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Home Groups : Our Rationale
Although the Mission does have house groups, we prefer to call them "Growth Groups".
Their function is to help people grow, not only in their Christian life, but also in understanding their responsibilities as Christians to fulfil the great Commission, as in Matthew 28:
"Go therefore into all the world, and teach the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and The son, and The Holy Spirit"
As I mentioned on the Monday Group Page, we also run Christianity Explored, and Just for starters courses, for new Christians, and those interested in the Christian faith. Quite often , these are held in local pubs.
There are usually about 10 people in a group. Sometimes less,but more means a group should really split.
Leaders have all done a growth group leaders course. We try to have leaders and assistant leaders in groups, so that there is week to week continuity.
Even so, the week the leader can't make is also the week that the assistants cannot make either, often for totally different reasons.
At the moment, we have five growth groups.Four are evening, and one is afternoon.
This afternoon group is slightly different in that it is mainly for mothers of pre school or school age children. They use Scripture Union Lifebuilders, rather than Matthias. This is simply because of time, but also these group tends to have a lot of young Christians as well, so these are felt to be easier.
At the moment, the groups meet every evening of the week except Friday, although I believe that the Tuesday evening group will be moving to a Monday!
Groups try to run internal prayer chains, as we support each other in times of crisis, and blessing, and we also are responsible for two or three housebound members of the congregation.
