Home Group Highlights

When the six-week What’s Your Story (WYS) campaign launched in mid-September, home groups and Pastor Chris’ weekly sermons collaborated in powerful ways–personal testimonies, original curriculum with DVD clips, an ongoing live website, www.whatsyourstoryonline.com, and deeper relationships cultivated within our small groups.

According to Roy and Tricia Carlsgaard, members of Tim and Audra Caswell’s home group, “small group partners provide the support system we need for daily life. September’s WYS curriculum provided us a focus in sharing our lives and struggles.”
Home groups pastor Dustin Hite concurred, noting that not only was the WYS campaign a 2009 highlight for home groups, but its idea of sharing personal stories makes building relationships much more effective, which is vital within a mega-church environment.

“If we can help people build relationships in a home group, everything else that goes on in that group–prayer and discipleship–is energized.”
Dustin also noted that home groups at Mount Pleasant focus on four primary goals — seek, share, study and serve — based upon the principles found in Acts 2:42 as the early church began to meet together. What those goals look like within each group varies.

“I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all model for home groups.” In fact our 40 home groups are in a period of transition as they move toward DVD-based teaching curricula designed specifically for small group use. Each group chooses the studies they use based upon their specific needs
and desires and upon recommendation.

“In a world that prizes efficiency over personal relationships, home groups
provide a time and place for people to relationally connect with each other,” summarized Dustin.

by Tricia Carlsgaard and Joyce Long