Here at Good News, we love Community Groups, and we love how they bring people together. We also know that most every church has something similar. They might be called Life Groups, Care Groups, Home Groups, Study Groups, Community Groups, or even Accountability Groups. The issue is that 20 churches can use the same description/title for their groups (let’s say Community Groups), at the same time. If you then attended Community Group at those 20 churches, you might find them to all be drastically different. Kind of confusing, right?
It might even lead to some confusion about what Community Groups are supposed to look like at Good News. To be fair, we totally understand the confusion. As staff members, we have been around here for a while, and we can easily take certain things for granted.
So, we thought it helpful to re-share what Community Groups ARE at Good News and what they are NOT:
It might even lead to some confusion about what Community Groups are supposed to look like at Good News. To be fair, we totally understand the confusion. As staff members, we have been around here for a while, and we can easily take certain things for granted.
So, we thought it helpful to re-share what Community Groups ARE at Good News and what they are NOT:
- Community Groups ARE sermon-based. For us, that means a group of people who get together to share life and discuss how they can apply the truths from the sermon to their lives with the help of brothers and sisters.
Here is an example: There are tons of options in the world of Study Bibles, and each type serves a purpose. If Community Groups at Good News were modeled after a Study Bible, it would be more "Life Application Study Bible" and less "ESV Study Bible".
- Community Groups ARE led by facilitators called Community Group leaders. They are given the Bible passage that was previously preached and discussion questions. They are also given general thoughts based on the sermon. Those questions are written by people here at Good News and screened by me (Isaac). The questions are primarily meant to start and guide a discussion.
- Community Groups are NOT a traditional Bible Study. That means it is not curriculum-based where you need to buy a book, do homework every week and fill in blanks.
- Community Groups are NOT an Exegetical Study. That means there is not a leader who goes verse-by-verse through a book of the Bible teaching a class. We DO believe that those types of studies are important.
That is why we offer both Community Groups and Study Groups every semester. If curriculum and or exegetical study is your thing... don't worry, there's a proverbial app for that here at Good News.
