Covenant Groups
The Hebrew people identified God’s first covenant with humanity as marked by the illusive beauty of the rainbow. Centuries later, Jeremiah describes God personalizing the covenant: This is the covenant that I will make…I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
At Holy Covenant, we continue to gather as covenant people. We don’t keep the faith in isolation; we gather in community to remember our promises and to restore our identity as God’s beloved children. We do this in worship, in choir practice, in Sunday School, and over potluck dinners as we write anew on our hearts that we are the people of God.
Twenty-five of our members met recently to discuss their hopes for gathering our community in smaller Covenant Groups and their promises to serve as leaders of these groups. Their hopes include bringing people together in a comfortable setting for sharing hospitality, fun, fellowship, and joy in being a follower of Christ, getting to know others in the congregation better, and creating a safe community for spiritual growth. The promises our Covenant Group Leaders made ranged from laughing and having fun to being there for others, accepting others as God’s unique child and being good listeners with those in their groups.
Are you ready to begin making those kinds of connections within your Holy Covenant community of faith? We sometimes call ourselves family as we find supportive persons within the church — and we hope creating these Covenant Groups will help increase our “family” connectedness with one another as we write new stories on our hearts.
Throughout the month of September we will be providing information and asking you to think about making connections through our Covenant Groups. Each group will be geographically sensitive (we won’t connect folks from Gastonia with those in Troutman), be small enough to meet in homes, and seek to deepen relational connections through times of sharing meals and stories. As Covenant groups gather they will have an opportunity to indicate their preference for being part of a group that comes together primarily with this social/relational focus or whether an aspect of shared Bible Study is also desired.
Join us in this new venture of gathering in community as we make connections through our new Covenant Groups.
Writing anew,
Nancy