When people have a desire to meet others, our group ministry is Starting Point. It works well as a helpful next step for many.
When we launched the Elkhart campus a few weeks ago, we wanted to capitalize on the only point in time when people might say, "I'm new. Oh, so is everyone else! I'm not the only one who doesn't know anyone - most of us don't know anyone. I'm not different. I'm like everyone else!" If people are going to follow Jesus and love one another, they need space to enter relationships with people.
While we will offer group opportunities in Elkhart in 2009, there were a variety of reasons why it wasn't helpful to offer a Starting Point launch at this time. We needed something different - just one time - to provide a vehicle for people to meet each other in the midst of the energy of the campus launch.
We launched Elkhart Express groups as a 4 meeting experience to get us out of the gate. It isn't a new ministry or a new strategy. Our purpose is the same. Relationships are the place where people discover that they matter to God. Our job is to provide a pathway.
New adventures call us to act - and so we did! The inherent challenges of going outside existing processes are validated by seeing what God will do in the midst of all these people getting to know one another. I'm grateful our methods allow us to adjust as needed to do the next right thing.
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