Why a Church Needs Home-Groups

—Why a Church Needs Home-Groups

  • Andrew Fountain – July 10, 2016

 
 
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Exodus 19:10-14 Mount Sinai

Exodus 33:7 Tent of meeting

  1. Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.
  2. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent.
  3. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses.…
  4. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

Jesus

  • Preached at very large outdoor gatherings
  • Many meetings in homes
  • Met most frequenlty with a group of 12 men

New Testament Church

  • Acts 2:46 Every day they continued to gather together by common consent in the temple courts, breaking bread from house to house, sharing their food with glad and humble hearts,
  • Acts 5:42 And every day both in the temple courts and from house to house, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus was the Christ.
  • Acts 12:12 When Peter realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many people had gathered together and were praying.
  • Acts 20:20 You know that I did not hold back from proclaiming to you anything that would be helpful, and from teaching you publicly and from house to house

Large and Small

  • Not because it works
  • or because it’s a good idea
  • but because it reflects the nature of God

John 17:21–23

  1. that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
  2. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
  3. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Terminology

  • Cell group
  • Life group
  • Small group
  • Home church
  • Home fellowship
  • Home group

Goals of Home Group (Beckham)

  • Thumb —core of the cell: Abiding in Christ
  • 4th finger —Accountability: mutual support system
  • 3rd finger —Leadership and leadership development
  • 2nd finger —Equipping: every new believer is developed
  • 1st finger —Evangelism

We don’t do homegroups because they work,
but because of the nature of God