A Place to Be Known and Loved
Each month, we send out a note from Erik reflecting on life in the church, current happenings, and more.
August 21, 2026
Dear City Church,
This month I’m preaching a sermon series called Life Together. It is meant to be a short and sweet explanation of Christian community—where it comes from, what it looks like, what it does, and how it shows us the good news. It’s a really important topic because, as I said in the first message, we’re made for life together and we long for life together.
The primary application point of this sermon series is for everyone at City Church to get involved in a City Group (or some other small group). It is through these smaller groups that we are able to receive the blessings of the Christian community for ourselves and give them to others.
The Benefits of City Groups
City Groups are places to experience Christ, connection, and care. One of the very first things I did when I started working at City Church 18 years ago was to establish a couple of City Groups. Up until that point, City Church existed only as a Sunday afternoon worship service. I knew then (and I still believe now) that for us to live out the fullness of life together as a church, we needed to be gathering regularly in smaller groups. Through these smaller groups, we’re able to carry out the New Testament’s imperatives of loving one another, praying for one another, and bearing one another’s burdens. Through these smaller groups, God gives us several benefits.
First of all, City Groups are places where we experience Christ through his word and his people. We want small groups at City Church to read the Bible together. It may not take place at every meeting and there may be seasons where a City Group uses some other Christian resource. But because we believe Christ meets with us through the Bible, we want God’s word to be at the center of our groups. Of course Christ, by his Spirit, also meets us through other Christians. There is particular power when a group of believers gather around Scripture because there God grows us through the insights and experiences of our sisters and brothers.
City Groups are also places of connection. Through the years as I’ve talked with people about City Church, they often ask questions about our vision, about our theology, or about our programming. I’ve come to realize that behind all of those questions, there’s usually another question, a deeper question. It’s a question about connection. Is this a place where I will be known and loved? That question is best answered through City Groups. Smaller groups of people allow for a depth and a thickness of relationship that doesn’t develop from Sunday gatherings alone. The repetition of showing up for each other in each other’s homes week after week develops the sort of relational connection we all long for.
City Groups are also the front line of pastoral care at City Church. Needs that can’t be shared with the congregation as a whole are shared in City Groups. The depth of relationship formed through these groups leads to an honesty and vulnerability that allows the church to be the church. City Groups do not remain on their own in providing care for members, but they are a starting point, the first line of response. And City Groups don’t just provide care to members of the group. They also provide care to others in our community and within the greater Richmond community. In so doing, City Groups demonstrate that healthy Christian community is missional; that is, it is looking for ways to provide a welcome blessing to others.
The Costs of City Groups
City Groups also cost us something. Life together is full of friction. And that’s a good thing.
In our contemporary moment, most everything exists in order to reduce friction. Technology seeks to make everything easier, if not easy. Through life hacks and time management strategies, we strive to escape the constraints of time and space. Life together in City Groups puts us back into messy, complicated, awkward, embodied relationships—the very places we were designed for and the very places God uses to grow us into holiness.
City Groups involve cost to our comfort, cost to our time, and cost to our finances.
It’s not an infrequent occurrence that Sarah and I look at each other on Wednesday evenings before City Group, exhausted and overwhelmed that a group of people will soon be in our living room. It’s uncomfortable to let people into our home, into our lives, into our hearts. I know, too, that it can require a lot of energy to resist the inertia to simply stay home on City Group nights when it’s been a long day at work, a long week with family, a long month of disappointment or sadness.
City Groups also cost us financially. City Groups often share meals together, and you may end up contributing more than your fair share. You may have to pay a babysitter every week because you’ve made Christian community and spiritual growth a priority in your lives. I’ve long said that paying a babysitter for the sake of Christian life together is one of the best investments you can make.
In Acts 2:42-47, one of the classic New Testament passages that describes Christian life together, we read how “they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing proceeds to all, as any had need.” As thick relationships form through City Groups and you become aware of others' needs, you may feel compelled to help cover a friend's expenses if they are unemployed or facing unexpected bills. But there’s also a cost to letting your needs be known to your City Group. It’s the cost of your pride, your self-sufficiency. For some of us, that’s an even harder cost to pay.
The Foundation of City Groups
It’s important to remember that the foundation of every City Group is Jesus. As Ephesians 2 makes clear, it is through the work of Jesus that Christians find true community. It’s Christ’s work and nothing else that unites us. As the great German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer said almost 100 years ago, “Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this.”
We are prone to think that other things are the source of community: similar age and stage of life, affinity around leisure or interests, socio-economic standing or educational background, theological perspective. None of those things brings peace between us and God or us and other people. It’s only the blood of Christ that acts as a foundation for Christian community.
If Jesus is the foundation for our City Groups, then we can deliberately cultivate diversity within our City Groups. We can do life together with people who aren’t like us. We can discover through regular time together that God’s love produces a shared connection far deeper than affinity, similarity, or age and stage.
How to Get Involved in City Groups
If you want to get connected to a City Group this fall, please let us know. You can email me (erik@citychurchrva.com). Or you can email Harrison (harrison@citychurchrva.com). I can think of no warmer welcome back from sabbatical than an inbox full of requests from people eager to get connected to a City Group. Or if that feels too daunting, you can fill out our online City Group Interest Form and let us know you want to get involved.
Of course, my hope is that even before you get around to sending an email or filling out a connection card, you’ll be asked to join a City Group by someone who is already in one. We tell our City Group leaders that we would rather a person get multiple invitations to different City Groups than no invitations at all. A friend who pastors a church in Chicago tells his leadership team that a person sitting alone in worship is a pastoral emergency. I like that perspective, and I think it applies to City Groups, too. A person who isn’t invited to join a City Group is a pastoral emergency.
If you’re reading this, consider it my invitation to you to join a City Group. Perhaps you’re new to City Church and have never been in a group… You’re invited. Perhaps you used to be in a group, but took a one-year break that turned into a two or three years… You’re invited. Perhaps your life feels too busy, too full of kids’ activities or work responsibilities or other commitments… You’re invited.
The gospel at its core is an invitation—an invitation to live life together with God and with other people. God didn’t design us to walk through life alone. City Groups are one of his graces to us so that we don’t have to.
Stay Well & Do Good,
Erik