In my role as Associate Pastor, I am continually engaged in one-on-one discipleship and pastoral care, while also building teams of people who provide care and support to the disciples in our group.
Throughout the year, I teach in the Pathway and host a Gospel Community in my home. It is a gift to be able to teach believers to embrace their identity in Christ, teaching them who Christ has made them to be and helping them to walk daily in light of His Word.
Our purpose is to be disciples and equip disciples.
Throughout the year, the GriefShare team has discipled more than forty men and women who were grieving the loss of a loved one. More than half of those men and women were new to TGP and found us for the first time online.
We provide a safe setting where each person can explore their deep, and often agonizing, questions while discovering they are not alone. We introduce them to others who are going through the same things they are, so that they experience life in community. Most of all, we open the Scriptures and show them Jesus, their comforter, the “man of sorrows acquainted with grief.”
Scripturally Rooted.
Relationally Committed.
Sacrificially Minded.
Missionally Driven.
While our Care Ministry aims to embody all our values, I think we really exemplify Relationally Committed.
Our entire team is wholly committed to both being disciples as well as equipping disciples and potential disciples. They do this through personal relationships, investing deeply and carefully in one another’s lives, and even investing deeply amidst deep pain. They are warm to invite others in, tender with their wounds, and strong while bearing their burdens with them.
Life Change:
the result of being disciples and equipping disciples together
One way we have seen our church members embrace discipleship rather than remaining a spectator is in people like Joan J. Last year, Joan lost her husband; she knows what others are going through in loss, and she remarkably makes her available to them. In particular, Joan has made herself personally available to one of our most recent ‘first timers’ in GriefShare. Throughout each week, Joan stays in contact with her and personally reaches out on her own initiative. She is not pushy, nor simply disciplined to stay on it. Rather, Joan knows what it means to “be there” for someone like others were “there for” her. She is kind and available, a good listener, and a gift of a disciple.
Another story has been through disciples in our church simply being “everyday disciples.” I had the joy of meeting a man named Luther through a mutual friend, Walter. Walter had been trying to reach Luther for years through their relationship, common connections, and so on, but to no avail. As I got to know Luther and Walter, we had frequent conversations on Sunday mornings, simply “making deposits” and building trust. But one day, the Lord spoke uniquely to Luther, and as we prayed, it became a “stake in the ground” moment for him. He came back to the Lord, deciding to follow Jesus with no turning back! Now, the three of us meet for studies together, and they are also engaging in discipleship with their spouses at home.
What does engagement look like?
With more than 40 men and women engaging in GriefShare alone and more opportunities to provide care and discipleship, we are excited for the new expressions of care and new ministry groups we are forming for 2025.
Stay tuned for more updates in this area and changes as we continue to grow TGP’s Care ministry!
And celebrate with us how many new people are coming into contact with the Gospel and discipleship through practical care, such as GriefShare. If you have experienced loss or know someone who has, make GriefShare a priority in 2025.