My Small Group's First Meeting Was A Success!

First off let me start by simply saying that God is so great! I can't believe how God will meet us halfway as long as we take those first few steps towards Him. Once I made a commitment to start a small group I started having hesitations and doubting myself. Thinking that I couldn't do the job good enough or that since I had no prior experience in doing such a thing that I would fall on my face and make a fool out of myself. But I had already invited a few people and there was no way that I could cancel and let them down so I decided to just suck it up and pray for guidance and leadership, and wouldn't you know that last night's first meeting kicked off with a great start!

One of my biggest fears was that people would hold back and not open up and share their thoughts, feelings or ideas. Luckily it turned out that everyone in the group was comfortable enough to speak up on certain questions or topics and not a single person went the night without saying something. That is really one of the biggest positives that any small group can have. It is so important for people to feel comfortable enough around their group to open up and share their stories. I am very excited about this Bible study. It is called "Doing Life Together" and it is a follow up study to the "Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. It is such an eye opener too, as well as a great tool to rethink and reread the Purpose Driven Life.

Everyone seemed comfortable from the get go and we got to know each other on a more personal level with an ice breaker where we had to tell two truths and one lie about ourselves and everyone else had to guess which was the lie. Needless to say, that sparked some pretty interesting conversations. We all learned that there is so much more that we can do to be involved in God's plans starting with being in this small group and inviting other people to come that we think would benefit from a group like this. Each one of us are hoping to invite at least one person that wasn't in the group last night.

We had such a great time learning God's word and being in fellowship with one another that I am positive that obeying God's calling to start this small group was exactly the right thing to do. I am so thankful that I didn't back out at the last minute like I wanted to do and that I trusted in God to do what I knew He wanted to do. I want to personally thank everyone who was there last night. Thank you for seeking a deeper relationship with God and thank you for wanting to fellowship with a group of believers that wants to strengthen each other while growing their spiritual walk. Also, I would like to invite anyone who is reading this and isn't already in the group to come one night and see what we are all about. I would love to have you in our group and I am positive that everyone else in the group would welcome you with open arms. We meet every other Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. at the house on the ranch. Please let me know if you are interested and I will give you more information if you need it.

I would like to close just by simply leaving a scripture that we talked about last night. We learned that being a Christian is primarily about relationships and how we treat one another with love. The Bible tells us in John 13:34-35

"So now I give you a new commandment: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."

This small group I assure you will love one another and we will reach out to others to show this love that Jesus was talking about. May God bless you and I pray that we can all show this great example of love to one another.