This week we are running the new CARE group lists. We began the CARE group program in 1994, the year I arrived. Over the years we have organized them in various ways with various results, but the purpose of the CARE group program has never changed. CARE groups help the family here at Manassas be better at CAring for each other, and being REsponsible for each other.
CARE groups help us to more easily divide labor, and provide many extra pairs of eyes and ears so we know best how to prefer, protect, and provide for each other. CARE groups plan fellowships, take food to shut-ins, provide rides to appointments, fix things around the building, pray, send cards, conduct devotionals, visit the sick, run the vacuum cleaner, water plants, study the word, barbecue, weep, shoot hoops, host baby showers/wedding showers/memorial dinners, laugh a lot, play Candyland, shovel snow, evangelize, go to baseball games, support missionaries, make lots of phone calls, fish, hug, run errands for the elderly, and encourage….always encourage. Or as Paul lists the variety of the work:
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, preferring one another in honor; working very hard, being fervent in spirit, serving the lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in times of trouble, being devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Romans 12.9-13
We can not, of course, be faithful to our charge if we aren’t focused, aren’t attentive, aren’t organized, aren’t motivated, and don’t know each other. CARE groups provide that focus, that framework. As you find your name on the list to follow, acquaint yourself with your leaders. Determine to be as active as you can in events. Always communicate the needs you become aware of – especially your own. Participate.
We are one body, with one head (Jesus) and thus are members of each other (Romans 12.3ff, I Corinthians 12.12ff, Ephesians 4.11ff). To belong to Jesus is to belong to each other – there is no other way. Let us then, as we begin another year of CARE groups, determine to live what is true: that we are sheep of the same flock, children in the same family, members of the same body – that we belong to each other because we belong to Christ.