Jesus gives every church its mission: the Great Commission. At SAC, we have chosen to word our mission - "leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ" . . . the Great Commission.
How a church accomplishes this mission is what makes each church unique. At SAC, I believe there are 4 distinctives we are pursuing to best accomplish Christ's commission. I want to continue to unpack these in a series of four blog entries.
This is part 3 of this 4-part series. (You can click here to view the 1st and 2nd distinctives.)
Distinctive: Closed Small Groups Leading to Community
As we set out to start SAC, we knew we would be pretty unproductive if all we did was give people another option on Sundays. Honestly, there are plenty of places to "go to church" in San Angelo. But simply "going to church" rarely produces sustained life change. Don't get me wrong. I think church is important. I, along with several other families, are committed to starting one. :) But I don't think the Sunday church experience is enough.
Everyone desires genuine and meaningful relationships. That is why so much of our life is spent within the context of small groups of people (work, family, sporting teams, social networks, special interest clubs, etc.).
Spiritual growth is also best accomplished in this format. In fact, we believe sustained life change happens best in the context of small groups (4 or 5 other couples or 8-10 singles).
Now, many churches offer small groups with varying levels of "success". Some of the frustrations with traditional small groups are: they become too big preventing genuine relationship development and/or people do not really commit to attend regularly.
One of our distinctives is how we do small groups. We call our small groups "closed groups".
That means once you find a group of people you are comfortable with, you and the rest of the group commit to doing life together for a period of time (1 yr - 18 months). During this time, no one else can join your group. We have found that focusing on a set of relationships over a period of time builds trust resulting in greater transparency. This is the place where you experience accountability, belonging, and care.
We emphasize these groups because we believe your spiritual growth depends upon them. Since we believe sustained life-change happens best in the context of closed small groups, we do not offer all of the other traditional programs and ministries that would "compete" with small groups. This focus allows for increased participation. (This also reflects our 2nd distinctive.)
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