I remember when we shifted into our own first home back in Hamilton and the surrealness of being in it for the first few hours. We wanted it to feel like our place, so strangely we opened every window to give it an air out, made the beds and cooked our first meal in the kitchen. We were over the moon but I remember thinking I wanted to enjoy this moment with others and so as dinner was being finished off we invited some friends over. Having our home filled with others seemed right, there was a sense of community, care and love wrapped up in being with others.
Our home hasn’t stopped that vibe to this day. Our boys currently have the place and they have continued to use ‘our whare’ as a space to do life with their friends and peers.
Home is the best place to find your sense of belonging which is why here at BBC we see Home/Life/Small/Connect/Interest groups as a rich source of being ‘known’ and ‘building community’. In a church the size of BBC, these groups are a place where the ‘big’ becomes ‘small’.
For the next few weeks we’d like to introduce you to a few of the groups who meet here at BBC and help you see what makes them tick and how they work out doing life, community, growing authenticity and togetherness as faith people. We hope this will be an encouragement for everyone who calls BBC home, but we also want these short ‘bios’ to act as a prompt for helping anyone who isn’t in a group get weaved into one.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 exhorts us to, “Encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing”. The truth is we grow best when we are doing life with others.
‘AN IDEA CALLED INTERGENERATIONAL’
Gary and Susan Wright lead what they have aptly titled an ‘intergenerational group’ which meets weekly. We asked them to share a little bit about their group and how they do community..
“Our group was created intentionally from an idea to bring together people from a variety of ages (early 20s all the way through to 60ish!) and backgrounds to seek God together, study His word and have fun doing it!
We think that having a spectrum of ages and perspectives helps to build our understanding of what we believe as people of faith and we’ve found this challenges us all to look at concepts through different lenses. God has moved powerfully through the creation and establishment of this group. He has brought us together, and we are so thankful for that! We regularly hear feedback from our life group members who say that being connected to the life group has helped them to feel like they ‘belong’ at BBC, and how they value our time together. We are a group that loves food and each evening begins with us spending time together socially enjoying a cuppa and shared treats. We also have a social night at the end of each term and these evenings help us to get to know each other more and builds relationship and friendship.
We really love to open and discuss God’s Word together and hear what God is doing in each other’s lives as we create space to pray for one another. We have discussed ways that we could also serve our Church and community together as a group, as this will also be an opportunity to grow together. We feel very privileged to be part of an ‘intergenerational’ life group and couldn’t recommend it highly enough to anyone thinking of starting a new group”
