, didn't just gather on Sunday mornings.

Many of them still participated in Sabbath at the temple, but then as Christians gathered together on Sunday mornings or Sundays to exercise within the body.

Acts 2.46 says that they attended the temple together that would have been on the Sabbath, and they also during the week broke bread in their homes.

Acts chapter 5, verse 42 says that their ministry occurred in the temple and from house to house.

Acts 5:42

Acts 20, verse 20, we find that we know that Paul would teach publicly in an open square, but also he would go from house to house, assumably where believers were gathered in smaller groups than to open and teach the word.

Acts 20:20

Now, for the purposes of this morning, you can call what may have traditionally been called our small groups.

You could call them Sunday school classes, and that's certainly appropriate to call it that.

We can call it small groups, is what we have decided here to call them.

You can call them discipleship groups, but in the words of a famous American, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a what?

It's still a pig.

So we encourage you, we want to encourage you to gather together in small groups together so that we can be, as Christ has called us, to be a body of believers.

So number one, reasons why we should commit to, connect in, and participate in a small group.

Reason number one is that we need one another.

Now I know that we emphasize that being in relationship to Christ, being born again, is a personal matter.

In other words, we don't come into relationship with God because we join a particular church.

But it's where the individual trusts Christ for their salvation, and that is a personal relationship with God.

But our Christianity, our belief in Christ, our walk with Him was never intended to be a private one.

There are many believers that say, you know, I can still follow Jesus and not have to be connected into a church body or into a small group, but I would sorely say that that is simply a thing that does not work.

The example oftentimes is given that when you have a fire and you have coals in the fire, and you remove one of those coals from the rest of the coals, what happens to that individual coal that you remove from the fire?

It goes out.

But once you put it back in to the fire with the other coals, it continues to burn.

Romans 12 verse 5 says, So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

Romans 12:5

God has designed the body of Christ simply to act as a family.

I remember when I was growing up and we would have family gatherings.

I was one of 62 first cousins.

My mother was one of 14 kids, and we would gather together for family gatherings.

And at those family gatherings, you would find that my great-grandmother was there, my grandmother and grandfather were there, all of my aunts and uncles were there, my older cousins were there, my younger cousins were there, and simply we gather together as a family.

And I would encourage you that in the body of Christ, while we often segregate our groups based on life station or based on age, that the way that God has intended for the body to be is that we be like a family to one another.

Some of you who are younger need to have those who us who are older and have experienced life where we have made some dumb decisions.

Anybody made any dumb decisions in your life?

And we can tell you that listen, this is a dumb decision you're about to make.

And trust me, you need to listen to me because I've learned through experience.

I, as an older adult, I love being around young individuals because I learn where they are, and many of them have wisdom that I yet don't have.

And so we need the body together as one another, as collective body.

Well, in order to do the one another's that we find listed in the old in the New Testament, we have got to have others in our life.

I'm going to show some slides and maybe you want to take some pictures of the New Testament commands of one another because I simply can't give every verse reference to them.

But in the New Testament, there are a number of one another commands that we are given.

I'm going to list those out to you, and you can take pictures on the screen to look at those references later, and I would encourage you to do that.

Or you can write on your connect card.

I want to list to the one another's, and we'll email that to you.

But the New Testament commands us to love one another.

New Testament tells us that we're to be devoted to one another, that we're to honor one another, that we're to live in harmony with one another, that we're to welcome one another, that we're to care for one another, that we're to serve one another, that we're to bear one another's burdens, and that we're to bear with one another, that we're to be kind to one another, that we're to forgive one another, that we're to submit to one another, that we're to teach one another, that we're to admonish one another, that we're to encourage one another, that we're to build one another up, that we're to do good to one another, that we're to stir one another toward love and good works, that we're to confess sins to one another, that we're to pray for one another, that we're to show hospitality to one another, that we're to use our gifts to serve one another, and that we're to close ourselves, clothe ourselves with humility toward one another.

Now you cannot, you cannot do these one another's if you're not part of another.

Amen.

Those are all New Testament commands.

And when they are given, the idea is that as the body of Christ, as the family of God, as we are part of a body, we belong to one another, and these one another are to be exercised within the body of Christ so that we might be built up.

1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 21, giving that illustration of the body, and that there are many different parts to the body, and the body is made up of many different gifts and many different uh ethnicities, many different uh ages, many different backgrounds.

1 Corinthians 12:21

Paul writes this, he says, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you.

Folks, I need you and you need me.

Can you say amen to that?

The other night I was Wednesday night, I was teaching our or facilitating our uh art of marriage class, and I was speaking to the married couples, and I said, Now, listen, I learned a long time ago that it does no good for me to practice the one-anothers in the body of Christ if I'm not first endeavoring to practice the one-another's at home.

Amen.

You see, I didn't want to be anything different in public than what I was at home.

