I love my small group

Last night our small group Bible study had it's Christmas Party.

We did the typical white elephant gift exchange when you open the present and can steal others gifts and by the third owner it's frozen. We also played the board game, "Battle of the Sexes". The women won this year...but just barely:-) There was so much laughing and connecting, yummy food and drinks. It makes me really appreciate the fun we can have as the body of Christ.

Last Small Group

Wouldn't you know that for our last small group everyone finally showed up:-) Melissa & I arrived a little late b/c we were at Zach's jazz band concert. Once we got to the Jacob's everyone was enjoying the lasagna and cheesy garlic bread Tiffany Holibaugh brought. When we went outside on the deck we got to talk about when we'll meet over the summer for BBQ's, do a neighborhood Bible club, what night we're going to meet on in the Fall and that we'll all be at the campout together June 25-27. We decided that the Billeaud's would host a BBQ and a NBC and the Spoelstra's a BBQ. We're going to try every other Friday night in the Fall and make it a Bible study/date night each time. Should be fun.

A fun evening out

Melissa and & I recently multiplied out of our small group and began a new one with Matt & Chrissy Jacobs. So far we've had one meeting to introduce ourselves and tell where we are at in our journey with Christ and how long we've attended Encounter.

Tonight we went out for our first social: bowling. It was so fun! Imagine 13 non-bowlers battling it out for mediocre scores.

Small Group Service Project

Our small group wanted to serve during the Christmas season and heard about an opportunity to help out the Salvation Army. I know when serving every little thing helps, but we had so much fun I almost feel like it was a social event instead. About a dozen of us met downtown and counted the money from the red kettles collected from all over the city. It was literally dozens of bank bags filled with thousands of ones, dozens of fives, tens and twenties and a few fifties. I think there was only one hundred dollar bill. The lady beside me found a check written for $1,500.00 though. Crazy! As you can see in the pics. we had a fun time:-)

Small Groups Promoted on Sunday

In the Fall of 2008 Encounter Church started with two small groups full of all sorts of people. We had them full on purpose so that they would be ready to multiply in the Spring of 2009. We started them six months before our Sunday morning services began so there was something to invite people to while the launch team prayed, dreamed, were trained and visited other churches. Now we find ourselves a year later with four groups full of all sorts of people. How fun!

Our philosophy on when to multiply a small group is when there is an identified leader and co-leader not when the group is "ready". This may seem harsh or difficult at times but from what I've seen over the years, groups tend to wait as long as possible or are simply unwilling to multiply. The goal is to see new people come into relationships with other Christ followers and be biblically shepherded and cared for. Out of love for others we are willing to multiply our small groups.

Here's a shot I took last Sunday of the four current leaders as they were discussing the plan for this coming Sunday's promo of small groups. They and their wives have and are doing a great job of teaching, leading and shepherding their groups.

From left to right they are, Jeff Persall, Kyle Mielke, Chuck Taylor and Jeremy Hart.

Encounter Small Group Social

Yesterday a group of us from the Mielke small group met at a local fruit farm and had a fun time picking apples and pumpkins. Here are some pictures and a short video clip of our time. It was a cool Fall day but we still had fun making memories with our kids.