One Harbor Church: Morehead City, NC

Community Groups

At first glance we often think God is a Lone Ranger, but God is Himself the perfect pattern of community: Father, Son and Holy Spirit co-existing perfectly in unity, love and submission. In His eternal wisdom He designed relationships in His kingdom be patterned this way. What does that look like for us?

Be Known...

God has shown us exactly who He is. He did this all through the Old Testament and more so in the New Testament as we see the life and works of Jesus who showed us exactly what God is like (Heb 1:1-3). One of the most powerful pictures of salvation is that we are fully known by God and yet we receive mercy, love and acceptance from Him (Eph 2:1-22). To be fully known is a scary thought. Think about all the things we've done and the thoughts we've thought. Imagine those get made public to everyone...the shame would be more than we could bear...so we think. But this is exactly our relationship with God; He chose to accept us despite our flawed state because we receive the perfect record of Jesus as God looks at Him in our place.

Therefore we are to move beyond knowing each other in superficial ways to becoming open and real in our relationships with one another. The richest relationships we can have are ones where we are fully known by another and yet find full acceptance and love and are encouraged to mature. This is why the Bible says marriage is so profound when done in this way.

Community Groups exist to foster this openness as we all come together knowing two things to be true, "I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great Savior". Our lives are a trophy of God's grace, having moved from the shame and stains of sin to the restored dignity, joy and purity through redemption/salvation in Christ. We can & will only speak with openness about our pasts without shame the more we realize that we stand before God justified and righteous in Jesus. As our stories are put on display the transforming power of the Gospel is made visible for others to see today. It shows us what Jesus did in our lives past, present and future and we can find beauty, even from pain.

Be Committed...

As we begin to deepen our relationships with one another we are also called to minister to one another. This life is filled with seasons of difficulty and pain. God sends the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us along this whole journey of faith, but God also gave us one another. However, we live in a day and age where many Christians believe "all we need is Jesus." While this is the truest statement in the world when it comes to our Salvation, it is the furthest thing from the truth when we look at living out our relationship with Jesus. In the garden God created for Adam a suitable helper, Eve, because God determined it was not good for man to be alone. It wasn't good then, it's not good now.

Passages like Hebrews 10:19-25 call us to devotion to one another BECAUSE of God's devotion to us in Jesus (Heb 10:1-24). Community is about us meeting with one another, helping one another, serving one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another and praying for one another. Community requires each of us to be involved with one another in these ways, always stirring one another up to faith and good works.

Be Changed...

Because of this individualistic Christianity that many are trying to have now statistics show that in a few years over 20% of Christians will be "going to church" online, at home, alone & largely unaccountable. Surely this is not what Jesus had in mind. Community is THE place we can be cared for, loved, and encouraged to mature and be transformed more and more like Jesus. We all have one desire in community, to glorify God. This is accomplished through changing the focus from loving ourselves to loving God and loving others. In community we are challenged, encouraged and strengthened as often as we get together to live this way. It is completely counter-cultural to put ourselves last, but this is exactly how God is changing us every day. We must, again, recognize this is not an "optional-extra" in Christianity, but one of the proofs that we know Jesus.

Be Part Of Community...

Here at One Harbor, we are desperately seeking to be more than just a Crowd, although we love the crowd. The Early Church that we see in the Bible was more than a crowd & Jesus' desire for us is that we too would be more than just a crowd. What we long for is something that is extremely rare in our day- Real Community. Counterfeit Community can be found all around us like in our addiction to social media which shows that deep down we all want to be known & know others. However only Real Community, that helps us see ourselves & each other in light of the Gospel, will result in what we are really longing for.

Join us this year as we seek to Be Known, Be Committed & Be Changed!

SIGN-UPS FOR TERM 1 ARE NOW CLOSED BUT WE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE YOUR INFORMATION TO ADD TO OUR WAITING LIST FOR TERM 2. YOU CAN CALL THE CHURCH OFFICE AT (252) 422-2899 OR CONTACT US BY EMAIL. WE PLAN TO ADD MORE GROUPS AT THE START OF TERM 2. MORE INFORMATION WILL FOLLOW REGARDING THESE GROUPS.