Community Groups

All three of those metrics are critical. If you don’t gather, you won’t grow. If you don’t grow, you weaken your mission. But when you gather, you grow deep, stand tall and reach wide, “like a tree planted by streams of water.”

The three words that illustrate our core principles for Community Groups are Up, In, and Out.

Community Groups nurture our worship of God. A group's first focus must be on God himself. Exploring God's Word together and joining others in prayer is a means of grace. It's how we believe God on behalf of one another. 1 John 4:19 - "We love because he first loved us." We love and relate to one another because of His love for us.

Community Groups care for one another as a family. Since we are made in the image of a Trinitarian God, we can only bear God's image fully in community. In Christ we have been called to a family of believers, not an individual salvation. The most common metaphor to depict the church in the New Testament is a family. 1 John 4:11 - "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

Community Groups reach non-believers with the Gospel. The Community Groups do not exist solely for themselves, but to advance the Kingdom of God in the places that we live and work. Group members engage non-Christians with the Gospel through personal relationships, local outreach, and neighboring those in our community. Matthew 28:19 - "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,"

Two weeks of study & discussion

One week of outreach

One week of fellowship

Discipleship Groups (D-Groups) are small (ideally 2-4), same-gender groups where men and women come alongside one another to help in their pursuit of faithfully following Jesus.

We prioritize discipleship at GraceLife. A disciple is a follower of Jesus. A student. A family member. A missionary. But what he or she is not, is alone. We are better together. We need encouragement. We need friendship. We need community. We need others to come alongside us and help us see Jesus more clearly and ourselves more clearly.

One New Testament writer said it like this:

Hear that language? We need help holding onto Jesus. Part of that help is to be reminded that Jesus is holding onto us—and He'll never let go!

A tight-knit D-Group provides space for believers to get personal. To hone in on aspects of discipleship that larger Community Groups may not be able to address as effectively. Namely: Confessing and fighting sin. Walking in the light. Being totally real and honest with our struggles. Doing life together. Applying God’s Word to our present circumstances. And praying together for one another’s specific needs.