Equipping home group leaders
Winston Churchill once said, ”We create our buildings and our buildings create us.”
Unfortunately this is often true in the church. When Jesus walked on this earth He demonstrated with His followers that God’s life among them took place everywhere, not just in religious buildings or at religious times. Some of His most powerful teachings were in the most non-religious settings: sitting in a fishing boat (Mk 4:1); walking through a grain field (Mk 2:23-28); relaxing at a dinner table ( Lk 7:36-50); resting on a mountain side (Mt 5:1); waiting at a well (Jn 4). Life with Jesus and His people is to be everywhere all the time.
Jesus demonstrated that His life among His people was to be relationship-orientated not attendance-orientated or building-orientated We see it in the first expression of His church in Jerusalem Life took place in both “in the temple” and “house to house” on a daily basis. Acts 2:46-47 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, (47) praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. That pattern of both larger “temple” gatherings and smaller “house to house” gatherings are both important to becoming a relationship-orientated people.
God is a family and was a divine family before man was ever created. When He created man in His own image, that image contained the design to live and move in family relationships (Gen 1:26-28). He then gave them a mandate (be fruitful, multiply, fill, rule over, and subdue the earth). That creation design and mandate can be summed up in the phrase, “God’s family together (with God and each other) on God’s mission.” The Bible begins with His family walking together on God’s mission and ends with the culmination of that mission at the great family event the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:7-9).
Across our C2C family many churches gather in both larger “temple” gatherings as well as smaller “house to house” gatherings in order to help cultivate family relationships together on God’s mission. Recently Bread of Life church in FresnoCA (https://www.breadoflifechurchfresno.org/) under the leadership of Tom Bedford and Gilbert and Ann Delgado launched home groups.
Gilbert and Ann have been meeting together with the leaders of those groups for about a year. They have been meeting together to help mature and raise up servant leaders who will help shepherd God’s people under their care.
Doug Kreighbaum was able to join with them in February as they commissioned those leaders and launched home groups. On Sunday morning they laid hands on those leaders and commissioned them to serve their groups. We are looking forward to seeing God’s people there more effectively become God’s family together on God’s mission.