How Spiritual Family Changes Everything

Have you ever been surrounded by people, and felt completely and totally alone?

Maybe you have more friends on social media than you can count, but you aren’t sure who to turn to when you going through something difficult. Maybe you have a long list of acquaintances and no authentic friendships. Maybe you feel like no one knows the real you.

Experts call this concept “crowded loneliness” and we’ve all experienced this at one time or another. We’ve all felt left out, overlooked, isolated, or misunderstood.

The truth is, as humans, we are created for meaningful relationships. We’re hard-wired for family, both natural and spiritual. And when we begin to intentionally connect with others and invest in relationships, it changes everything.

At the beginning of this year, Kim Taylor’s small group walked into Values 301 as strangers, all carrying their own struggles and challenges. Five months later, Kim’s group is walking through life together like a family.

“My family started coming to Milestone this time last year. We always knew it was a great church, so we were like, ‘Let’s go give it a try.’ We instantly knew this was where we needed to be. We did 101, 201, and 301 back-to-back and loved it. We had so many great connections.

It has been really cool seeing the season of life we were in then and the season we are in now through spiritual family.

In January, I felt led to start an evening women’s group. Nathan Swedberg called me and said, ‘A ton of women just signed up for 301. Would you be interested in doing a 301 group?’ I took a day and prayed about it, and really felt led to do a 301 group.

I went to 301 the first night, the ladies were all my age, one of them was newly widowed, 4 of them newly divorced, and another whose husband is atheist and refuses to go to church with her. All of these women were on this journey alone. And the Lord just reminded me that I could be in any one of these women’s chairs. It was the coolest thing.

We all connected and barriers came down.

We’ve met together, we’ve had meals together, and we have done life with each other. One of the ladies had surgery and we brought meals to her. A single mom in our group had her house chosen for a Serve Day project, and a few of our girls got to help with that.

Our Monday nights have just been amazing. We just said, ‘Let’s keep doing this Monday night thing.’ After 301 we decided to do Restore as a group and now we want to do Freedom in the Fall together.

It’s been awesome to see the Lord move through our gathering together. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for our group.”

-Kim Taylor

The Bible is clear—we aren’t meant to be alone. Psalms 68:6 says, “God sets the lonely in families.” You might feel lonely, even with a packed parking lot and hundreds of people in the building, but God wants you to experience genuine relationships right where you are.

If you’re interested in joining a small group, Values 301 is a great place to start and our next class is kicking off June 17, 2019. Visit Values 301 on our website for more information on how to jump in!