I was struck recently by the importance of home groups. If you attend a large church how do people get plugged into real relationships? Most of our people go to work, come home at night, watch TV, show up to church on Sunday, leave without talking to anyone about anything very significant, and then do it all over again the next week. If you attend a big church, is this the norm?
Here is my question in light of this reality?
If your marriage is in trouble where do you go to talk about this? If you are losing your job who do you go to ask for prayer? If your kids are freaking out who can you talk to about it?
I think most of our churches have many, many people that are dying on the inside and would love to have someone helping bear their burdens with them, but just don't know how to get it going. Couple this with the individualistic cultural air we breathe and we have a recipe for disaster in many of our churches.
My contention is that if our larger churches (over 400) don't do something intentional from the top down about helping our people structure real relationships into their lives we are missing it in a big way. Sadly, it probably won't happen on it's own. I wish it would, but it just doesn't.
I think home groups are the way to go. Could there be other methods? Sure, but I would argue that home groups potentially provide the best model.
What do you think?
15 comments:
I'd ask what do you mean by "home groups"? When I hear this phrase it conjures up images of groups that get together with the purposes of fellowship, accountability and biblical teaching. I would hope that these groups also participate in some sort of ministry together. If that's what you have in mind, I wholeheartedly agree.
That is exactly what I mean.
z
And they should be praying for each other.
I went to Bethlehem Baptist Church for 3 years before I finally got connected to something like this (I had a community outside of church because I was still going to college and was involved in a campus ministry). The home group that I described basically sums up the small group that I recently got involved with. It is an incredible Christ centered community that extends far beyond the members of my group into all of the church, and I definitely see home groups as the way to connect to others in a community.
This is also the way the leadership of BBC has decided to address the need for community in such a large congregation. They admit that our church has issues with community, mainly due to our size, but they have also repeatedly stated their vision of small groups creating community in the church. If members or attenders don't choose to get involved in that way, they are not following the desires of the elders.
Sorry for the long comment.
It is not only in larger congregations.
In fact, I would say that some of the larger ones do have a better handle and resources available to help and offer the groups. Of course, that is only speaking from the Cedar Valley area.
I think small groups, or home groups are good...I also think that within that context or the context of the larger congregation that personal discipleship should be going on. I think that it is at this level that the importance of "community" can be taught most effectively. Also, it is here where the deepest realization of accountability and intimacy can be established.
I agree with the premise that home groups are important to the life of any church - big or small. Lately I've been wrestling with the format/non-organic nature that they all too often take on. We began attending a new (to us) church in January. We have lots of friends outside of the church and have jumped right into a homegroup - but it feels so acquaintance-y. The people that we see there we only see there and then we see our "real friends" the rest of the week. Do you know what I mean? Have others experienced this surface-y level problem? How have you addressed it?
With new groups, it's especially important for leadership to encourage the group to not just meet once a week together, but try to do life together. Make efforts to get together and build friendships.
There also needs to be recognization that the first group that you are in may not be the best one. If there's a connection between everyone as friends/co-workers, etc it makes it easier for the group to last. My parents have been in the same group for almost 20 years. All the "adults" were parents of my friends
Finally, churches need to do a good job of supporting, leading, and training the small group leaders. Supply them with suggested studies, disciple the leaders in spiritual disciplines, pour into them as they pour into the people in their group.
Greg makes some very good points. I believe that home groups are a *crucial part* of building, and finding, community in a larger church, but home groups should not be the *only* part. If they are, then a church member may essentially only be getting to really know about ten or so people in the church!
In my experience, the importance of community *must* be taught strongly from the pulpit-- and more than once or twice a year-- for true community to take root and grow in a church.
Discipleship-- one on one, men meeting with men, women with women-- has *huge* implications for building community in a church, because discipleship helps to build and encourage the sort of Christian maturity that *understands* the importance of community.
Hospitality is also very important for community. I have known more than one elder who seemed to be having church members over at his house after church quite often. I remember that least one of these elders had small children, so it wasn't always easy to have many people over, but he still did it (while still giving proper attention to his children).
Scott, you thought *your* comment was long? *grin*
One more thing-- being honest and transparent about one's struggles with sin (carefully, thoughtfully) is also very, very important for building *true, deep* community. A church of people who will not share much of anything with each other about their struggles with sin is going to have shallow community, if they have it at all.
Again, one must be careful and thoughtful. It's not wise for a married man to consistently share deep struggles of his heart with a man other than his wife. It may not even be wise for single men and women to always be sharing their deep struggles with each other, because often, out of that situation, one person falls in love, the other doesn't, and somewhere in there, one person is not looking out for the other's heart.
Still, within the larger church context, there has to be *some* "realness" and sharing about our struggles with sin. If not, it will be difficult for deep community to take root in our church(es).
LOL-- I meant, "with a *WOMAN* other this his wife," obviously! :-)
Ok, I seemingly just can't type today...!
Small groups and disciplemaking when done with a proper biblical perspective are "rubber-meets-the-road" stuff". I think when implemented properly, they instill a sense of gravity to the Christian life. By gravity, I mean that there is something more to being Christian than just showing up on Sunday and smiling. I think they are meant to teach what it means to be a Christian - how life in Christ is meant to be worked out.
I think this sense of gravity and urgency about the Christian life is missing in some circles today...and its the result of too many Christians not being properly discipled. 2 cents.
So true and well said, Greg. There is a proper "seriousness" that we should have about the Christian life.
Not that we go around looking somber all of the time, but for the Christian, life is serious business (serious *and* joyful!), because we do everything that we do *coram deo*-- "before the face of God." May we have, and step up to actually *do,* better discipleship in our churches, so that more Christians realize that awesome fact!
I think home (cell) groups are probably as important, if not moreso, than Sunday morning worship.
Jason,
Home groups may be as important, in some crucial ways, as Sunday morning worship, but they are not *more* important. The Sunday morning worship service is when *all* of the local church body-- younger, older, single, married, widowed, divorced-- is gathered together to pray, sing, and hear the *authoritative preaching* of the Word of God by an appointed elder.
Home groups are a very different thing-- *not* the whole local church body, by definition, and without the same *authority* of teaching by appointed elders as exists on Sunday mornings. Home groups are vital to the health of a church, but they are *not* objectively more important, and they should not become *subjectively* more important, in the life of a church, than the corporate gathering of God's people on Sunday mornings. This corporate gathering pictures the Kingdom in a very definite, serious, joyful way.
I'm passionate about careful eccelesiology! :-)
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