Courtney Good

Courtney Good is the head of assimilation at Glad Tidings church in Reading Pennsylvania and came to speak and share about how the church gets students and adults involved and discipled within their church despite the large size of the church, approximately. 2100 congregants. The nature of being an attendee of such a large church would automatically make one single person feel isolated and alone without the interaction and personal and intentional relationship from another person there.  Having assimilation as her responsibility, she is not only set up in a prime position to get people involved with the church and connected but also get them in a place where they can be discipled and grow even further in their faith. According to her, a good number of the churches salvations occur within the churches small groups called cell groups.  This tells us that the church’s plan to have the salvations occur within the small group settings is in place and effectively working.  This is a great plan because it allows the natural progression into discipleship within those small cell groups to occur without any major or significant change or new relationships to grow.  The most successful and individually unique of these small groups are the free market small groups that they have. These are groups that meet and are geared to reach specific interest groups, i.e. sewing, motorcycles, carpentry, hiking, and many more.  These groups are great for assimilating and incorporating new people into their church and getting them to feel that they are a member and do belong to that church.  This is a great system that I have seen done in several churches which isn’t always done well. Glad Tidings church does it very well and sets an example for one way to set up discipleship in a natural format.