We started a new sermon series this past Sunday called Simple Actions. On the first week, we began exploring simple actions that can change your life and impact the world around you. Specifically, this week we talked about the word GROW. Putting our faith in Jesus begins a journey of faith. While God is the source the spiritual growth we experience, we have a responsibility to act in ways that help us grow. Without a plan to grow, most of us will never move forward in our faith.

Even when we want to grow, it can be difficult to know where to begin. To help you grow, here’s a “GROW Tip“:

Tip #1: Join or start a group

Studying Scripture is one of the easiest ways to grow spiritually. Studying on your own can produce great growth, but groups studying together can produce the environment needed for growth–sort of like a greenhouse can help plants grow. Meeting in a group can help each member be accountable for their own growth and study.

At Deep Water, part of our vision is to see people form groups in order to grow spiritually. We give a lot of freedom to how people form groups. We encourage people to form “Community Groups” or “Discipleship Groups”–and not all people who get together form “official” groups. While there can be nuances of meanings between the two, we basically want people to connect in groups to grow. Community Groups tend to be larger (3-12 people) with guys & girls in the group while discipleship groups tend to be smaller (2-5) people and normally made up of a single gender to allow discussion of sensitive issues.

As we enter into a new school year, it’s a great time to join a group or form a new one. (As a new church we don’t have a lot of groups, but we try to keep an updated list of available groups here.)

Two examples:

1. Community Group: I (Jeff) lead one that plans on meeting on Wednesday nights at 6:45pm in homes around Dover. (We used to meet Thursdays, but we’ve moving to Wednesdays.) We’re finishing up a study on discipleship called Multiply and are about to begin studying the book of James.
2. Discipleship Group: This Wednesday (September 11), a friend and I are starting a guys group (sorry ladies!) that will meet for discipleship from 7:30-8:30 am each week at a local coffee shop. We’ll be using the YouVersion Discussion questions from the previous week’s sermon (for an example, click here) to work on how to live out the message from the previous week.

If you’re interested in either of these groups, feel free to join.

If you’re interested in leading a group, talk to me on a Sunday, contact me or comment below. I’ll help guide you through the process of getting started. While it may seem a big task, it’s really as simple as finding a convenient time to meet and using some questions to steer the conversation in a direction that helps people grow spiritually. If you want to form a Community Group, you can “intern” at mine to see how to do it. If you want to form a Discipleship Group, join us to see how to do it–it’s probably easier than you think. I will make myself available to help you start for the first couple of meetings and support you as you lead.

Look for more groups in the near future, including a group for teens starting September 24 and moms with small children!