A Month of Gratitude, Day 4
November 24, 2008
When I walked away from the church in high school, my decision was based, at least in part, in the belief that I didn’t really need the church to have a relationship with God. I had seen the irrelevance and the hypocrisy of the church and decided (with the certainty that only a teenager can have) that I could live my life and maintain my faith just fine without the church. The next ten years taught me how wrong I was about that. The fourth thing that I am grateful for from my time at North Point is that this is where I learned how to live life in community.When I first started attending North Point, I was very skeptical, based on my background and church experience. It took me a long time of just attending on Sundays before I would even consider doing more. Once I was ready to take a next step and began to explore how to get more involved, it didn’t take long to figure out that at North Point, all roads lead to one place – small groups.
My first small group was a single guys’ group. We met through a singles environment that North Point used to do called Area Fellowships. At first the idea of getting together with a group of guys to talk about my life and faith seemed extremely strange. I realize looking back now how much I had bought into the value our culture places on individualism, particularly for men. As the months progressed, however, I began to see that this was not weird. It did not make me less of a man to share my life with others who could help me to discern how to honor God with my life. God had used attending services to reignite the spark of faith in my life. My first small group dumped gas on the spark and created an explosion. I am so thankful for that first experience and for the way it set an anchor deep in my heart for the value of sharing my life with others in intentional relationships through small groups.
I have been a member or leader of six community groups during my time at North Point (plus a couple of groups that weren’t part of the “official” North Point system). I am grateful for all of those experiences, but what I am truly grateful for goes beyond the groups themselves. I am grateful for how those groups taught me how to live life in community. The goal is not just being in a group. The goal is living life in such a way that you encourage others and are encouraged. You challenge others to grow in their faith and are challenged by them. You bear with one another. You love one another. You share highs and lows. You know the pressing issues in the lives of others, and the issues of your life are known. You open the Scriptures with a group of people and submit yourselves to them. You pray with one another. You pray for one another. This is what it means to live in community. North Point’s small group system taught me that – it was my classroom for learning this way of life. Now not all my groups at North Point were perfect – none of them were, but the point is that the system of moving people toward intentional relationships in groups changed my perspective on how to live. For that I am extremely grateful.
Comments
One Response to “A Month of Gratitude, Day 4”
Got something to say?
Follow us
If you have questions about New Denver Church, we would love to get to know you, let you get to know us, and answer any questions you may have. So let us buy you a cup of coffee! Just 
Summer School classes start on Wednesday, June 6th.
Follow us on Twitter
[...] I mentioned in passing in an earlier post, I was single when I first started attending North Point. One of the things that I loved then, [...]