Helping Group Members
Every…single… person, whom we will ever meet, needs help at some point or another. You, me… anyone.
That means that, at some point in your Life Groups story, there is going to be a member with some needs that need URGENT attention, practical help, and personal support.
Now, the instinct may be to call the church office, explain the problem, and leave it there, hoping that the church, with it’s broad resources and connections, can ‘solve’ the problem. However, in reality, God has built the church with layers of support, and each layer needs to play out its role in order for the Body of Christ to fulfill it’s function… so let’s look at that.
When someone who attends ZCC calls the church office for some kind of help, practical, spiritual, personal… one of the first questions is always, “Have you let your Life Group leader know about your need for [prayer, support, visitation, etc]?”
The reason we ask that is two fold: First, we get out of church what we invest into it, and community takes time and effort to build. We want to know if the ZCC person has sown into that. Second, the role of the Pastoral staff is to “equip [God’s] people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up” (Ephesians 4:12), and that means distributing the responsibility of person-to-person support (prayer, visitation, communication) to people who already have a relationship.
That said, there are some needs that a Life Group is NOT equipped to handle which need to be referred immediately to the church office. No requests for financial assistance should be entertained by a Life Group leader as this creates a very unhealthy group dynamic… so please refer all such needs to the church office where the benevolence team will look at the need. Also, where there is a need for pastoral or professional counselling, that also needs to be referred to the church office where we can assist the person with the full capacity of the church.
Many people who ask for help are not part of a group, and that creates an opportunity to put groups on their ‘radar’! In those cases, the church office and pastoral care volunteers are ready and increasingly equipped to care for those who reach out. Before it gets to that stage though, we want to be intentional about encouraging Life Groups to learn to support one another through tough times through things like
Making meals for someone coming out of hospital
Arranging a prayer chain for personal/family needs as they arise
Visitation at a hospital or home
Serving as a point of contact for prayer and Bible-based, Spirit-led peer support
Creating a sense of community among the group to build trust and identity in Christ together
As Life Group leaders, you have our back up; ZCC does indeed have resources, referrals, options, etc. that can be very valuable in a crisis! At the same time, we need to recognize and honor the capacity and value that a Life Group brings to the table for their members, and this post is just to say, “Let’s do what we CAN do and ask the church to engage where we reach our limits!”
So, you have back up, God is with us… but let’s do what we can when we can to be a blessing to our group members!