Looking at the contemporary world, you can't miss that urbanization is everywhere. People, especially young people, are coming to big cities to have better prospects for the future. In most cases this means the material aspects of life: education, profession, work - to achieve material stability in their lives.

Many of the members of Salvation Church were not exceptions in this respect. In principle it isn't a bad idea: a lot is happening in a big city, you can find work, grow culturally and socially, test yourself and succeed in many different areas of life...

But along with the advantages of life in the city, you need to take the disadvantages in stride: stress from overload at work, the lack of time for relationships with family and friends, the insularity of life in the apartment building. Once I heard the phrase: "The bigger the city, the less noticeable the individual becomes!" And I really agree. Among the great number of people there are many sad cases of loneliness - it's easy to get lost in the crowd - mass psychology, if you will.

The same thing happens in large churches. When there are more than a hundred members in a church and the membership continues to grow, (note that our church now has more than 160 members), then you start to see the phenomenon of "straying sheep." Christians become entangled in the business of earthly life and quietly slip away from fellowship with other believers and are satisfied with just coming to church on Sunday. This results in gradual spiritual fading and cooling of interest in spiritual development. Some people may not even find their place in the fellowship of the church and at the beginning stage of their spiritual development get lost among the large number of believers. In any case that type of "individual wandering" is fraught with serious spiritual consequences.

For exactly that reason, to give people in our city the opportunity to find deep and edifying fellowship with one another, the ministry team of Salvation Church, following God's revealed plan, are inviting everyone who is interested to attend a different type of event: the "Our Family" club. This will consist of family conferences, church outings, sports and so forth. However, the key place for fellowship for all those attending will be small groups. Every week our members get together for edifying fellowship in their "spiritual families", where they can share their concerns, support one another and learn about God... It is important to us that everyone should feel themselves a part of the church, and not just an attender. Our Lord Jesus is the head of the church, which is His body, and we are members of that body (1 Cor 12:27), we need these relationships and depend on one another.

To all of the visitors to our web site and our church I want to say the following: a Christian without fellowship with other Christians has no strength. When we share our lives with one another (visit one another, use our gifts to help one another, support one another in prayer, word and deed), then then God is glorified and we are filled with the joy of unity. In the New Testament the Lord calls on us, "not to foresake assembling together" (Heb 10:25). That passage is referring to meeting in houses. We can paraphrase it as "don't desert your spiritual family, don't desert those who can serve, support and encourage you in following God, don't miss the time you can spend with people like that!"

So, dear friends, if you want to grow spiritually, but aren't part of a small group yet, we welcome you. Choose yourself a "spiritual family" and start enjoying Christian fellowship. Of course, no one is perfect, and the people in the small groups are just like you, with weaknesses and flaws. Sometimes small groups of Christians like these get into loud discussions, and some may not show proper restraint or holiness in their life, but that is exactly the reason we get together, so that together, reading God's Word, looking at to Christ and changing, we may become better, and more like Him.

Do you want to see a miracle in your life? We invite you to one of these groups, where God Himself, through the instrument of your neighbors, will do something in you.

 

Radislav Tsurkan

Photos of some of the groups from our church