This week, our pastoral staff went for a retreat right after our JMM. We spend three days away in a cabin fellowshipping and building up our relationships with one another. One of the responsibilities everyone had was cooking. We had teams for each meal, and each group prepared and planned what they would be cooking for everyone. Crystal and I had had breakfast, and so on the first morning, we fired up the oven in hopes of baking our two packs of bacon. It didn’t take long before we realized the oven was busted, and we had to pan fried the bacon.
Pan-frying slices of bacon is the most amazing thing in the world. The bacon melts its own oil, creating splashes of oil scattering like a Las Vegas water fountain. Every splash that hits my skin feels like a kiss from a car battery, and those that didn’t hit my skin landed everywhere else. Aside from the hot bacon oil, the sweet aroma of fried bacon soaked through every room and hallway of the cabin. The whole place was saturated with bacon. It was beautiful.
What is your life group saturated with? I know this might sound like an odd question after all the talk about bacon, but what are the first thing(s) that comes to mind when you think about the individuals in your groups and what motivates them and form their identity? In other words, what saturates their life and thereby contributes to the identity and actions of your life group?
Knowing what motivates and form us can help distill the why of our life groups: Why are we a family group? Why be a group that volunteers with specific non-profits? Why do we only meet three times a month?
The why question can be a scary question because it requires a certain degree of honesty and a willingness to be vulnerable. We all want to give the right answer (and look right saying it), but that doesn’t mean everyone is ready to live it; we might know what our motivation and identity should be, but in our hearts, it might not be a reality yet.
One of the key advantages of life groups is that it is meant to be a safe space where each member can find their footing in their journey with Jesus. It is a living space where each member can help one another toward a life saturated by the right thing. And that “right thing” is also one of the first qualities of a disciple: A Gospel-Saturated life.
At the heart of any Christian community are people who are being saturated by the Gospel. A people whose identity and motivation are continually growing to be more Gospel-centred. This means our identity is growing roots in Christ. It means our worth and value are not founded on our careers, children (and their achievements), or our performances/achievements. Rather, we see people opening their hands, letting go of their fear and control. We see life changing as your members become more forgiving (rather than holding onto anger and hate), generous, sacrificial, loving, gracious, courageous, and faithful. We see people becoming more like Christ. Have you noticed these changes in your group?
As ALG leaders, our minds are often burdened by questions about whether our group is gelling or whether people are happy and comfortable, and we sometimes forget that our role is to help one another be more Gospel-centred. That means to encourage and nourish one another with the Good News of Jesus Christ and let the Gospel transform us and motivate us in our good times and bad times. Let the Gospel speak truth to each other’s lives when people lose their jobs, the doctor has bad news, relationships are broken, or bad things keep happening. As disciples, we don’t just sit with bad news; we counter it with the Good News.
On the contrary, when life is going well, we also need to remind one another of the Gospel-centred life. What am I to do with this blessing of a good season in life? What does God want me to grow or invest in when there are plentiful? Plentiful is often defined as material things, but one of the most precious things we are given is our time. And when life is going well, often time, the thing that gets less Gospel-centred is our time.
How do we help one another to be more Gospel-centred and Gospel-Saturated? Discipleship starts by asking how is the Gospel forming your identity and motivating you (and your Life Group) in your actions. Or maybe we take a step back first and ask, have we talked about the Gospel in our life group?
Resources:
If you want to read more about discipleship, check out Simple Discipleship by Dana Allin.
For a group study on Gospel-Saturated Life, check out Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God or Jerry Bridges’ Transforming Grace.