What is a Base group?
This is a bit like asking, “what is a family?” There are no two that are exactly alike. Base groups come in all sizes and shapes. A Base group can be six people, or it can be forty. It can be made up of young families, grandparents, students or a collection of everybody.
The essence of what makes a gathering of people a “Base groups” is about their vision and commitment to doing life together. A Base group is a place for people to know and be known, to love and be loved. It is not a collection of perfect people who have life all figured out. A Base group is for those of us who still need to grow, who need a place to ask questions and who need others to help us when we mess things up.
A Base group is a place for us to learn together what it means to follow Christ. It’s a place to study the scriptures together, to figure out together what it means to love our neighbors and care for the broken. A Base group is a group of people that work together on figuring out what it means to carry each other's burdens, support each other, and perhaps even share possessions. It’s a place to eat, play and rest.
A lot of people ask – how often should Base groups meet? Again, there is no formula for this. A Base group “meeting’ could be a set time to study and pray or it could be a hiking day or school activity. It could be painting someone’s house or going to a movie together. The healthiest communities find a rhythm that incorporates the realities of our complicated lives with the commitment to being true followers of Jesus together.
A Base group is not utopia – in fact, they tend to be a bit messy. No one has yet figured out how to do it all perfectly. The beauty of a Base group is that as we do the journey together, we find the community that we long for, even when it’s not perfect.
So… what is a Base group? You tell us. We can’t wait to hear the stories.
This is a bit like asking, “what is a family?” There are no two that are exactly alike. Base groups come in all sizes and shapes. A Base group can be six people, or it can be forty. It can be made up of young families, grandparents, students or a collection of everybody.
The essence of what makes a gathering of people a “Base groups” is about their vision and commitment to doing life together. A Base group is a place for people to know and be known, to love and be loved. It is not a collection of perfect people who have life all figured out. A Base group is for those of us who still need to grow, who need a place to ask questions and who need others to help us when we mess things up.
A Base group is a place for us to learn together what it means to follow Christ. It’s a place to study the scriptures together, to figure out together what it means to love our neighbors and care for the broken. A Base group is a group of people that work together on figuring out what it means to carry each other's burdens, support each other, and perhaps even share possessions. It’s a place to eat, play and rest.
A lot of people ask – how often should Base groups meet? Again, there is no formula for this. A Base group “meeting’ could be a set time to study and pray or it could be a hiking day or school activity. It could be painting someone’s house or going to a movie together. The healthiest communities find a rhythm that incorporates the realities of our complicated lives with the commitment to being true followers of Jesus together.
A Base group is not utopia – in fact, they tend to be a bit messy. No one has yet figured out how to do it all perfectly. The beauty of a Base group is that as we do the journey together, we find the community that we long for, even when it’s not perfect.
So… what is a Base group? You tell us. We can’t wait to hear the stories.
posted by Drew and Leanne Chislett at 11:38 PM
1 Comments:
I love the term base group. We call ours a care group, which sounds so cheesy somehow. Actually we call ourselves the 'no-care group'
Ours is such a strange mixture of people with very little in common except a desire to figure out this whole abundant life thing, this Christ in us thing. Life has taught most of us that we don't really have a good handle on it and there has to be more and we're looking to Jesus to find it.
We eat together every monday, and tease each other, and laugh. We have a serial hugger in the group, so we hug (some do their best to avoid the hugging). We don't "share" alot about our feelings or really our about our lives even. We don't get vulnerable. We don't pray together. We are here to learn. We are here because it's comfortable. We 'wanna go where everyone knows your name' like the bar on "Cheers".
It's not perfect, and sometimes it's messy, but it works for us.
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