Group Life this Summer

It has been a month since our Sunday morning schedule change.  The enthusiasm about the worship services has been high.  I believe God has used this to invigorate our corporate worship experience each Sunday.  We continue to pray that God's Spirit would infill our worship services each Sunday.

In the meantime, we need to remember that a very important piece of our strategy for making disciples is group life.  The Adult Bible Fellowships (ABF), the Student Bible Fellowships (SBF), and the Children Bible Fellowships (CBF) are our primary way to engage people in group life.  We need not neglect this because much of the spiritual and numerical growth of our church is directly related to this.

As we approach summer at Calvary, we have a great opportunity to move forward in our vision of being a church that “loves God and loves people.”  Being part of a group where we experience community and where we reach out in loving ways to others is a very key aspect of living out the Great Commandment (Mark 12:30-31).

Because of the nature of summer in the Valley, we are ceasing our Wednesday activities at the church campus (with a couple of exceptions).  This will free up our Adult Bible Fellowships relating to our three services (classic, contemporary and Spanish) to meet beyond Sunday morning.  (ABF’s will continue to meet on Sunday morning).

The purpose of ABF mid-week experiences is (1) to reach out and serve others, and (2) to build community among group members.  The nature, frequency and time for these mid-week experiences will be determined by each ABF.  (The Spanish ABF’s will meet on campus in June and off-campus in July/August).  It will also be up to each ABF to determine how to best include participation from children and youth that relate to them.  Additionally, there will be a summer home group for Middle School students on Tuesdays and for High School students on Wednesdays.

We are excited about these growth opportunities and hope many will take advantage of them.  This is not meant to provide more activity for the sake of activity or more work for ABF leaders.  It is meant as an opportunity to do things that Bible Fellowships are designed to do.  It is hoped that this will also be an opportunity to empower other individuals in the group to give leadership to outreach, fellowship, hosting, etc.

Please be in prayer for this, encourage leaders and groups to take advantage of it and remember that our staff is ready to help and facilitate this.