Why do we get together on Friday nights?
Are we getting together for the sake of tradition; Are we fellowshipping for the sake of getting together on a Friday night at MC because we’ve been doing it every week in our past academic years? Are we coming to CCF Friday nights to see the familiar faces we are used to seeing and be comfortable in the environment that we’ve grown to love? Have we lost the meaning of our Friday night fellowship?
The purpose of CCF’s Friday night program is to WORSHIP GOD together as a FELLOWSHIP. A fellowship is the gathering of Christ followers; it is an opportunity for people to come together to worship God and be challenged by studying and interactively applying the Word of God to our lives which is the basis of our faith. The model of our fellowship is the early church, found in Acts 2:42-47.
CCF is not exclusive to believers only. We welcome both believers and non-believers to our friendly, open environment. No one is greater than another. We come together, as undeserving individuals, to build vertical (with our Heavenly Father) and horizontal (with those in the fellowship) relationships by God’s grace.
Every Friday we will have a prayer meeting from 6:00PM – 6:30PM. This prayer meeting is open to everybody who would like to join us in prayer before the program starts. This is followed by a time of mingling until our program starts promptly at 7:00PM (not on CST – Chinese Standard Time). The program generally runs until 9:00PM. After the program, we encourage you to share and talk to others that you may know or not know within the fellowship. Those hungry for food can normally find a large number of people going out for dinner when the “loitering” is done.
Come out on Friday nights to worship God, learn about God’s Word, and build meaningful relationships. God is our Creator, Father and Friend, let’s be prompt to give Him the due praise with the love and energy He has entrusted to us.
Come join us!
Why DGs?
Why Discipleship Groups? What happened to my mens cell? Where'd womens cell go? Help! What are you doing to the uwccf I once knew!?!?
Hopefully you don't need a refresher of the 2009-2010 vision statement set by the UWCCF Committee for the year (Hint: Read the previous post =p). Each part focuses on a member of the Trinity, the first portion focusing on pursuit of God's own heart. What IS pursuit of God's own heart? Intimacy!
We were created to get to know and share in intimate knowledge (Greek: Gnoskos) with Him! Why? Because with intimacy comes passion. With intimacy comes knowledge and understanding. With intimacy comes knowing why each of us were specifically created and our purpose in this world. Look at all your favourite characters in the Bible. What makes them stick out? They all had some super intense and deep relationship with God! Thats what makes them worth writing about! It is our belief that God has called each and every one of you for a specific purpose in this world. How do we find it? By getting to know Him and His heart! How else?
Okay so Intimacy. But why DGs?
The benefits of a Discipleship Group is that it thrives on intimacy! A 3-4 man/woman group of people that have partnered together in pursuit of God and knowing Him through learning, encouraging and challenging one another in love. It's important to create a partnership of accountability, trust and love to spur one another on in the race after God's own heart. What better way to do it than to partner together with a few brothers/sisters who are on the same race as you!
While the DG structure and formation is a bit more difficult than having a cell group that you're free to join/leave as you please... that's the point! We want to shift the focus onto initiatives that really challenge you to get intimate rather than skimming the surface with a group that potentially changes week to week. The Christian lives we live are not meant to be taken lightly! In the same way, we have to evaluate ourselves and see if we're really ready to dive deeper into getting to know/understand God and the hope he has set out for us. We believe the majority of UWCCF has grown to a point of maturity where they are ready to challenge themselves, as well as their brothers and sisters in getting to know the creator on an intimate level. Thus, we challenge you to get involved in a DG this term (or start considering with whom you may want to potentially partner with next term!).
The benefits of DGs and being part of one far outweigh the feedback and response we've gotten from cell groups in the past. But no need to believe us! Feel free to talk to anyone in the fellowship whom you know has been involved with DGs in the past to hear about their experiences and how it helped them on their walks. We really want to shift the focus to people learning to challenge themselves/each other in smaller group settings.
Be sure to make it out to one of the DG workshops held every term to learn about how a DG runs and how to form them. Not ready for a term-long commitment? We encourage you to get involved in our serving ministries! The structure and flexibility reflects those of a cell group, but with many of them focusing on serving others / our campus.
