Have you ever felt alone amongst a crowd of people? Have you attended a church and found it hard to develop friendships with others? As churches grow and, if necessary, go to multiple services, it can become difficult to connect. If that has been your experience, then Connections is the place for you!
Each week, there are numerous small groups meeting at homes regionally or at the church. These small groups are just that—small. They are places where you can develop close friendships, share burdens, pray for each other, enjoy fellowship, and strengthen your walk with God.
Connections Groups
Starting Up in February
Connections Groups will be starting in early February. See below for details, then select your group and sign up in the foyer. This is a great way to deepen your fellowship with others in the church.
| Walking with God is John Eldredge’s remarkable narrative of his journey learning to hear the voice of God. In this DVD series, John invites you and your small group into an even deeper intimacy with God. Join John as he leads us to a closer walk with God, a relationship that includes hearing His wonderful voice as He speaks to each of us personally. A meal will be provided and kids are invited. | |||
| DAY: Alternating Sundays (begins 2/5) | TIME: 3 p.m. |
LEAD BY: Shawn & Carolyn Stebleton | LOCATION: Immanuel Church |
| When God's Spirit Moves by Jim Cymbala—Have you ever wondered how to make room for the Spirit's action in your life? How God wants to work through your gifts and talents? Or maybe how to listen for the voice of the Spirit in prayer and how to apply God's word to your life? If you have, let's work together to regularly experience God's presence and power and transform our lives. Convinced that God is eager for us to experience a fresh sense of his presence and power, pastor and bestselling author Jim Cymbala explores the person and work of the Spirit in this six-session DVD Study. | |||
DAY: Sunday (begins 2/5) |
TIME: 7 p.m. |
LEAD BY: Tim & Patricia Schimp | LOCATION: Immanuel Church |
| Faith Path—Everyone you know trusts something they believe in but can’t prove. They take it on faith: relativists, traditionalists, mystics, authoritarians and others. If you want to talk to your friends about your faith, it helps to understand what they believe. Using a workbook and DVD, you will: (1) understand people who approach life differently from you; (2) recognize the danger of paths that lead away from Christ; (3) deepen your own faith in Christ and reinforce your reasons for believing; and (4) gain confidence in talking about Christ. This is an eight-session study. Cost of workbook is $11. | |||
| DAY: Every Other Monday (begins 2/6 ends 5/14) | TIME: 7 p.m. |
LEAD BY: Harry Craven | LOCATION: Home of CJ & Janet Walter |
| The Sermon on the Mount by John Stott (a LifeGuide Bible study). The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete description anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counterculture. Here is a Christian value system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude toward money, ambition, lifestyle and network of relationships, all of which are total opposites of the non-Christian world (author’s words). A book written by the author of The Bible Speaks Today series (IVP) is recommended as a supplementary reading for this guide. | |||
| DAY: Thursday (begins 2/9) | TIME: 7 p.m. |
LEAD BY: Don Baughman | LOCATION: Home of Don Baughman |
| Developing Your Secret Closet of Prayer is a study based on a book by Richard Burr, along with Arnold R. Fleagle, which provides helpful scriptural insights for us as we exercise this precious privilege. These insights do not involve rigid or ritualistic rules but spiritual principles that will help us remove any hindrances to prayer and lead us to pray in the manner our Lord instructed us when He was on this earth. The contents of this book/study will change your private prayer life and devotional time. This is an eleven-week study. The cost of the book is $10. | |||
| DAY: Thursday (begins 2/9) | TIME: 7 p.m. |
LEAD BY: Rick & Sharron Shell | LOCATION: Home of Rick & Sharron Shell |
| Love and Respect Paul concludes his teaching on marriage in Ephesians 5 with this admonition: “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (v. 33). This verse forms the foundation for Dr. Emerson Eggerichs’ book Love and Respect: the Love She Desires; the Respect He Desperately Needs. Dr. Eggerich’s website says: “We believe love best motivates a woman and respect most powerfully motivates a man. Research reveals that during marital conflict a husband most often reacts when feeling disrespected and a wife reacts when feeling unloved.” Our winter/spring small group study will use the biblical concepts in this book as we seek to strengthen our marriages and families. We welcome young (you get to define the parameters of that word) married couples, and those moving toward marriage, to join us for the study and the fellowship. | |||
DAY: Alternating Thursdays (begins 2/9) |
TIME: 7 p.m. |
LEAD BY: Terry & Ruth Smith | LOCATION: Home of Jeff & Beth Lorow |
| The Marks of True Discipleship Explore what it means to be an authentic disciple of Christ. We will be working through Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic work The Cost of Discipleship, which examines the teachings of Christ on discipleship as found in the Gospels with emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). The book was originally published in German in 1937 and its message about the serious implications of “taking up the cross to follow Jesus” carries weight because Bonhoeffer was imprisoned by the Nazis for his faith like the apostle Paul and died as a martyr in 1945. | |||
| DAY: Thursday (begins 2/9) | TIME: 7 p.m. |
LEAD BY: Niles Logue | LOCATION: Home of Chet & Ruth Musser |