An essential small group at New Life Community Church is our L.I.F.E. Groups. The acronym L.I.F.E. reminds us of the purposes of our small groups:
Loving others
Interceding for others
Fellowshipping with one another
Evangelizing the lost
We guarantee that being a committed and sacrificially loving member of a L.I.F.E. Group will bring tremendous benefits to you and your family — the kind of blessings you can’t buy with money, or maybe even find anywhere else. But let’s be honest. Even if L.I.F.E. Groups at New Life are great, just the thought of being committed to a small group of people may produce some mixed feelings. We know what you’re thinking. Many of us at New Life have asked the same questions you might be asking:
- “When do we have time? Johnny has Cub Scouts three nights a week, little Suzy has dance lessons two nights a week, and I’ll die without Monday Night Football!”
- “What if I don’t ‘click’ with any of these people? Will I really fit in?”
- “What do I need more friends for? Between my family and work mates, I’ve got all the relationships I need. More than I want sometimes!”
- “I’m not going to have to do some of that ‘male bonding’ stuff or anything am I?”
- “What if I have to be open? I mean if I keep a ‘respectable’ distance then I’ll stay ‘respectable.’ If people really get to know me, they might not like what they find out.”
All of these would be legitimate questions if . . . if you were not a Christian! As a child in God’s family, the Father has certain expectations of your life. Our Father has been very clear in communicating His most important expectations of how you are to live in His Family with your Christian brothers and sisters. The relationships we have with our spiritual siblings are a critical issue for the Father. In fact He’s even kind of blunt about it: “Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:20-21)
Loving our Christian brothers and sisters certainly requires having a friendship with them. Families were never intended to be an island, but to be intimately connected with the rest of the Christian family through sharing their life with other Christian families. This, and nothing short of it, is Authentic Christianity. This is the way it was meant to be. And only through small extended families of Christians like L.I.F.E. Groups will we ever consistently have it.
Joining a L.I.F.E. Group
It’s easy! For a current roster of L.I.F.E. Groups, leaders, meeting times, and demographics, click here.