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House of Care

Everyone wants to fit in ... to feel like they belong. Whether you have been attending Greenville Free Methodist Church (GFMC) for two months or 50 years, it is important to us to help you feel comfortable here, like this is your church and you belong here.

 

Beginning in April we will be launching a new class, Connecting Point. It’s purpose is to provide an opportunity for people to get acquainted with the mission and ministries of GFMC, and to provide multiple, easy points of connection in our church family. This class is specifically designed for both long-time attenders and newer attenders to participate together.

 

If you have struggled to find your place at GFMC, or if

We currently have 51 people serving as Core Circle Leaders, either individually or in pairs. The Leaders have committed to seeing this structure become a part of the DNA of our church. Just having the structure in place, however, is not necessarily enough. We must continue to be proactive in raising our awareness of people and their needs.

 

The Core Circle Leaders are experiencing both frustration and encouragement as they report how this first year has been going. Many say that their prayer times are going well and they are encouraged in their spiritual lives as they are praying for others. Some are not feeling totally connected themselves and are seeing how that affects how they relate with others, both the new and the not-so-new. And many are being blessed in unexpected ways as they have intentional contact with those in their Circle.

 

As we truly become a House of Care, let us support and undergird it by being a House of Prayer. Let us continue to pray that we will become all God wants us to be, and we know that He is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine!

By Tina Watterson, Director of Congregational Care and Assimilation

In the March KIT, we highlighted GIFTS IN ACTION, one of two new programs implemented during 2007 which are helping us become a House of Care. The second program is called CORE CIRCLES, a structure designed to help make sure no one falls through the cracks of our system of care.

 

Our church has many layers of care already in place: Sunday School classes, Bible study and other small groups, and ministry teams. Not everyone who attends our church is a part of one of these groups, however, so the Core Circle layer acts as a safety net, a layer that includes everyone, and is not a replacement or duplication of the care being given by existing groups.

 

Every person who regularly attends our church is assigned to a Core Circle. Each Circle has a leader whose responsibilities include making it a priority to pray for the people in their Circle, noticing if anyone under their care has been unable to attend worship services, periodically making contact with them to find out if there is a particular need in their life, and helping them to find a place of connection and ministry in the church body if they do not already have one.

you know someone who has, please plan to join us. If you know this is your church home and you want to welcome and help include others, please join us for these six weeks. There will be plenty of opportunities to discover where individuals and families of all ages can get involved.

 

Come check it out, see how you can connect and feel like you belong here.

 

Connecting Point

By Tina Watterson & Carl Brannon