ONE*

Welcome to CONNECTION SUNDAY! Today, we kick-off our church-wide Spiritual Growth Campaign. Every year we devote 6 to 8 weeks to a specific topic that we believe will help you grow in your relationship with God.

Connecting in a group can help you grow.

In His letter to the believers in Ephesus the apostle Paul reminded them to pursue spiritual growth. He wrote:

Eph. 4:14-15 (PHILLIPS)
We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the craft presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head.

Notice that Paul encouraged them to grow up in every way. That would be spiritually mentally, emotionally and socially. However, our spiritual growth is foundational.

Most of the PROBLEMS we face in our life are directly correlated to our spiritual immaturity.

It is important to understand that our spiritual growth ends up determining the outcome and the impact of our lives here on earth. We were designed to GROW.

The question is, “Do you really want to grow up?” What does it take to grow up?

Since this is Connection Sunday, I want to share Five Principles that will help you to grow Spiritually. Growing spiritually will impact your mental, emotional and social growth. That’s why it’s important for us to GROW UP SPIRITUALLY.

We Grow When We:

1. Feed our soul on God’s Word.

Everyone understands that we all need physical food to grow physically but we also need spiritual food to grow spiritually.

Growing up spiritually is tied to what we feed on.

2. We grow when we are open to growing in different ways.

Most of us learn in different ways. There are 4 Main Learning Styles. See if you can confirm your specific learning style as I define them.

· Auditory: You learn by listening.
If you are auditory, you love church because that’s the learning style that most churches rely on.

Auditory learning has been proven not to be the most effective way to learn. Why? Studies have revealed that we forget 95% of what we hear within 72 hours of hearing it.

This is why teachers and coaches encourage their students to use as many learning styles a possible.

One man said, “The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.”

The second type of learning style is:

· Visual: You learn by watching or reading
You are more than likely not a person who remembers or retains anything until you see it written out. You love to have an outline before the meeting and meeting notes after the meeting.

The third type of learning style is:

· Verbal: You learn by talking
You will probably like being in a life group if you learn this way. When you talk out loud you confirm what you believe and it empowers you. You will even discover things about yourself and others while you talk.

If you don’t learn by hearing, seeing or saying you are probably more:

· Physical/Kinesthetic: You learn by doing
Guys don’t read a book to play baseball, golf or basketball. They say, “Hey would you like to go throw the ball around? Would out to hit a bucket of balls or shoot some hoops?”

This is why I believe so many people grow when they get involved in some kind of TEAM sport small group.

You Hear your coach give direction and instruction
You see others do what the coach has instructed
You talk out the strategy or the play with others on the team
And then physically play the game.

The more we can involve ourselves in environments that give us an opportunity to learn in different ways the better and quicker we will learn.

Groups are designed to do that. That’s why we encourage everyone to be involved in a GROUP.

In our Everything Groups:
· We will listen to a teaching (auditory)
· We will watch a video and follow notes (Visual)
· We will talk about what we recognized or learned (Verbal)
· We will give some action steps that will encourage us to go and apply what we learned (Physical/Kinesthetic).

3. Develop spiritual habits.

Like Physical habits, Spiritual habits will keep you healthy and bless your life. Habits keep you practicing the right things.

During our series, I want to encourage you to develop these 3 habits or practice the…

1. Habit of weekly larger group worship
2. Habit of small group involvement
3. Habit of daily time alone with God (Bible and Prayer)

4. Help each other grow.

5. Get serious

Jeremiah 29:13-14 (MSG)
“When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.”

It’s time to get serious about your spiritual growth. I want you to grow in your relationship with God.

In his letter to the believers in Corinth, the apostle Paul writes,
2 Cor. 13:9b (TLB)
Our greatest wish and prayer is that you will become mature Christians.

We grow when we,
1) Feed on God’s Word,
2) Become open to growing in different ways,
3) Develop Spiritual Habits,
4) Help each other grow, and
5) Get serious.

I would like everyone to become part of a group for the next six weeks. You will get the most from this series by being part of a group.

This is the year of GROWTH! The question is… Do you really want to grow?