What is an Encounter?
We anticipate that a typical encounter will include the following activities:
1. Table Fellowship (eating) ~50 minutes
2. Group Fellowship (discussion/activities) ~ 30 Minutes
3. Men/Women Breakout Fellowship (Discussion/Accountability) ~ 20 minutes
4. Sharing of Prayer Requests/Praises & Intentional Group Prayer
How will Table Fellowship be Organized?
The food for our encounters will be provided via potluck/pitch-in, so everyone’s participation in this will be greatly appreciated. Each week we’ll have a theme for our food. The theme and suggested items for each family to provide will be sent out (or placed out on our website) the week before, allowing everyone plenty of time to prepare the necessary items.
What About Kids?
During our time of table fellowship we look forward to having our kids (16 total between the 5 families) fully integrated with us, however during our times of group fellowship, breakout sessions and prayer it is our suggestion that our kids enjoy playing together within the preschool playground area (located in-doors and just outside of the room(s) we will be occupying), as some of our discussions may not be appropriate for the younger audience. In order to ensure that safety and security of our children during these times, we have hired a young adult, Jennifer Henery (19 years of age) who is studying to be an early education major, to watch over them. This of course does not come free, so we are asking that each family faithfully provide $5.00 per encounter (just $10.00 per month) to help make certain that our children are well cared for and ensure that there are a minimal number of interruptions.
What will we do during Group Fellowship?
Although we will potentially go through some sort of devotional (Rob Bell Nooma DVD type series) we will not be initially going through a formal Bible study. Why? It has been our experience that a Bible study is rarely useful (its related inter-group discussions are non-existent or superficial at best) until the point at which we as a group become extremely comfortable sharing the intricacies of our lives with each other, allowing us all to feel secure while sharing the following types of information without feeling scared, anxious, or alienated. ·
- Questions about God the Bible or other religious/beliefs ·
- Misunderstandings or Disagreements with Biblical Concepts (Salvation, Baptism, etc) ·
- Previous Life experiences ·
- Personal / Family Struggles, etc.
It is only at this point, when all of the group members are able to genuinely and authentically share in each other’s lives that we can truly know what to study from the Word of God and have the opportunity for all us to grow from it. So what will we be doing during group fellowship? We’ll be participating in activities that will help each of us to grow closer together as a group. These activities will promote a safe and secure environment for each of us to share who we are, what makes each of us tick, and what struggles we live with, just to name a few. There may be times that we, as mentioned above, will promote discussion using either a Rob Bell video or other devotional type materials. The overall goal of this group fellowship time initially is to learn about one another, encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11), and comfort one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18).
What will we do in Breakout Fellowship?
Men and women have different struggles in life and that is what this time is setup to talk about. As the men and women meet separately, an inherently safer environment emerges where the comforts of the same gender allows for further subject matters to transpire allowing us to once again encourage and comfort one another. In addition, it also provides a safe environment where accountability relationships can begin to materialize.
How will our Prayer time work?
This one is pretty simple, we’re going to get back together as a group and lift our praises and prayers to the Almighty God. The piece that I do want to point out is that we want to be, just like with everything in this group, intentional about what we’re praying for. In addition, we’re going to keep a log of both praises and prayers on the Prayers / Praises section of this website where we can go back later and note how God did in fact answer our prayers.
How do I sign-up for the New Forum Feature?
In order to start using our new forum feature you will need complete the below noted 5 steps:
1. Go Here: http://n2.nabble.com/user/Register.jtp?nextUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fn2.nabble.com%2Fuser%2FLogout.jtp and sign up. When you register, please setup your username as ABCD Family, where ABCD is your last name (i.e. Wagar Family) this way when you post in the forum we'll know which family is posting the message.
2. After you register, (by the way you only need to register once per family) you will get an email at the email address you provided. You will need to open the email and click on the link, as this verifies that you do in-fact want to register.
3. Once you have completed your registration, (step 2) send an email to [email protected] notifying us what email address you regeistered under (in step 2).
4. We will update the forum with your registered email address and email you back that you are now ready to use the forum feature.
5. Goto http://lifeaticcc.weebly.com/forum.html (you may have to refresh your browser screen if you don't see anything at first) and begin using the new forum feature.