For more info about DGs, please feel free to contact one of the UWCCF 2009-2010 Committee members!
2009-2010 UWCCF Vision
The Vision set by the 2009-2010 UWCCF Elected Committee is to see ourselves become:
A fellowship that fearlessly pursues God’s own heart, is empowered by the Holy Spirit, and is made alive in the fullness of Christ.
Above all else, our priority is the constant pursuit of a personal relationship with God (Phil 3:7-8, John 17:3). The goal is that each person will discover and learn what it truly means to be a Christian and wholeheartedly pursues his or her personal calling in life. It is our belief that when you pursue an intimate relationship with God, He will draw near (James 4:8a) and guide you each new day to what He has planned for you during your time here on this planet (Ephesians 1:17-19). As with any relationship, the more we get to know God, the more we understand and naturally become like Him, reflecting the perfect love and holiness of the Father. We want to see Christians who are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, tangibly and boldly glorifying our Father in heaven. Together, we hope to be like a city on a hill (Matthew 5:13-16).
The role of the Holy Spirit is to empower and convict us to proclaim the Good News of His grace, mercy, and power. Jesus was in true communion with the Holy Spirit, allowing the Spirit to exhibit His power. This is the same Holy Spirit who has inspired the writing of the Holy Bible and is available to us when we understand our calling and have an intimate relationship with God (Acts 1:8). In the coming year, we would like to see UWCCF be a place that is filled with the Holy Spirit, so that we might be made aware of His gifts and miracles more than ever before. We will seek His guidance as we dig into the Bible and deepen our relationships with the people around us. As a Committee, we are excited to see how the Spirit can move within us as a fellowship to touch people’s hearts and to bring about great and powerful things (Romans 8:11).
Last, but not least, Christ plays a crucial role as part of the Trinity. We are able to live in confidence of our salvation because of the sacrifice He made (1 Cor. 8:6). The Bible tells us that we are to die to our old ways, and be ‘reborn' through Christ (Romans 6:4, 6:8, Galatians 2:20, Phil 1:21). While many of us may still be caught up in our shortcomings as Christians, as a fellowship we pray that we will continually be made more and more alive through Christ and what He has already done for us. Our human lives and our flesh will be constantly tempted and plagued with sin or inadequacies, but it is the full livelihood of Christ that transforms us into good and righteous people (John 1:16, Col. 2:10). Throughout the year, we hope to constantly grow to understand more and more the fullness that comes through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection.
Ultimately, Christianity is a journey in relationship that brings new challenges and new joys each and every day. We have faith that by pursuing the Holy Trinity and an intimate relationship with/understanding of them, we will be able to see amazing changes in each of our lives, our fellowship and on our campus. As a band of brothers and sisters, we hope to journey in this together, hand-in-hand to discover more about this calling that God has placed for us here at the University of Waterloo.
Why 2ThumbsUp?
This 2ThumbsUp blog was created by the 2009-2010 UWCCF Committee to create greater transparency as well as a channel of information from the committee to the fellowship, and to anyone else interested in the internal workings of the fellowship.
With the 2ThumbsUp blog, the UWCCF Committee hopes to share the UWCCF vision for the year, how we plan to practically implement it as a fellowship, any pertinent prayer requests and any informal chunks of information outside of our general announcements at fellowship or on the uwccf website.
While many in the fellowship may see the Committee as the ‘leaders’ of the fellowship we hope that you’d understand that we are just other humans too, who sin, need prayer, and have personal struggles. We don’t see ourselves as people who are in any way above the fellowship, but rather fellow brothers and sisters who are in this race together with all other members of the fellowship. We are seeking to move as a body according to God’s will and we all have our role to play in this fellowship. Committee is but only one specific locus of responsibilities within this fellowship. We’re moving hand-in-hand with you guys and are always looking for your input and feedback on the decisions we make or where we, as a fellowship, are moving.
The name of 2ThumbsUp was chosen because whenever committee had to discuss/approve any items, many of us would show our approval with nothing more than a smile and giving two thumbs up. Thus, the name of the blog came naturally as we hope we can seek your approval and support as a fellowship on any items shared here!