By Pastor Tim Klassen

Imagine this:

It’s Monday.  You have an early start at work due to an ongoing project that didn’t get finished last week, even though your boss made it clear it was to be completed by Friday before going home for the weekend.  Not a great day.

It’s Tuesday.  It’s your day to drive your kids and neighbours’ boys to school because of that car-pool arrangement your spouse signed you up for.  Now you’re going to be late for work because the neighbours’ boys are never ready in time. Thanks hunny.

It’s Wednesday.  Finally, a stress free day.  That is, until you check your voicemail on your afternoon coffee break.  It’s your mechanic, and he’s got good news and bad news: the good news—your car is ready to be picked up; the bad news—the cost was a couple hundred dollars more than expected….

It’s Thursday.  The kids have orthodontist appointments after school and piano lessons after dinner… which leaves time for a choice of a Big Mac or a Whopper for dinner.

It’s Friday.  Dinner with the Stevensons. 

It’s Saturday.  Time to clean the house from top to bottom and all the way around… something that you’ve been putting off for weeks now.

It’s Sunday.  Time for Church!  You make your way into your favourite row, sing some songs, pray some prayers, and listen to the Pastor as he does his best to bring a message from the Word of God that will give you enough strength, faith, hope and inspiration to make it through another week.

Does this sound familiar? 

Whether it does or it doesn’t, allow me to assure you: this is not God’s best for your life.  He doesn’t want your life to be a cycle of isolated events that keep you so busy that you cannot even stop to appreciate the life that He has given you.  And He certainly doesn’t want your “church life” to be an isolated event that can be scheduled on your calendar in the same way as baseball practice and karate lessons.  Church is not an event; it’s not a building; it’s a people.  As people, we are built to live life in relationship with one another.  That is why we have LifeGroups: because our lives—spiritually, socially, emotionally, and so on—are meant to be lived in community with one another. 

LifeGroups are our way of intentionally setting aside time during the week to connect with one another as individual’s within the church.  We gather to build relationships with one another, pray for one another, encourage one another and be a strength to one another in life.

If your schedule looks anything like what you’ve already read, I realize adding another “thing” to the schedule might seem like an impossibility.  The reality is, however, we make time for what we want to make time for.  Joining a LifeGroup is something you will greatly benefit from.  Why?  Because it’s a part of following after God and being connected with His Church.  In the New Testament we read that the early church gathered both corporately in the temple and in each other’s homes (Acts 2:46, 5:42).  It’s the way the early church gathered, and it’s the way we gather.  LifeGroups: it’s not a program within the Church—it’s an essential part of being the Church.