The Group

The Group was started about five months ago in our home after having lunch with three guys who wanted to know more about the application of God in our everyday life. We aren’t your typical bible study; we talk about the real issues that face men. Anything from pornography to anger to love; we don’t sugar coat anything because the world we live in doesn’t. Since we have been meeting we have seen some come sporadically and some come faithfull each week; either way we can honestly say that the need for guys to know who God is and how to have a relationship with Him is something that we all lack in some degree. Five months is not a long life for an organization but in these five months I feel like God has shown me so much of what the modern male is struggling with; what I have discovered is that it is not that much different from what the men of the bible struggled with.

As I write this blog entry I am directing this to the guys in The Group, to family and to other curious “on lookers.” Why am I writing about this… because I have realized something about The Group; it has changed me and God has used it to strengthen my relationship with Him. During these five months of meeting weekly with this great group of men we have seen ups and downs. We have seen some give their life to Christ and some take positive steps forward; on the flip side we have seen some take turns back to old habits and those who do know Christ sometimes turn away from His influence and power. Either way one thing is occurring, growth.

The Group is about unity, about sharing our frustrations, anger, disappointments with God and getting to the point where we understand praise, love, worship and obedience to God. This isn’t an overnight process, not even a five month process. I was 25 years old when I accepted God’s call, when I finally traded all of my selfish desires for His truth. Having a relationship with God takes time, takes patience and most of all takes obedience. In Hebrews this is referred to as immaturity and frankly people don’t like to be called immature much less spiritually immature but that’s why most of us have a hard time understanding God’s promise or even recognizing the promise.

“We have a great deal to say about this, and it’s difficult to explain, since you have become slow to understand. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of God’s revelation. You need milk, not solid food. Not everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature – for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil” – Hebrews 5:11-14

God confirmed the formation of The Group when a young man that I used to disciple came in from college and wanted to not waste his summer on the “usual” things. He wanted to continue to learn and grow with God. He has joined us over the summer and has in turn strengthened me and God has used him to confirm my position with The Group. This young man’s eyes where opened when he moved off to college, if one verse stands out and really summarized our conversations it would be Titus 1:16, “They profess to know God but they deny Him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient and disqualified for any good work.” This verse is one that has to be handled maturely because it can be offensive because no one wants to be told that they are detestable, disobedient and disqualified for any good work; however, this is the scripture that prepares for Paul’s teachings on sound teachings (Titus 2). The letter to Titus was written to encourage and give instruction to Titus in his leadership role on the island of Crete. The leadership traits that are sadly missing in many men’s life’s because of absent fathers either emotionally or physically.

Leaders must be self-controlled, worthy of respect, sensible and sound in faith, love and endurance. Young men today are struggling with these basic principles as did I for so long; The Group is formed of young men who are searching for something better, something worthy of a fight! God has called me to men and revealed to me that the start to breaking generational sins in families is to break a man of his selfishness in order for him to see God’s promise. I am passionate about seeing men come to have a relationship with God because I know first hand of what a selfish, routine lifestyle full of all the worlds desires can lead. It wasn’t until I was shown that there is a very real relationship with God that He is leading us to, it wasn’t until then that I wanted to stop the actions that separated me from God.

I am tried of seeing young men in high school and college just marking time instead of making life. Seeing these men embracing the usual refuges of drugs, alcohol, sex or being materially driven; fallen prey to media and the cultures expectation of how men should act instead of embracing and pursuing their God-given dreams. We are not your typical group, we encourage anger; anger toward that which is wrong and unjust. We encourage men to step out of their comfort zones leaving what is familiar to total trust God in obedience. Trusting where God leads us, not trusting what our eyes see. Yes, we fail, yes we fall back to what was familiar but we always remember that God, Jesus Christ is preparing us for something great.

An obedient, sold-out, real relationship with God… that’s what The Group is about.