Core training

Here are the basics of what I am thinking right now:
We will meet together for roughly 6-7 months as a "closed group" which means we won't invite outsiders to join us or anything like that, and then on Palm Sunday of 2010 we will hold our first "public worship service." So the common question would be what will we do for those first six months. Basically I would like us to focus on five primary roles of the church; Mission (which in most ways encompasses all the rest), Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship and Service (couldn't fit a "-ship" in there). In some ways we will focus on each of those things every week of our core group.

Here is how I see each meeting going:
1. We share a meal together and just relax some (Fellowship)
2. We pray for our church and our hearts together (Worship)
3. We discuss some basic theology together (Discipleship)
4. We discuss current world events and how we can respond (Service)
5. We discuss other world religions and how we can relate to their followers (Mission)

As I'm sure you noticed, these things all overlap to a certain degree. That is good. Now before you get worried, I don't see us spending more than 2 or 3 hours a week on this meeting, which is probably less than you would spend serving at church or going to church. I would like us to visit 4 or 5 churches in the area during this time and discuss what we thought about each, strengths, weaknesses, what can we try that they do, etc.

I am working on a month by month breakdown, but I can give you the basic thoughts so far: Each month we will rotate topics, so for instance, in September I have us discussing Mormonism, Environmentalism and diversity of thought within the congregation (may not sound theological but I think it is). So then in October, we may switch to something like Islam, War and the nature of the Bible.

I don't think we will be able to cover everything, but hopefully this small group setting will prepare us all for the many questions and issues we will face as a body. I think this will give us time to get comfortable with each other and to know where we stand on some very important issues. The reason I am blogging about this 5 months out is so you can give me some thoughts and I can change things around. Also, please share any prayer requests you might have. I am working nights right now, so you can pray that that is a short lived shift. As always, I am so excited to see all your shining faces move up here.