Vision: East Lanier Community Groups are the way we seek to build Biblical Community in our body, resulting in authentic community changing our lives and the lives of the East Lanier area.

Purpose Statement: We gather together as a community to experience Jesus Christ in our midst ministering to us and through us to one another so that our lives and communities are changed.

Components of Biblical Community:

· We are to be a worshipping community.

o God inhabits the praise of His people.

o We are created for worship.

· We are to be an accepting community.

o We accept one another as God has accepted us.

o We acknowledge our sin and others, not looking for heaven on earth.

· We are to be a holy community.

o Set apart for God’s purposes.

o Living sacrifice showing the world what God is like.

· We are to be a truth-telling community.

o Speak the truth in love.

o Not driven by experience but by God’s absolute standard

· We are to be an upbuilding and encouraging community.

o The work of Christ in the church is "building up". (Gal 6:2)

o Because we are loved we can love others.

· We are to be a sacrificially generous and giving community.

o Paul writes, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9)

o The early Christians were known for their radical generosity: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need” (Acts 2:44,45)

· We are to be a suffering community.

o We should rally around those suffering.

o One for all and all for one.