3 Reasons to Join a Life Group

In case you somehow haven’t noticed, Riv is a big church. It’s several-thousand-people big. It’s one body, three venues, five services big. God’s blessed us in many ways with our size, like putting us in a strategic position to reach out to Greater Lansing and St. Petersburg, Florida and Monterrey, Mexico…but the big size does have its drawbacks too. It can be hard to connect with people when there are this many of us. Even just going to a different venue or service can be disorienting. And if you have questions or want to go deeper, it can be hard to know where to start.

That’s why we want everyone at Riv to get involved in a Life Group. These groups of 4-20 people get together in peoples’ homes on a regular basis to go deeper—to start doing life together.

But, really, why are Life Groups a big deal? Here are three big reasons to get involved.

1. To grow in community

On the most basic level, Life Groups are designed to help people connect and do life together. Sometimes Riv can feel like a sea of faces, so it’s helpful to know a smiling face or two in your service. Geography is a big factor in Life Group formation, but we try to place people in life groups based on similar life stages (singles, married with young kids, college students, etc.). Why? It’s simple: People at similar life states have similar struggles. And when you share your struggles, it helps you work through them…and also builds true, authentic community.

2. To grow in faith

A lot of people at Riv are new to this whole faith thing. They may never have read the Bible or have gone to church before. And beyond the weekend messages, they may not know how to dive deeper.

Others may have done this church thing their whole life. They may be steeped in knowledge…but they may never think to look at scripture in a new way, or ask a new question.

Life groups are awesome because they help connect people at both stages. Those who are mature in faith can reach in and help the new believers and curious understand deep theological concepts, and they can find their own faith challenged and strengthened as they dig in and examine the scripture together.

3. To reach out to Lansing…and beyond

At Riv, we’ve got a ton of ways to go out and share Christ with the community through our Compassion team, but we don’t know your neighbors, and we don’t know their unique needs. And sometimes even a small step, like volunteering at a food bank, can be scary when you do it alone.

We’ve had Life Group teams do all sorts of things to share Christ’s love throughout Lansing. A lot of Life Groups go in as a group to buy a meal for a family or two during our annual Thanksgiving drive, for example. One group did some fix-up work at Hannah’s House, which reaches out to pregnant teens. Another group volunteered at the “Shop with a Cop” event in Lansing. You could even go big, and take your entire Life Group on one of our Mexico trips.

Get started!

Want to get involved, or maybe even lead a Life Group? Learn more and sign up online. And keep an eye out…about once a month we host a RivLink after our services.We’ll help get you plugged in to an eight-week starter group.