CORE!

This is our Core group. Lernardo and Mike are in the other pictures because Lernard wasn't there and Mike had left before I remembered to take the picture (I stole their pictures from Facebook, muhaha). Starting from the left is Sean, Mahesh, myself, Steven, Eric, and Robby. In the back, on the couch, from the left is Blake and Christian. (Click on pictures for a larger view).

The first Core we had this semester we had an encouragement time where each person shared a strength and weakness for everyone. We got through three people and are going to continue it the next time we meet. This past week when we met we were going to go to Alena's birthday party so that people wouldn't have to miss out on that because of Core so when it got canceled we just hung out at Eric and Robby's apartment instead. Steven and I are really excited about this semester though because for the first time we actually planned out what we were going to do for the first 8 weeks and put much more effort into it. Basically we finally started being responsible for our group and were purposeful. Whenever we finish the encouragements we will start talking about purity and sexuality, then prayer, planning/being purposeful, and service. We also split the group up into pairs so that we can do hw assignments with a partner which Steven and I thought would help people to be more accountable with what we asked them to do outside of Core. The main focus we had in planning this semesters meetings was that we didn't want to do just a Bible study like last semester where we just had discussions every week and only saw each other once or twice a week if people went to FOCUS on Sunday night. What we wanted was to create a better sense of community and make it to where we had more interaction between everyone and did more action, than just discussion. So during and outside of Core we will try and have some sort of way we can implement the lessons or something.

That's all I can really think about for now. I kind of lost my train of thought too, because Matt's music distracted me and I started tapping to the beat on my keyboard so there's a chance I put up a follow up post, but I think I said everything I wanted to.

Oh, I hung out with Chris Byler the other night and he said he wanted to come to Core. We are going to go rock climbing tomorrow. I'm really excited about Chris, because when he is motivated to do something he does it. I've seen it in many of the things he's accomplished. He can do great things if he can focus his efforts toward God's will. That's something I'd really like to see in the future. All prayer about this will be much appreciated :)

Anyway, these are the things that are happening in Steven's and my Core.