by Pastor Patrick Cho
The GraceLife Ministry is specifically for married couples and singles parents at Lighthouse. The men meet on Tuesdays at 8:00pm and the women meet on Thursdays at 7:30pm. Both meetings are at the church in Room 107. Over the years it has been challenging coming up with a ministry format that could best work for GraceLife because most of our families are made up of couples with young children. As such, childcare is an issue at almost every church event. With the current format, while one parent is at the church fellowshipping with their peer group, their spouse can stay at home to spend time with the kids. In this way, our GraceLife members can enjoy needed fellowship and receive helpful accountability without the distraction of having to wonder how the kids are doing.
Each week, homework sheets are made available for GraceLife. They can be found either in the foyer on Sundays or online at the GraceLife website. The homework is a short questionnaire reviewing the past Sunday’s sermon. Each member is responsible for completing the homework before coming to GraceLife so they can participate in the large group discussion. This homework is helpful because most people probably never review the past Sunday’s message. Those who come out have commented that the homework helps them to keep God’s Word in mind throughout the week. The large group discussion times have been wonderful since the members contribute helpful insights and ask good questions.
After our large group time, the group breaks up into small groups. Our current small group leaders are Patrick Cho, Kent Hong, Min Kim, Peter Lim, and Steven Preslar for the men, and Christine Cho, Romi Hong, Angela Kim, Jane Kim, Carol Lim, Jinny Lim, and Lynn Preslar for the ladies. The small groups focus not only on providing accountability but also talking more about the practical outworking of the principles from the Sunday messages.
Although the homework given is for the GraceLife Ministry, we feel as though the exercise would really benefit anyone in the church. A couple questions that are asked are: 1) How did the sermon particularly focus on the character of God? What are some things that were taught about who God is? 2) What are some of your major reflections from the sermon? What points stood out to you, and why? and 3) What is at least one principle of application that particularly challenged you from the message? List three ways you can work to apply each of the principles to your life. Any believer who comes to church on Sunday should be thinking through these things on a weekly basis. GraceLife simply helps facilitate such meditation through the homework that is assigned.
It has been a tremendous joy serving in GraceLife and being able to spend time with the married men on a weekly basis. My wife also shares what a blessing it is to meet together with the ladies on Thursdays. It serves as a great way to be reminded to think God’s thoughts and consider God’s ways during midweek when the busyness of parenting, work, hobbies, etc. can drown out our spiritual priorities. As it is the primary place of providing accountability in the church for our married couples and parents, we highly encourage all to come out.