And so the first place that we begin to practice these one-anothers are in the family, in the home, and in particular, husbands and wives to one another, moms to children, dad to children, as a family unit.

We practice these one another's.

My encouragement to you is to go back and look at these during this next week and ask the Lord, God, how am I expressing these one another in my family, and how am I expressing them in the body of Christ?

Secondly, the reason that we need small groups or be connected in is that we need a place where we can know, where we can know and be known, that we can know others and be known.

Look at what he says in that verse in Acts chapter 2, verse 42.

Acts 2:42

It says they devoted themselves to the fellowship.

Now, that word in the Greek that's translated fellowship is the Greek word kononia.

And it carries the idea of having fellowship with one another.

It carries the idea of sharing with one another, it has the idea of participation with one another in each other's lives.

It has the idea of partnering, partnership within.

So biblical fellowship is much deeper than casual conversations.

As much as I love getting with guys and razzing them about their favorite college football team that lost yesterday, speaking of our state, Texas did a great job on them last night.

Amen.

That's fun.

I enjoy that.

But fellowship, Christian fellowship.

Goes far deeper than talking about yesterday's rousing of another football team.

It goes far deeper than just connecting and finding what your emotions are or just enjoying a latte together.

Christian fellowship involves getting connected where I can be known and you can be known to me.

And see, a small group should provide a place where somebody notices that you're missing.

I peruse the congregation usually every Sunday morning and sometimes Monday to try to think, who's been there?

Who have I seen?

But can I tell you that I cannot, for the sake of me, keep up with every person in this room?

Amen.

Sometimes I'll notice that you've not been in the seat that you're normally in, and I might say, Well, you know, I need to reach out to so-and-so and see where they've been.

And then they tell me that they've moved on me, and I'm like, you are not a good Baptist.

I called Andrea or text Andrea a few weeks ago.

I said, Andrea, I hadn't seen you.

She shared her testimony this morning.

She said, Oh, we've moved up to the balcony.

I'm like, oh, is it getting too hot for you down in the front?

So it's impossible.

But when you're connected into a small group, somebody knows if you're missing or they should know.

Amen.

And it's the responsibility of the small group then to be responsible to one another, not just the leader, but the small group participants to reach out and say, hey, I haven't noticed you.

Is everything okay in life?

It's not a reaching out to say, where have you been?

But it's a reaching out to say, man, is everything okay?

Here's one thing I've noticed after 35 years of pastoral ministry.

That when somebody begins to miss and miss repetitively, there's something else going on in their life that's drawing them away.

And I'm not saying that it's sin.

It may be a sin.

It may be a hurt that they're going through.

It may be a difficult time that they're going through.

But whenever I see people begin to drift away, I know there's something else in their life.

Why do I know that?

Because the Holy Spirit works in our hearts and causes us to desire to be with one another.

And so I need a place that I can be known, and I need a place where I can know others.

You see, the Bible tells us to rejoice with those who are rejoicing and to mourn or to weep with those who are mourning.

I can't rejoice with somebody if I don't know what's happening in their life.

I can't weep for somebody if I don't know that they're going through a challenging time in your life.

And a small group provides a place where someone notices that you are missing.

Let me say that again.

Someone can attend a church service regularly, but still remain largely unknown.

That's not God's intention.

Community in a small group, however, says, I know you.

Community in a small group says, I see you.

Community in a small group says, you know, something's not right today with you.

What's going on in your life?

Community in a small group asks the question, how are you doing?

Community in a small group asks the question, how can I pray for you?

Or community in a small group means, hey guys, I need you to pray for me because.

And to know that they are praying for me.

We heard the testimonies of prayer this morning.

You see, a small group provides a place where we can not only receive encouragement and help when life hits, but it's also a place where we can give to others when life hits them.

You see, if Galatians 6.2 says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

You can mark this down.

Eventually, everybody carries something that's too heavy to carry along.

Every one of us will face life situations that are too heavy to carry along.

It might be grief.

Made two phone calls yesterday where members are grieving over loss.

It might be marriage difficulties that are going on, and you need a brother or sister that can tell you, listen, I'm praying for you, or you're being a bonehead and you need to change.

Amen.

Parenting struggles.

How do I deal with that preteen and that teen?

My recommendation is to put them in a barrel and seal it up until they reach 21.

That was Mark Twain's advice.

Where you hit physical illness, gallbladder, financial pressure, maybe there's been a job loss.

There's a temptation that you're being faced with, that there's temptation that's real, and you're battling in that temptation.

It can be discouragement, it can be spiritual dryness.

Sometimes we need people in our lives just to say, listen, don't give up.

Keep going.

Amen.

Trust God.

Thirdly, we need a place where we can serve and use our gifts.

1 Peter 4.10 says this as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

This morning's teaching is not on gifts, but let me give you three passages where Paul specifically mentions different gifts within the body, but I would add to that, this is not limited to what the giftings or abilities God has placed in our lives.

