The freedom, healing, and joy of community

My husband, Chase, and I joined HPUMC about six months ago. We both felt like God was encouraging us to launch a Small Group. We have always had a passion for community and connecting and investing in the churches we have been a part of, so this seemed like the perfect way to do that!

So, we signed up to be launch group leaders. We went to the luncheon to begin our training, and the one line I heard that stuck out to me was, “To be a small group leader doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers. Instead, it means you are willing to search out the answers you don’t know with the people you love in your community.”

I feel like this is one of the main reasons people get afraid to jump into launching a Small Group or to even be in a Small Group at all—they feel unequipped. They feel like they don’t have all the answers.

But that is the beautiful thing—none of us do. However, we are in relationship with God, who can handle our questions and loves to take us on a journey to figure out the answers with Him.

“It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out.”

As we began our Small Group, our biggest prayer was that God would put the people He wanted in our group and that there would be an instant, easy connection—and that’s EXACTLY what He did. He is so faithful and good!

Because we were all coming out of a season of forced hibernation due to Covid, each couple in our group came hungry and ready to dive into deep community. I was SHOCKED to see how in sync everybody’s desire was for community, connection, authentic relationship, and raw accountability!

There was diversity in our group as far as our faith walks go. Some had been walking with Jesus for a long time, while others were really still trying to figure it out. But the one common connection was a hunger to grow closer to Him, and that’s what keeps us unified.

During our first meeting, after doing a hilarious ice breaker (which loosened up the room so much), we all shared a little bit about what we were looking for out of the group. Once again it was SO apparent that this group was brought together strategically and perfectly by the hand of God.

The next few weeks I noticed that after we picked up our kids from childcare our group would always proceed to hang out outside of the church in the parking lot for an hour, just talking, connecting, and laughing! I couldn’t believe it!

God wants His people to be connected and seen, and He wants His people to walk together authentically because there is a growth that comes in community that I believe we can’t receive anywhere else.

We feel so honored to have had the privilege to launch a Small Group at HPUMC. I believe that God is at work in the church, knocking on people’s hearts, asking them to dive into deeper community.

There is freedom, breakthroughs, healing, and joy to be had in a community that is free for all to experience!