Community Groups

Throughout the fifteen year history of Grace Bible Church our home Bible studies/ small groups, the Home Fellowship Group ministry has been a rewarding avenue used by the Lord to study the Bible together, form friendships, and pray for one another. As GBC has grown to nearly 600 worshipers each week that ministry has developed into our front line for shepherding, nurture, and the relational life of the church. This Fall there will be 14 groups meeting throughout the East Bay, led by trained and supported leaders with the goal of seeing each group leader assist in raising up, training, and sending out new group leaders. Currently there are four men “in the queue”, in training to become future group leaders.
These smaller “gospel communities” meet in homes throughout the week around Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and the sharing of life’s joy’s and burdens are much more than a mid-week small group meeting, but a network of relationships where our people care for one another, practicing the NT “one anothers.”
The meetings are not an end in and of themselves, but a means to further deeper relational life and personal ministry. With that in mind effective this fall the elders have decided to change the name of this ministry. From now on our Home Fellowship Groups will go by the name “Community Groups.” While we have always loved the previous name, the vision for this ministry has always meant to go beyond  the mid-week meeting and provide a network of ongoing relational care rooted in the gospel that highlights in Christ, God has made us a new community.

Home Fellowship Groups: “The Hub” for Care and Community at Grace Bible Church

What is a Home Fellowship Group? 

Home Fellowship Groups are the primary place where our people are known and cared for at GBC. Each group gathers with the expectation of worshipping and being transformed by Jesus Christ in community, while participating in mutual ministry and sharing life in the family of God. Our desire is that everyone who attends our church will be involved in a Home Fellowship Group. In these groups we pray our people will encounter: 

The Gospel’s Power 

The gospel says that we are so sinful, lost, and helpless that only the life and death of the Son of God can save us. But it also says that those who trust in Christ’s works instead of their own efforts are now holy and blameless in his sight and free from reproach (2 Cor 5:21; Col 1:21-23). Therefore the gospel changes everything. It changes the way we view everything; melting away racial/ethnic pride OR inferiority. It brings down interpersonal problems by melting away self-inflation OR self-hatred. It brings down personal facades, for we are free to admit who we are. It effects the way we do everything at GBC—how we motivate people, how we help them work through counseling problems, how we worship, how we take criticism. 

The context for a gospel-centered life is never merely individual. The Gospel Creates a New Community, a unique community. A new community is both the end of the gospel and also the means of spreading the gospel. God’s promise in salvation is to create his “holy nation”, a people that dwell with Him forever. “I will be your God and you will be my people.” (Lev 26:12, Jer 30:22). So Christians, who are eternally united to Christ, are therefore eternally united to one another. 

What is the biblical vision, what does true community look like? We are to be: 

1. an accepting community that reflects the grace we’ve been given from Christ. 

2. a holy community that urges one another to live God-pleasing lives. 

3. a truth-telling community that is free to repent, and free to allow others to repent, because of the gospel. 

4. an encouraging community that builds one another up. 

5. a sacrificially generous community that spends its life and wealth on the needs of others. 

6. a suffering community that loves and forgives others even when it harms us. 

What is the Purpose of Home Fellowship Groups? 

A Place to Worship Jesus Christ. 

The primary goal for the Fellowship Group meeting is to worship and be transformed in community by Christ Jesus who is in our midst in His presence and power. 

Place for Fellowship and Friendship. 

Fellowship can be defined as seeking to share with others what God has made known to you while letting them share with you what they know of Him as a means of finding strength, refreshment and instruction for one’s own soul. 

Fellowship Groups are a place where individuals who are seeking truth can be invited and encouraged to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

In addition, they serve as a place where we can remind one another of our call to share the gospel and pray for those with whom we are sharing good news that God has reconciled Himself to us in Jesus Christ. The claim is sometimes made that small groups can either be used for evangelism or for discipleship, but that they can not do both at the same time. It is true that if you aim at edification you will probably lose the attention of the non-believers in your midst. It is also true that if you aim at evangelism, you will eventually bore the believers in your midst. But those are not our only options. If we aim at experiencing Christ in our midst, we will find that we are both building up believers and challenging non-believers. 

Some implications of God’s call to community 

This kind of community life requires significant time spent face-to-face. 

To have the quality of community life which God expects from the church requires deliberate effort. This cannot happen only (or even mainly!) in the large worship service. It demands ongoing significant relationships in which are consciously pursuing Christian community and not settling for casual social involvement with one another. 

Each person must see themselves as a minister/servant. 

Many churches expect the pastoral staff to “build up the believers”, but the Bible expects believers to “build up one another”. Many churches expect the pastoral staff to attract and win new persons through programs, but the Bible says that the body grows member-to- member as each speaks the truth in love, builds up, and equips the other. 

Too frequently our approach to fellowship groups is to ask the question, “What am I getting out of this?” But on the basis of everything that has been said, the first question that should be asked is, “What am I giving into this group?” We should be concerned as to whether or not we were striving to build others up and to speak the truth in love. We should be concerned about whether or not we were communicating God’s love to others and being honest about ourselves. If people approach their groups in this way it will completely transform our communities. It will set them apart from many Bible study 

groups which often give new information and increase our Bible knowledge (though most of us have far more input than we can apply) but fail to change our lives. 

GBC’s  Home Fellowship Group Structure 

Each member of a small group can be intimately cared for by a trained and loving group leader. Those home fellowship group leaders, in turn, are nurtured and supported by an elder who will help, encourage, and care for three-five home group leaders. The distance from any person in a Fellowship Group directly to a pastor is therefore only two short steps. Even in a church of >500 or more, everyone can be as personally cared for as if they were in a small church of ten. The structure of our small group life can be diagrammed in the following way: 

It must be emphasized that the structure is not an end in itself. The organization of the church is meant to serve the organism— the living, dynamic, body of Christ, so the members are able to distinguish truth from error for themselves; growth into truth speaking motivated by love; growth in dependence on Christ as the Head of the church; and growth in mutual enrichment. 

-Vince Cuomo