GLC - Session 7

Miles McPherson Session #7

Topic: How Community Transform

He is the Senior Pastor of The Rock Church in San Diego, CA. He started off by telling a story from the California wild fires from last year when The Rock opened up their 3,500 seat chapel to the evacuees. With little time to prepare they sent out messages to their attendees to meet the practical resource needs (water, food, etc). They had 2,000 volunteers to serve, and only 12 evacuees showed up. So what they decided to do was send out their volunteers to recruit evacuees to come to their plush accommodations. “How come Christians are not going out to recruit people who are dying apart from Jesus?”-McPherson

What does your small group need to do?

1. Redefine your evangelism starting point as God’s response to a broken world.

We need to be listening to people and acknowledge the cry of a broken world. We meet together to support one another in this mission, not to become an exclusive club that is only welcoming to Christians.

2. Identify God’s response to the brokenness of your own life.

The danger of walking with God for a long time is the danger of thinking we are “fixed.” What is God doing in your life? Certainly, we have not arrived or are not fixed. God is trying to work in our lives to show us something and be transformative. If our group is not transparent to those ideas then we will not be able to effectively evangelize.

3. Identify and love the brokenness of those in your church/small group

Your small group is an excellent place for ministry. God has used our experiences and tribulations to ministry to others who are hurting. What is God teaching you that he wants you to use to teach someone else in your life?

4. Identify and love the brokenness in your community

Go listen to the people who are crying out with their pain within our community. Identify your brokenness and how God has ministered to you and go out and do the same in our community. Go out and listen to people in the community and be transformed in your heart to understand the needs and hurting of people in your community.

5. Re-establish your evangelism priority

It is not negotiable to love your neighbor as yourself. The church is the only institution God has created for the people that are not already in it. Just as Jesus came to serve, we need to serve our community. STOP, LISTEN and GO. “Don’t turn people into Christians, turn them into Christ-Followers.” What will kill your ministry? Staying in your safe room, being afraid to challenge people, being afraid to take risks of interacting and loving people in your community.

Miles provides a great reminder to us of the fact that group life is not only about building up Christ followers to only be transformative in their own lives, but to go out, listen and love people in the community who do not know Jesus Christ. Take some time considering what is your orientation to our community? Storrs, Coventry, Tolland, Manchester, Vernon, Willimantic. Closing worship song: Our God is Mighty to Save. I love this song!!