1 Corinthians chapter 12, beginning in verse 4 through verse 11.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 to 13.

Ephesians 4:11–13

Romans chapter 12, verses 6 to 8.

Romans 12:6–8

You see, every single believer, according to the Scripture, has been given a gift.

And the gifts that you and I, gift or gifts, the gifts that you and I have been given are not for ourselves.

But the scriptures clearly tell us that we've been given those gifts so that the body of Christ might be built up.

You see, God gave you a gift as a part of the body of Christ.

And if you're not using that gift to serve others or to build up the body, then the church collectively is missing something that God intends for it to have.

You see, small groups give believers opportunities to move from being consumers to contributors.

Small groups give the opportunity for believers to be moved from consumers only to contributors to the body of Christ.

Some of the things that we can do in a small group context is that we can teach, we can encourage one another, we can pray for one another, we can provide hospitality, we can organize, we can serve, we can mentor others, we can give, we can show mercy, we can help somebody practically, we can share wisdom, we can care for someone who's hurting within a small group.

We need to understand that church has not been designed where there should be a select group of individuals that only those have certain gifts and they're to do everything in the church.

See, I think the strongest place in the body of Christ that gifts can be exercised is within a small group.

Sometimes when I talk to an individual and they're going through a difficulty or they're going through a challenge, or maybe they've disappeared and I had no idea where they went.

They didn't say anything to anybody, they just left and they come to mine and I reach out to them and they say, Well, you know, nobody noticed me.

I'm like, my first question is, what small group are you a part of?

And nine times out of ten, they were not connected into a small group.

You see, small group is where we exercise our gifts, it's where we use those to encourage others, it's where we're built up.

John 13, 35, Jesus said this: By this all people will know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another.

You see, a healthy, small group becomes a small expression of the larger body of Christ.

I've kind of come to the conclusion that a healthy small group, and listen, I've been involved in small groups since the very week, I think, that I came to know Christ.

But a healthy small group is inviting to those who have not come to know Christ when they see a small group in action.

I can't tell you the number of stories throughout the weeks that I hear of someone in the body of Christ that either is having a difficulty or they're celebrating an anniversary or things like that, with a small group comes around and meets that need.

I would say that most people in the body of Christ that have needs, whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual, if they're connected into a small group, those are met there and we never hear about it in the church office.

What am I saying?

I'm saying get connected into a small group.

We need a place where we can care for one another.

First Corinthians 12, 25 says that members should have the same care for one another.

You see, when somebody's sick, we care.

When somebody's grieving, we care.

When somebody's struggling, we care.

When somebody needs prayer, we care.

When somebody needs encouragement, we care, we encourage.

When someone has a practical need, then we serve them.

The next thing is that we need a place where we can share the mission.

Acts chapter 2 shows us that the early church was not merely inward focused, because sometimes that's the argument against small groups.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Where we're so inwardly focused.

And can I propose to you that the body, as we gather together on Sunday mornings, as we gather together in our small groups, that the intent of that is so that the body of Christ can be built up.

The intent is not so we make it seeker-friendly and design it around the one that's not saved.

There is that time and there's that place to be in mission, but it's first got to be built within the body of Christ as a body.

Does everybody understand what I'm saying with that?

You see, the doctrine ecclesiology says that the church is Christ's body.

And if you're not a member of Christ's body in relationship to him by being born again, you're not a part of the church, right?

And so the church is there to build one another up, to share, not only to meet the needs within the congregation, but also to share in the mission that God has called us to.

What is our mission here at First Conyers?

Win disciple and sin.

The first part of that is that we are called to display the grace of God, just as God has displayed his grace in our life.

God has called us to display his grace to those who are not yet a part of the body of Christ, to all peoples, and we have a responsibility to win them to Jesus, disciple them in Jesus, and then send them for Jesus.

Notice what they did in Acts chapter 2, verse 47.

Acts 2:47

They were praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

You see, I think a healthy small group, again, this is my opinion.

You can take it, leave it, chunk it, or flush it.

It's my opinion.

But I believe that a healthy small group should always have an empty chair mentality.

What I mean by that, that is, every small group needs to have the question, who's not here yet?

Who do I know in my life that needs to come to know Christ?

And we share that prayer request with our small group and we pray for that person's salvation, and then when that person comes to know Christ, we all rejoice together because we saw God working through that, and another one has entered the kingdom of God by trusting Christ.

Who is it that needs community?

Who within the body do I see that that comes in for the service but leaves afterwards?

And yeah, they're in attendance in the service, but they're not connected into the body.

And we look around, and it should be that every one of us that are sitting in these rows this morning that will go to relationship either after this service or we'll go into relationship to small groups before the service, look on their row and ask the question, even, hey, are you connected into a small group?

