Better Together (part4): Growing Well

TO START

Share a time when a favorite restaurant, product, TV show, etc. changed in a way that made you stop going, buying or watching.

 

TO DISCUSS

This week we talked on Sunday about how to grow well, how to stay with a church when it’s growing and changing.

As our church has grown over the years, what has been your experience? Have you struggled to stay on board? Do you enjoy the energy of growth? Is change taxing? Let’s not use this time to complain, but at the same time, this is a safe place to share some growing pains.

What binds us together as a church? What would be a good reason to leave your church?

Have you ever intentionally put up with something you didn’t like at church because of the promise you’d made to that church? Share.

Consider the following statements from Sunday’s lesson. Pick one that sticks out as challenging, as new information, or as something you’ve observed in action:

  • A growing church has to understand that in many cases, What worked then isn’t going to work now.
  • A church that refuses to grow is a church that rejects the mission of God.
  • Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have---and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.

How does this question strike you: Are we committed to being the church we’ve been? Or are we committed to being the church God is making us?

  • What’s the difference?
  • How can we partner with God in our church’s transformation?

 

TO READ

Read 2 Corinthians 3:18.

  • What does transformation look like?

  • What might ever-increasing glory look like in our church?

 

TO PRAY

Change isn’t just hard on a church, it’s hard on that church’s leadership--the people required to lead our church into change and weather the church’s sometimes fussy relationship to that change. Tonight in your groups pray for our elders and deacons and staff. Pray they’d have the wisdom and courage to lead us where God wants us to go.

You could also pray the prayer we prayed together on Sunday:

God, show us what’s next. Show us who’s next. Remind us that the mission is worth the change. You have a vision for this city. And I know it involves more than 15% of the people here knowing you. Burden us with your vision. And use us in bringing it to fruition. We’re up for whatever that means. We’re so glad you brought us here. And we don’t want it to end with us. And as you work in our midst, help us not just to grow, but to grow well.

 

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