Biblical Community & Discipleship
Since the earliest days of our church, Fellowship has maintained biblical community as one of our core values.  And the primary way we’ve pursued community at Fellowship has been through community groups:  small groups of 12-16 adults meeting in homes during the week to study and to encourage one another to mature in the faith and give our lives away. In the past, we asked every member at Fellowship to belong to one of these community groups. And as you’ve learned over the past year, that approach is changing.  

Not the Only Model…
We still believe in the community group model and we will still have community groups going forward.  What is changing, though, is that community groups will no longer serve as our only model of discipleship.  One of the things we’ve learned over the past fifteen years is that community groups do not uniformly meet everyone’s spiritual needs and they certainly do not work for everyone at all times and in every season of life.  They work incredibly well for some, in some seasons, but they also have some very clear limitations.  This is especially true when we recognize that there are many different seasons in our lives, and also in our spiritual journeys, where we need different things from the body of Christ.   

Finding Your Unique Place
We have certainly seen this truth lived out over the years at Fellowship.  In addition to community groups, we now have full-scale counseling ministries and local and global ministry partners and men’s and women’s ministries and one-to-one discipleship efforts and marriage ministries and more.  And instead of elevating community groups over and above these different ministries, what we are doing now is bringing all of these different ministry areas alongside community groups and offering them all to the body.  We are no longer asking every member to take a single, uniform step that applies to everyone.  Instead, we are asking everyone at Fellowship to find their unique place in the body of Christ, whether that place is in a community group or in one of the other incredible ministries that God has launched here.  

The Mission Never Changes – Making Disciples
In addition to this change in the model, we also want to begin initiating some change within community groups themselves.  Over time, ministries can begin to drift away from their original purpose.  And if you look back at our founding principles as a church, our mission was never really to get everybody into a community group.  The mission, of course, was (and is!) to become and make disciples of Jesus.  And community groups remain a helpful way to do that. 

Types of Groups
But it never hurts to ask “Are community groups doing that now?”  The answer, of course, is yes and no.  Some groups are doing an incredible job of helping one another follow Jesus, and other groups are struggling for direction and purpose.  We want to come alongside groups in all of these different stages and help offer some clarity and direction, and also to share what we’ve learned about community groups.  

First, we want you to know that you as a community group leader have the freedom to continue leading your group in whatever manner has been working for you.  We are not mandating any change at all, so long as you are pursuing sound, biblical community in ways that help people follow Jesus.  

Second, for those who are interested, we also want to offer an opportunity to clarify the purpose of your group.  One of the ways we will be leading going forward is through giving you options to name the kind of group you feel called to lead.  And to initiate that process, we want to give you three choices: 

• Bible Studies: Bible Studies are exactly what they sound like:  groups of people who come together for a period of time to study and learn more about the Bible and its principles. Certainly there will be elements of relationship and fun and prayer, but the primary purpose of these groups will be the Word.  And they will typically be led by a teacher. 

• Care and Connection Groups: People grow in the context of authentic community. We still believe that deeply, and it is especially true when a group of people feels safe enough to open up to one another and to genuinely respond with care and connection. These groups typically are led by a caring shepherd, and they offer plenty of space for fun, relationship-building, gathering around the Word from time to time,
  open conversation and prayer.  

• Pilot Ideas: As we step into a season of change in our model, we want to give freedom to leaders to start a conversation with us around ideas that you might have for spiritual growth in our body.  As we talk about and explore the forms that these new ideas might take, our hope is to empower you as followers of Christ to fully and freely express how God has wired you as a leader and shepherd in the body.  We want to do whatever we can to help you do that, and our name for this new conversation is Pilot Ideas.  We’ll learn more as we go!  

We’re looking forward to connecting with you in the year ahead and talking about where God is leading you as you help lead His people.  It’s an important job, and we’re mindful of the weight we all carry. 

With deep prayer and hope for the season ahead! 
Wade