And if the answer is no, it's well, come on, I would love for you to come to my small group today so that I can help get you connected into community.

Amen?

Or am I?

You see, the responsibility is not Pastor Abi Oye's as the education pastor.

We're gonna try to help connect people into small groups, but the greatest marketing for small groups within the church are those who are part of a small group.

And you're a part of it because you see value in it, and there's something that you receive, and there's something that you can give within that small group, and that brings joy.

So it's a place where we can share in the mission.

Small groups should not be holy huddles, they should become mission outposts.

You see, small groups are not just simply a place where we disseminate information.

I'm excited about the new curriculum that we're doing church-wide now as we go through the Gospel of John together.

But it's not designed, it should not be a place where there's just simply information that's disseminated.

But as we center around the Word of God together and grow in the Word, we also grow in relationship to Him, and we grow in relationship to one another, and we apply and live out that which we are learning in our lives.

Amen.

You see, we should come together to pray for lost people, to invite people together, to serve our community together.

We we have an outreach wing of the church and we do some large outreach events.

This truth conference coming up as one of those.

But would it be that maybe as a small group we begin to see the idea that we as a small group, rather than waiting for church incorporated with the professionals to organize something, maybe we as a small group begin to get a burden for this area of the community, and we go in there ourselves and meet that.

Are y'all with me?

See, these are things we can do as a small group together.

We don't have to wait for church incorporated to organize these things.

Can I tell you that you can do it much more effective as your own small group as you can at large?

I remember several weeks ago I ran into a little girl that's in the preteens.

Ran into her at Publix.

That's my second home, Publix.

And she comes up and she hugs me, says, Hey Pastor J-Mo, what are you doing?

I just came back and we went to the mountains together.

And she said, Harold sure is funny.

It was a fellowship together, and it's building her up in that.

She not only had a good time, but I could tell there was something that was in it that was meaningful to her.

And we can turn those events into outreach events just as well.

And let me land this plane.

Let me wrap it up because I want to give you time to look at some tables in the back where you can get connected into a small group.

In concluding, I'd say don't just attend church, but get connected in church.

There is a significant difference between attending a church and belonging to a church family.

Significant difference between attending a church and belonging to a church family.

You can sit around in a worship service with hundreds of people around you, and you can still be alone.

Anybody ever been in a room full of people and feel alone?

There are some this morning that are here.

God has something better for his people.

Notice in Acts 2.42, they devoted themselves.

Can I tell you, community does not happen accidentally?

We're starving, we're looking for community, somewhere to belong.

It doesn't happen by osmosis.

You have to be intentional to get engaged in community.

It's going to require maybe some uncomfortable setting for you.

Maybe you are an absolute introvert and it scares you to death to go into a group.

Can I say something?

You can go in without saying a word.

That's okay.

Just be there.

Express your love and let others express their love to you.

It requires time to be devoted.

It means that that I am committed to the relationship and the community that I have in my small group.

And I'm going to invest my time there in relationship.

I'm going to show up when we meet.

I'm going to show up when we gather.

I'm going to open my life up as best as I can.

I'm going to serve.

I'm going to try to help meads that are there.

I'm going to try to get to know everybody in that group.

So four questions I want to close with.

Number one is within the context of this room, who knows you?

Not simply your name, but knows you, knows what's happening in your life.

Number two, who are you serving with your gifts?

Where are you using your gifts that God has entrusted to you?

He's given to you by his grace.

Where are you using those?

In a small group.

Who are you encouraging today?

Who's stronger in their walk with Christ because you are a part of their life?

You see, there are those who desperately want to grow in their faith and they need others to come along.

And sometimes they're too embarrassed to say, I need to grow, or too embarrassed to say, where did you find Joel?

Verse 2.

They need someone to help them along, to encourage them in that.

Who's encouraging you?

Who can you open up to in a challenging time in life that reciprocating that?

Who can encourage you?

Are you connected into a group?

Listen, don't settle for just attending a church, first conjurers, but get connected.

Find a small group, build relationships, share life with one another, carry each other's burdens, pray together, serve together, use your gifts, encourage one another, and build one another up and reach other people for Christ together.

You see, God's plan for the Christian life was never just Jesus and me.

It's Jesus and us.

We're the body.

We just want to encourage you to get connected in a small group and grow.

Now not grow physically.

We're only doing donuts today.

But that you might grow together as a body.

Let's pray.

Father, we love you and we thank you for your grace and mercy.

Oh God, we pray that Father, you would move in our body to greater degree and greater extent, God, to be connected together in relationships.

And God, that we had enjoyed the benefit that you provided for us in that.

God, I pray that you would give courage to the one that might be timid.

God, I pray that you would change the heart of the one that's not willing to commit.

God, I pray that you'd bring conviction to draw us into community.

God, we ask this in Jesus' name for his sake.

Amen.