Grow Groups

My mentor told me when I was a new mom, holding my 3-week old, that our relationship with Jesus should be like this baby in my arms.  Always growing and maturing into new things.  While that concept grabbed my attention, as I watched my son grow, I came to realize that I didn’t need to do anything, really, to help him grow.  A few weeks later, he was holding his head up on his own.  The best growth milestone being when he first looked back at me and smiled!  He would later come to sit-up, crawl, stand, walk, and talk, all with little help from me!  

Our faith journey with Jesus should grow and look differently each week, as he grows us!  But, faith growth doesn’t just happen the way it does for babies!  With infants, we get to watch and be amazed at the growth that happens right before our eyes.  But, with our faith journey, we need to do the work to make it a priority.  If not, our faith journey gets put on auto-pilot, and really, if we aren’t growing, we are stuck.  

So we are asking the big question: “What would it look like for EACH OF US at Crosstown to be growing in our relationship with Jesus?”  Ask yourself, “How does Jesus want to grow me this year?”  Certainly, we are all at different places in our relationship with Jesus, and certainly each of us will experience growth and strengthen different muscles this year.

Crosstown introduces you to Grow Groups!  And it is our desire to see each of us grab a hold of a Grow Group this year, and plan to grow with Jesus and each other!  Because we are a diverse congregation we are introducing a variety of ways to grow!  

• There are groups online and in-person.  
• There are groups that meet weekly and ones that meet monthly.  
• One way to help quantify the level of rigor and spiritual challenge of a class is to clearly communication the “homework” to be completed. What kind of groundwork needs to be done to help someone fully participate in a given Grow Group? We have five different levels to help categories the groups and to help you to find the right personalized fit. Learn more about the different levels here.  

Our hope is to help each of you identify an area of interest and commit to growing with Jesus and others this year!  You may find that growth for you means prioritizing ONE group for the year.  Or maybe you will meet the challenge and join 2 or 3 as your schedule allows!  

The 2022-2023 Grow Groups will be published in the Crosstown App, allowing you to see the variety and plan accordingly.  There are Grow Groups that will weather life’s storms over the course of the year in a high-accountability fashion, and other groups that are based on season or hot topics.  

Will you join us as we launch together into a year of intentional growth?  What new places is Jesus hoping to grow you?
- Pastor Polly Inestroza

The Grow Group tab in the Crosstown app contains an information sheet for each individual group, a rating of the groundwork requested, a calendar and other pertinent content.
You can also search for a group with key words like: women's, drop-in, moderate... This will help you filter the options to the right one for you.
There is also an old-school paper binder on the Spiritual Life Pathways wall what you can flip through to read about our options.