New Church and Life Groups

It has been quite a while since I've posted on this site. There are many reasons, but definitely not from the lack of God moving in our lives...quite the opposite actually. I just have to say I LOVE where God has us right now! For four years we have prayed for Christian couples/friends to fellowship with on a regular basis and now we finally have that prayer answered. Don't get me wrong we have made two great relationships with friends here, but we never got together on any sort of regular basis. Since we have started attending/leading this new church called the Lion's Den (referring to the scripture in Revelations) we have TOTALLY felt God's presence, purpose, and design for what he wanted "the church" to be in the first place. We prayed long and hard about switching churches because we really did and do love SHEC, but we always felt held back or limited there. We are not the sit-in-church-and-do-nothing types, so we felt like our gifts and talents were being wasted. This has really opened the door and I mean wide open for us to be used. Jared accepted the head deacon position and we are leading a home meeting called Life Group. These groups are designed to be more than a bible study. They are meant to train up disciples. We go through questions and scripture that are based on the previous Sunday's message and most of the time we get off track but in a good spiritual way. We have had six or so meetings each with a different feel to it. Some are very in-depth serious spiritual conversations, and some are light hearted praise reports all the way through. The great thing about them though is it doesn't just stop there, we are all responsible to one another throughout the week. We hold each other accountable, and I mean actually do the tough job of calling people on things and really helping out when needed. I had to do that with a friend of mine in the group last week. It was good practice of going to a person in love and guiding them back to a path of life and not destruction. In this case it had to do with a person joking way too often and harshly about her spouse in front of others. It went very well, and led to reconciliation between the two of them. This week I received a challenge from the same girl to step outside of my comfort zone. I had said I'm good at talking about God and faith with believers, but I have a hard time doing so with non-believers. Well, she asked if I would pray about pushing myself by serving in a soup kitchen or something with her and witnessing. This is great because I would probably never push myself like that without prompting. This is just such a good evidence of how God desires for us to fellowship and lift each other up. We have had many people checking in on us and vice-versa. Our assistant pastor had a wonderful analogy for this the other day. He showed us a 1x4 board and how easily it can break under pressure, this is how we are, fairly strong but under a hard blow we can not take it on our own. Then he taped four boards together and said this is how we are when we band together with other Christians, we can't be broken. Part of the vision for this church is based on the book Church is a Team Sport by Jim Putman. This is a GREAT book and would recommend you all read it! If you or your church wants to grow and disciple people this is a great guide. This church is moving and growing. We have already gone from meeting in our pastor's home in August with 60 or so people interested to having our brand new building packed out with over 200 people. Within one month of being in our new building we had to go to two services. I'll try to post more as we go, but I'm so excited to see what God has planned for this church