Journey Groups exist to lead people, through relational connections in groups, to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That being said, what the heck is a ‘fully devoted follower of Christ” anyway?
The REVEAL 2008 conference, hosted by Willow Creek Church in Chicago hosted a terrific lecture-style overview of their ongoing work with a study of spiritual formation among churches across the country of all shapes & sizes. What they discovered can be read in a few short books at www.revealnow.com .
For this blog though, the real application for Journey Groups was an intense awareness of how most churches (us too) have approached group ministry in a one-size-fits all group model. Reveal validated our purposes around Connect, Grow, & Serve but opened the door for discussion on how those purposes work themselves out over the life of a person’s spiritual journey from exploring christianity to live a Christ-centered life and multiple steps in between.
Is your group ‘plan’ taking into account the unique spiritual needs of your members? If anyone is using a ’spiritual assessment tool’ I’d be interested in hearing how that is going for you…
