Community Groups

Well August has come to a close and so has our summer term. I know that it was a great time for me to get to know families in the church better, as I am sure, you did too!

September there will be no groups going on. It is a busy time, getting back into the swing of school and work. Nick (my son) starts his first day of 1st grade today! Angel is home schooling, so it has been a little crazy around here. Yesterday we went to a school supply store and picked up last minute stuff for this year of school. There is something about the way freshly sharpened pencils smell that I really like. Probably just another case of “grandma’s cookies”.
This fall (October) we will start our new community groups. They will last only 10 weeks ending the second week of December and not meet at all during the week of Thanksgiving. We are going to be doing a church wide study this term of the Purpose Driven Life and serving once together, probably at the Burnside Shelter.

WHY!!!

Let me give you 5 good reasons:

1. People live a far more satisfying, contented life when they know what their purpose is. The book, teaches us about our 5 purposes in life. Although many of us may have gone through this before, it is probably time to do it again! After all, most likely none of us can list all five of the purposes... or even one!

To further illustrate the point let me show you something:

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve. Ebbinghaus studied forgetting in the late 1800s. He found that retention and forgetting occur over time and plotted his data: the famous forgetting curve. Look at the diagram, after just 9 hours we have forgotten 70% of the data!

Sooooo, if it has been more than 9 hours since you read the book, you have most likely fogotten 70% of the content. By the way, that is why we keep on preaching out of the Bible every week... we need it because we forget it!!!

2. We already have all of the books and teaching DVDs. The book retails for $14.95 and you get one FREE when you join a community group this fall!

3. You will grow spiritually when you go through this study in a group, and the entire church will grow when we are all learning the same truths at the same time!

4. Even Jesus was in a group! You should be too!!

5. Groups are an opportunity to let God speak into your life, you don't want to miss THAT opportunity!

Group sign-ups will start next week; if you are interested in being in a group you can sign up online: www.southsidenewberg.org OR sign up at church Sunday mornings.

Be blessed,

Pastor Willy

P.S. this is going to be a great study to invite a friend to. Now is the time to start asking your friends if they would like to attend with you, remember, most people never come because they are never asked!