Hello Church Family,
As home groups get ready to start back this week, I felt lead to share with you from my heart about our very special community we have here at TGPA. We have without a doubt some of the most incredible people in our church family. In the last 7 years of being a part of TGPA regularly we have met so many people that have become much more to us than just people we go to church with. We have made relationships that are very much family to us. These are relationships that grow us and stretch us and have been such a huge part of our personal spiritual growth over the years. We have been able succeed and fail and be loved either way because of this very organic group God has brought together. We are so thankful for the gift of the body of Christ.
Home groups are so much more than a Wednesday night church meeting. These groups are intended to foster this incredible community we have and to allow for people to be accepted and loved and encouraged and have a safe place to be human and walk and live out what it means to be you and be a Christian in this day and time. “You see, we were created to need each other. We were not created to walk this journey alone and without community. To truly grow and develop we must learn from each other and experience life together.”(Rick Warren) Think about it, can one learn forgiveness without a relationship? Can you learn loyalty without relationships? Can you truly learn love without relationships with people? What about kindness and selflessness? How will we use our spiritual gifts without others and without others what’s the point? We all know that no one can be everything to everyone all the time, but what if each of us just brought to the table the little we can be and give it to this amazing community in friendships, prayer partners, encouragers, shoulders to lean on, and a kick in the rear (in love) when needed. What if our community was all in? What if?
We need each other and all of us are equally needed. What a beautiful picture of the body of Christ that God intended from the very beginning. I sure hope you can get plugged in to a home group and learn about what James was trying to teach us about being a part of community. If you work on Wednesday nights and are unable to make it, don’t let that stop you from getting plugged in. There is always something going on in the body of Christ. See a need that you can help with? See someone that needs some prayer and encouragement? Is there someone sick that needs a visit? There is never room for boredom in the body. What an exciting life we live with Jesus!
1 Corinthians 12:12-27
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.19 If they were all one part, where would the body be?20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it,25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
So thankful to be a part! With love,
Pastor Ginny
