Asbury United Methodist Church - Corpus Christi

Home Teams

Home Teams help build Asbury Church into a community with members strong in Fellowship, Worship and Prayer, Biblical Study, Accountability and Trust, and Community Outreach.

The Purpose of Home Teams

Home Teams are the primary context for discipleship, fellowship and caring at Asbury Church. Home Teams are a great way to build lifelong relationships, learn more about the Bible, and grow stronger spiritually.

What are Home Teams?

Home Teams are groups of about 12 people who meet together in the comfort of one another's homes to learn about Christian living and to build relationships within the church. Most Home Teams meet on a regular time schedule with the goal of discovering and growing in faith with Christ.

Do Home Teams have Biblical roots?

Building authentic relationships is a key focus of Home Teams. Confidentiality, honesty and acceptance are core values in a Home Team. To begin to feel like a part of God's family. To allow prayer to become more meaningful to you.

Asbury Church cares about people, our relationships with one another, and most importantly, our relationship with the risen Christ.

A nurturing community is essential to our spiritual growth. Home Teams are one of the most powerful tools for building community within Asbury.

There are many promises in the Bible related to the power of group prayer. In praying together with a few others, we are drawn together to practice and experience the power of prayer.

Small group meetings in homes were the foundation of the early church. Acts 2:42 and 46 reminds us: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer...every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in the homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."

We are called to live the Christian life with the support of others. Members helping one another is Christ's plan for the church.

Why should I join a Home Team?

To understand the Bible and Christianity better. You can ask questions, participate in discussions, and hear others share their insights and illustrations of the Biblical truths they are trying to grasp. As groups gather to encourage one another through the process of applying the teachings of the Bible to their lives, Christ's followers can be seen in their native environment.?

To provide support and care for one another. Over fifty times in the New Testament the phrase "one another" is used to describe our relationships to other believers. We are instructed to love one another, pray for one another, encourage one another, bear one another?s burdens and build up one another.

Why Small Groups?

As churches grow, the ratio between staff members and laity dwindles. Staff cannot be hired fast enough to adequately care for those in their ministry areas and in the church at large. Thus people are not cared for, and needs go unmet. Neither is acceptable.

Healthy and growing churches must utilize a decentralized system that releases the laity to offer quality ministry to one another. In such a system, the most strategic person in the church is the small group leader, not paid staff. In fact, staff members are hired not to do the ministry themselves but instead, to empower and equip members of the church body to do the work of ministry.

In contrast to centralized structures that are limited by church staff size and office space, the small group system is limited only by available laity; it is, therefore, virtually unlimited. As small groups become the vehicle through which ministry is accomplished, the quality and quantity of care is increased, volunteer turnover is reduced, and a structure that can support exponential growth is established.

Small groups are not a department within the church-an optional appendage for those with extraordinary commitment or merely extra time-small groups ARE the church.