Contents
Introduction
Life Church is a cell church which means that, in addition to meeting as a whole congregation on Sundays, we also meet in small life groups during the week. A life group is a group of 3 – 15 believers who come together weekly outside of the church building for evangelism, community, and spiritual growth with the goal of making disciples who make disciples. As its members win people to Christ and turn them into disciples, the life group itself grows until it needs to multiply into more than one group in order to maintain the size of 3 – 15 that preserves intimacy.
At Life Church we do discipleship for busy people! You can read more about this on the following page:
About Our Life Groups – Life Church
Goals For Life Group Members
As we stated above, the overarching goal for our life groups is to make disciples who will themselves make disciples. We can break this down into some practical sub-goals however. By incorporating these goals into our Sunday sermons, much of the work of achieving these goals will be accomplished through the discussions and other components of the life group meetings.
As the life group members achieve these goals, the group will grow and eventually multiply. We want our life group leaders to become skilled at guiding a life group through he entire life cycle from launch to multiplication!
Our member goals are drawn from the following passages in Acts:
Acts 2:41-47, Acts 4:23-35, Acts 5:41-42, Acts 6:1-7; Acts 8:1-4
Putting these passages together we arrive at the following goals:
- Baptism – Acts 2:41-47
- The Apostles’ Teaching (i.e. the stories about Jesus that “went viral” and became Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Acts 2:41-47 - Fellowship – commitment to spending time with one another like extended family.
Acts 2:41-47 - Breaking of bread – eating meals together and celebrating the Lord’s Supper.
Acts 2:41-47 - Prayer – Individual and corporate prayer. Learning to know God’s voice. – Acts 2:41-47
- Sharing resources and responsibilities – Acts 2:41-47, Acts 4:23-35
- Meeting in small groups and in larger corporate gatherings. – Acts 2:41-47
- Praise and Worship – Acts 2:41-47
- Boldly promoting the good news that Jesus is the Christ and that God raised him from the dead.
Acts 4:23-35, Acts 5:41-42, Acts 8:1-4
These goals are of course intended for life group members (those who have made a commitment to follow Jesus and to the life group). The vast majority of these goals can be achieved through faithful participation in life group and Sunday service activities.
We also want our life group members to flourish and, towards that end, we will explore using the following Barna and Gloo Church Pulse metrics:
- Faith / Spiritual Life
- Relationships
- Vocation
- Finances
- Health (physical & emotional)
We want life group members to achieve these goals in stages:
Goals for right now:
For unsaved visitors:
- Deciding to follow Jesus:
- Life groups will often have unsaved visitors as a result of their evangelistic work.
- Our goal is to love our neighbors as ourselves, pray, and tell everyone the Good News, knowing that even though we plant seeds and water them, it is God who makes them grow. Luke 10:25-37; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Mark 16:15-16; 1 Corinthians 3:5-9
For everyone else:
- Get baptized.
- Focus on the Message: Begin this level of the Following Jesus curriculum.
- Start reading through the Gospel of Matthew and continue with the other gospels and the rest of the Bible.
- Join one of our Matthew-based discipleship Bible studies OR engage in one-on-one mentoring under the Matthew-based Focus on the Message curriculum.
- Learn to view the Sermon on the Mount as a guide to the Kingdom of God lifestyle.
- Family Up: Learn to “seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness” through faithful fellowship.
- Pray – Lay the foundation for a robust, lifelong commitment to effective prayer.
- Establish the habit of daily prayer in your life. Begin setting aside regular time for rest and reflection.
- Find a prayer partner from your life group and set a weekly time to pray together.
- Practice listening to God whenever you pray. Take note of what you believe God is saying to you and discuss it with your prayer partner or life group leader or other life group member.
- Include praying for the members of your life group in your weekly prayer schedule.
- Pray for 1 or 2 people that you want to become followers of Jesus.
- Pray for boldness to build your relationships with unchurched people and to talk about Jesus.
- Worship – Establish the habit of worship both in small and large group settings.
- Don’t let the enemy push you around! Learn to rebuke spirits that accuse you and that attempt to separate you from God and from fellowship.
- Giving – Learn to share resources with those in need. Learn to help support Life Church with your time, talent, and resources.
- Evangelism
- Write out your personal testimony of how you came to follow Jesus and learn to share it in 2 minutes or less.
- Ask God to show you the needs in your community and other spheres of influence. Regularly ask God in prayer what he might want you to do about these needs.
- Reach out to other life group members for help in any area where you’re struggling (e.g. prayer, worship, temptation, finances, etc.).
- Flourishing – You and your life group leader understand where you are in the 5 areas of flourishing: faith, relationships, vocation, finances, health.
Goals for the first year:
For unsaved visitors:
- Deciding to follow Jesus:
- Our goal continues to be to love our neighbors as ourselves, pray, and tell everyone the Good News, knowing that even though we plant seeds and water them, it is God who makes them grow. Luke 10:25-37; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Mark 16:15-16;