>Planting Churches, Growing Disciples through ChristCare Groups at Living Truth Ministries, Marysville, Ohio

Pass the Word Packet

ChristCare Equippers' Sharing the ChristCare Series Kit

Warm-Ups and Wrap-Ups: 101 Great Ideas for Small Groups
Price: $19.99

God's Love in Action Brochure--Customizable
Price: $5.00

God's Love in Action Brochure--Pre-folded
Price: $5.00

Planting Churches,
Growing Disciples
through ChristCare Groups
at Living Truth Ministries,
Marysville, Ohio

Pastor Derrick Hurst has a vision for planting churches, based on the way that Jesus himself did ministry--through small groups. And ChristCare Group Ministry is integral to that vision for Living Truth Ministries, his new church planted from parent congregation St. John's Lutheran Church in Marysville, Ohio.

"Our mission statement is summed up in three words: 'Exclaim, explore, and expand,'" said Pastor Hurst. "We exclaim the love of Christ, and we explore it with one another. The third part is to expand by multiplying ministry and by planting more churches every three to five years. So the whole idea of growth is built into the DNA of this congregation."

Pastor Hurst's vision for "church" goes far beyond Sunday morning. "Worship is just one of our ministries as disciples of Christ. Our focus within this church plant is really to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. And the way we're planting this church is by small groups.

"A written part of our vision statement is that everyone will be part of a small group," Pastor Hurst said. "Everything we do is small groups. My new member classes are small groups, and I partner existing members with new members so they can become more involved in the church. When the new member classes are finished, these groups go through the Beginnings course."

ChristCare Group Ministry: A Perfect Fit

Pastor Hurst initially experienced ChristCare Ministry at St. John's. In developing his vision for a church of small groups, he explored many other small group ministry programs. He found the structure
--and flexibility--of ChristCare best fit his needs.

"Only one small group system stands out as phenomenal--covering all the bases," he said. "That's really what ChristCare offers--the ability to incorporate a lot of resources and put it into what you do and how you do it."

Building Community--and Transformation--through ChristCare

For Pastor Hurst, ChristCare Groups add a dimension to traditional worship that complements and extends the spiritual experience.

"I'm so sold on ChristCare that even our worship services look like a ChristCare Group," he said.

"If you do a study of the 'one anothers' in Scripture to find out what we're supposed to do with one another, you can't do that in a worship service," Pastor Hurst said. "It's just not possible. 'Bear one another's burdens'--you can't do that in a worship service, especially in a congregation that worships 1,000 or even 200. You can't bear one another's burdens because you don't know one another.

"We start out worship with a time for community building and care. We take time intentionally to share with one another what's going on in our lives and to catch up. I have people set throughout the congregation who will start asking questions of the people around them to get the community building started in little pockets.

"I love our traditional liturgy, but it doesn't allow for community building and bearing one another's burdens. It's all about giving our burdens to Christ, but what happens Monday through Saturday when I've got so many burdens and I don't feel as though Christ has taken them from me? Sometimes we need someone else to bear along with us and to point us back to Christ."

ChristCare's focus on community has helped members of Living Truth Ministries establish closer relationships with one another. "There's a shift that happens when you become part of a real community and not just a 'Hey, how you doing? Fine' kind of community," he said. "You become the kind of community where someone says, 'Hey, I need help. I need prayers,' and the group stops right in the middle of what it's doing and prays."

That kind of community is developing quickly at Living Truth Ministries.

While at the ETC, Pastor Hurst received word that a member was in crisis. When he offered to return home to be there for her, she wrote back that her small group was providing care and support.

"What really warmed my heart was that just a few months before, the people she was talking about hadn't been connected with any church," he said. "They'd started joining us for worship and Bible study. Because of the connection and caring they felt as part of the small group setting, they felt a responsibility to care for her as if she were a member of their own family.

"There's really something transformational about ChristCare."

Living the Scriptures

Besides providing the close community that people need to thrive, ChristCare's Biblical Equipping takes reading the Bible to a new spiritual level.

"ChristCare is so much more than just a Bible study," Pastor Hurst said. "You study the Word, but you do more than know it. I'm big on living the Word. One thing I love about ChristCare: It encourages you, equips you--almost forces you to live the Scriptures, not just know them. Anybody can know them, but a disciple lives them out."

Biblical Equipping has even changed the way Pastor Hurst preaches. "I preach with the Biblical Equipping format now. I use the explore and connect questions in my sermons when I write them, and it's just so--I keep going back to the word transformational."

Extending the ChristCare Model

ChristCare Groups--with their emphasis on missional service and outreach--have become a way of life for members of Living Truth Ministries. Much of the church's ministry follows the ChristCare Group model.

"Even our Vacation Bible School will be in a short-term ChristCare format," Pastor Hurst said. "We'll do a Wednesday through Saturday program, and on Saturday we'll invite all the adults--moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, etc.--to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project as missional service. It will be a loose ChristCare Group to help people get familiar with what it looks like."

A Vision for Growth

Pastor Hurst uses creativity--and his knowledge of members' gifts and interests--to help people find productive ways to serve. "I try to plug people who'd like to lead groups into a ministry that really fits with their talents and giftedness," Pastor Hurst said. "One gentleman who's very interested in technology, for instance, is starting up a technology ministry. They'll use the ChristCare format to do community building and care, prayer and worship, and Biblical Equipping, and their missional service will be handling the technology for the congregation's worship."

ChristCare is making a real difference in this burgeoning congregation, providing many new opportunities for members to serve and grow in Christ.

"I lead a ChristCare Group every week in a local bar," Pastor Hurst said. "It started out with us watching Monday night football, and now it's evolved into a small Bible discussion group where we take time for community building and care." The group is planning missional service in the community--possibly replacing the siding on the local food pantry, which was damaged during a recent storm.

ChristCare has proven to be a great way to structure the growth taking place in Living Truth Ministries. "There's definitely an interest and willingness to lead," Pastor Hurst said. "People are very excited about sharing Christ with their friends, with their neighbors, with their coworkers. We're going to get to a point really soon where I have more leaders than I have people to be in groups--an unusual problem!