Early in 1996 we moved from a large church in Bethel Park, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh, to a small church in southern Indiana. After 25 years of living away from all of our family, we were moving home. It meant leaving our corporate family, and most of all, it meant leaving the church family we had grown to love so deeply.

The transition went smoothly. We tried hard not to compare the two churches. And because we were returning to a church I had attended during my high school years and young married life, we knew what small town living was like — the good and the less desirable. After the dust had settled, I began to feel incomplete and uneasy. I had inquired about covenant groups. It was a new concept for the staff and there seemed to be little interest. My feeling of something missing in my life grew, yet I couldn't define its cause. I stayed in close contact with the members of my old CD group, but it wasn't the same. There was no accountability, only much-needed friendship. That was it. I needed a covenant group. I was fed spiritually from the pulpit each Sunday, but there was an emptiness where my CD group had once been.

I had taken the first step. I had identified the problem; now to form the hypothesis. What could I do? I was back in a church I had once known quite well but now was filled with many new faces, along with some from the past. My husband and I had been warmly received back into the fold; was I trying to fix something that few thought was broken? Were my thoughts promptings and warnings from God or just more of my harebrained ideas? I was trying to 'make haste slowly,' as my father had often advised. Had I let enough time elapse to have a change in the establishment received on its own merit?

Time passed and I began to get a feel for who on the staff might have information about the need for small groups, namely CD Groups. Noel Loehr, the energetic young lady in charge of the youth education program, was my answer. Not only was she willing to help; she was eager.

I had heard David Watson speak on the subject, and we purchased a book on covenant discipleship. We began to study and talk to anyone who would listen. As our tentative plans progressed, we decided that a meeting should be called and that I should speak to those in attendance about the history and role of covenant discipleship. What should I say to them? How could I explain my need and, perhaps, theirs? Here was my golden opportunity and I couldn't afford to blow it. For this endeavor I gleaned ideas from my old CD group. My friend Patricia Addleman came through for me. And I prayed a lot for guidance. When the meeting night came and I stood before the group, I looked out at those faces and the words just seemed to flow. I had a purpose and a message. We were on our way.

On September 2, 1997, the newly formed group met for the first time. We struggled through writing the first draft of our covenant, to be signed upon completion by each of us. Main Street United Methodist Church, Boonville, IN, had its first CD Group! We were testing our hypothesis. Within weeks, Noel had gathered her senior high youth group and invited me to speak to them. That resulted in the birth of the second group that lasted for two years. It has now disbanded as a result of those classes having graduated. Other young people have now come along making up the senior high youth. By the end of the first year, the second adult group had been formed, and still later, the third.

Our original group started with five members and within a month grew to seven, then eight. We are all still meeting each week, except for one who is now with God. We are accountable to God and to each other according to our written covenant. The problem of healing my emptiness has been solved.

Dotty France is a Covenant Discipleship member at Main Street United Methodist Church, Boonville, IN.