Help your home group grow closer together

Home groups start off as a bunch of strangers gathering together to read the Bible, but the hope is that they will grow to be more. Our ideal home groups are places where people care for one another, they are open and honest with each other and they do life together. However, getting from a bunch of strangers to buddies can be difficult and so it is worth thinking through how you will develop a group culture amongst your group.

Here are some suggestions for helping your group grow closer together:

Spend time having fun together - God needs to be at the center of your relationships, but that doesn't mean that you can't have fun together. Sometimes the creation of common experiences outside of the normal Bible study framework can help a group to gel. The Bible is still the focus of your friendships, but they've had the chance to also develop in a different context.

Get your hands dirty together - People bond over shared experiences and nothing says "shared experience" like getting together and getting your hands dirty. Your home group might like to volunteer to be on the church cleaning roster, or you might like to organise a way for your group to help set up or pack up for a church event. There are usually many different ways for groups to help out at church. If you're feeling stuck for ideas, why not brainstorm with your group different ways that they can serve together and different things they can work on.

Share the gospel together - One of the lovely things about joining a short term mission team is the relationships you form with one another as you pray together and share the gospel with others. But you don't need to join a short term mission to help your group grow closer together. You may like to organise for your group to do some local evangelism together, perhaps giving away copies of The Essential Jesus (AU) or (US) or 2 Ways To Live (AU) or (US) tracts.

Grow your church together - It can be very easy for a group to become inward focused. It's worth thinking through how you can be encouraging your group to think about the wider church together, and how they can help their church grow both in number and in faith. A great way to help your home group become outward-focused is to spend time in your home group thinking about how they can serve the wider church. Six Steps to Loving Your Church (AU) or (US) is designed especially for this context, helping groups to look at their attitudes towards church, what the Bible says about the purpose of church, what it means to love your church and the people who go there, and how everyone can be engaged in loving service before, during and after the Sunday service.

Ultimately, the goal of your home group is not to be best buddies, but to be growing in faith. We want our home groups and our Bible studies to be places where Jesus is the focus and the main priority. It is a good thing to help our group get to know one another and build good relationships with each other, but we mustn't forget that our priority must be growing in our relationship with God.

What other ways have you seen or helped your own group to grow closer together?