How to be a small group member.

It is great to gather as a congregation to glorify God through the singing of God’s glory and the preaching of God’s Word.
Yesterday’s post was on how we can be an encouragement on Sunday morning in the large group.

At the same time, it is important to meet together with a smaller group of people with the purpose of challenging one another through prayer that is God-honoring, Bible based and personal and have discussion about ways to even more specifically apply the sermon to life.

Our primary reason for belonging to a small group is to give us opportunity to love and encourage other people in Christ.
It’s not about Me; it’s about Them.
And it’s about Them because of Christ.

There are many ways we can love and encourage the other people in our groups. Here are five powerful ones (complete with alliterative titles):

1. The power of presence.  “Be there”
2. The power of preparation.  In our Soul Care groups, preparation looks like listening to and thinking about the sermon.
3. The power of prayer.  “Praying for others is hard work, but real work.”
4. The power of personality.  ” a powerful way of loving others in your small group is to be willing to share your own life and personality with them.”
5. The power of love.  “Look for how you can support and help the leader. Look for ways to care for the members of the group—those who could really do with a phone call or visit; those who would benefit from having someone to pray or read the Bible with; those who need financial or other material help; those who just need a friend to come over for pizza and a video.”

These are taken from “How to be a small group member.”  You can read the entire  article at http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2006/02/how-to-be-a-small-group-member/