Small Groups
Small Group Ministries
DUMC is an inclusive faith community where ALL are welcome and encouraged to participate—regardless of sexual preference, race, religion, or social status.
For the last five weeks, the small groups of Doylestown UMC have been working their way through our All-Church Study on Philip Yancey’s, Vanishing Grace. Our Sunday sermons have been focused on the study as well.
At the beginning of this study, we discovered that the church has a problem, and that problem is that many people view the message of Jesus (the Good News of the Gospel) as NOT good news because of how it was presented to them by followers of Jesus (e.g., in forceful ways, in hateful ways, in inconsiderate ways, in many other negative ways). This is why Yancey believes that grace appears to be vanishing in our world today. Then, for the remaining four weeks of the study, we discovered and discussed ways in which we can play our part to fix the problem by presenting the Good News in ways that make others desire to know the main character of the Good News—Jesus. The main goal of the study was to find ways in which we can become God’s Grace Dispensers in the world.
We had nine different small groups participate in the All-Church Study, which consisted of 113 people. However, some of our members did double dip (and some even triple dipped) by participating in multiple small groups. Nothing wrong with that, though!
Some of our small group leaders provided feedback on how the Vanishing Grace study went for their groups. One leader stated, “The group definitely enjoyed the videos, and we did have active conversations each week.” Another leader said, “The combination of the sermons, videos, and reading led to some really amazing discussions on how we can all be better Grace Dispensers.” Another leader stated, “This study was excellent. The topics were well-presented, the study guide questions were thorough and engaging, and our group absolutely loved everything about this study!” Other comments were: “This study was better than the last all-church study”, “Great study!”, “A very readable book”, and, “I enjoyed everything about the study.”
You have roughly ten months until our next All-Church Study kicks off, which means you have ten months to practice and perfect being God’s Grace Dispensers in our world by sharing the love of Jesus with others.
Happy Grace Dispensing,