I invite you to take a Bible, either your own perhaps, or the one from a pew in front of you,

and turn to Ephesians, chapter 4.

We're going to read together versus 4 through 16. This is our annual fall focus on small group life at Bethlehem.

You'll notice pictures and statements about the open small groups on a display out there in that corner of the Commons.

While you're looking that up, let me tell you what we're going to do next Sunday

and on through the fall.

Many of you have been hearing about the master planning team

in its work for the last eight months.

We have finalized and are now printing a document, a vision, mission document that's about

12 pages in the form that you're going to get it and I'm going to preach out of it all through the fall.

And you will be given a copy, all of you individually, next Sunday Sunday morning and we will spend three months

together trying to understand it and to lay ourselves open to all that the Holy

Spirit means to do with it in the life of our church,

while about 17 sub-planning groups attempt to flesh it out in practical proposals for our life together, which the elders will assemble toward the end of this year and put into a more concrete planning proposal moving towards a climactic kind of embracing next March 17.

So that gives you a little overview of what next Sunday through next March is all going to be

about. So if you've been around for a little

while or for a long time and you wonder what are the fresh initiatives? What are the new directions?

What is the trajectory of this church now? You'll want to come for the next several

Sundays and get a copy of that statement and listen to my effort to unfold it and we'll have some times to talk about it.

But this morning, as I think an essential component of any church that I'm going to be a part of, I want to talk

about the small group life of this church. Let's read verses 4 to 16. This is one of many, many texts I could have chosen, but you'll see why perhaps this one is

significant in this regard as we go.

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