Small Group Ministry
The Small Group Department/Ministry coordinates and evaluates the small groups in our church, ensuring a constant environment for small group leaders to grow.
Why Small Groups?
The explicit PURPOSE of Metanoia is that of “presenting each believer perfect in Christ” (Col.1:28). This spiritual growth will take place when the believer regularly interacts with God through prayer, reading the Scripture, fellowship, serving, etc. We, at Metanoia, while following the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, decided that the most adequate environment to implement these spiritual disciplines in the lives of believers is the small group, also called here “the fellowship group”. That is why we recommend to all our members to be involved in/attend such a small group.
A small group will be made up of 5-15 people who meet weekly for at least 2 hours. The nucleus of the small group is made up of our church members, dar participating to such a small group is not restricted to them only, since we encourage incorporating non-believers also. The criteria for selecting members of a small group are age, being aware that the future members’ individual needs and spiritual problems may differ from one generation to another. The adult small groups will be made up of families, and for single, young adults they will be separated on genders.
Each small group will have a leader and a leader assistant, who will facilitate group discussions, coordinate activities and will be responsible for providing pastoral “first aid” to their group members. At the beginning of every week we will organize a small group leaders’ meeting for both leaders and their assistants. The meeting will consist of two sections: 1) presentation the guide lines for the lesson to be taught that week and 2) special training for leaders on different topics. In addition to that, leaders will be trained several times a year through activities that aim at their improvement and motivation for the ministry they are engaged in.
At Metanoia there is a special Department responsible with organizing and coordinating small group activities, and this Department’s qualified coordinator is one of our Board members.
Our small group meetings are focused on seven main objectives: prayer, Bible study, relational activities, evangelism, serving and worship. Every weekly meeting of the small group will have to contain five elements: prayer, worship, Bible study (with a strong accent on personal applications) accountability, relational time. Every 5-6 weeks, according to church schedule, each small group will engage in serving the community through activities that they are free to choose (it is our recommendation that they will serve constantly a family or a group in need). In addition to these we will have weeks with relational time and time for special projects. Each small group is encouraged to engage evangelism as much as posiible, either during small group meetings (talking to the non-believers) or through missions and other evangelism projects.
The small groups’ Curriculum focuses on topics taught during the main church service(s), since we intend to keep the same general/ singular system of teaching: from the pulpit, to the small group and to the individual study.
Participation/attendance in a small group wiil be done based on an individual application from a willing party (application which will contain personal data/info) and after an interview of the willing party with the Coordinator of the Small Group Department. Each member of a small group will sign a written commitment, to create a basis for trust and confidentiality regarding personal problems that might be discussed within the group meetings. Each small group will be restructured after a certain period of functioning together (3 years).
