Over the years, Amy and I have participated in several different small groups. Some were much more successful than others.
Here are the elements we’ve found essential for a great group:
- A great group needs a leader. When everyone is always voting on what we do next, we never do much. A good leader makes for a good group.
- A great group is built around God’s word. Too often, small groups become all about fellowship. While fellowship is always essential, doing life around God’s word is what truly makes the difference.
- A great group is a safe group. If people can’t discuss openly without fear of judgment, rejection, or gossip, the group is doomed to fail.
- A great group looks outward. Serving together is life-changing.
- A great group births new groups. If a group stays together for too long, they usually grow stale. Healthy groups produce new groups.
- A great group takes breaks. We often take the summer off from consistent meetings. We’re all busy. The break makes us long to be together more.
- A great group hurts together. I just got off the phone after talking to a young woman with four children who just lost her 39-year-old husband. Even though she is devastated, she told me confidently that her Life Group would be there for her. God is glorified through such a group.
Have you been part of a successful small group? What do you think made that group successful?
4 comments:
What about the childcare factor? He did mention the lack of viable childcare solutions as being a doom factor in the previous post, but amazingly silent on that point here (unless if I was supposed to read between the lines). I think for young families, how children are integrated into the homegroup, while allowing the older children and adults to concentrate on the Scripture, is as huge as the points he does mention, if for nothing more than pragmatic reasons.
That factor here is probably missing because the solution is usually a hard pill to swallow, and isn't as straightforward as most of his true, but obvious, points are.
One of the crucial factors in a great small group that I was once in was that only church members were allowed to join the group (or any small group in the church, for that matter). To be a church member, one attended a seven-week series of classes on Christianity and the church. One also had an interview with the main preaching elder, in which one was asked to explain the Gospel and to give one's testimony of being saved by God.
Together, all of these elements helped to ensure (as much as is humanly possible) that small groups were actually made up of regenerate people who were truly committed to God and to each other in the body, as Christians and members of a local church.
I'm not going to disagree with the characteristics here, but again, the goal is left undefined or more likely pre-determined. Reading the list makes me think the goal of small groups is to further the agenda of the larger church enterprise by meeting otherwise unmet needs to maintain satisfaction while also driving the agenda set by the "leaders," and their choice of "god's words." 3,6, and 7 do the former while 1,2,4, and 5 the latter.
For Anonymous, I commented about the childcare factor in the first post about small groups. I advocate against age segregation. Obviously, a church that decides to keep families together will have to make adjustments from the pre-conceived ideas of many.
Sometimes our pre-conceived idea of church meetings is that the pastor will always make a 45-minute sermon while everyone listens quietly. Sometimes this is the right thing and needed. Sometimes it is only obligated by expectations we don't really need. I believe ampitheaters and dramatic performances from a stage originate from Greek and not Christian tradition. They are certainly not found in the scriptures - but public preaching, house fellowship, and meetings in the synagogues where the scriptures are read and doctrine is discussed are.
I am not advocating tossing out meetings that are working and producing results, but I wonder if we could sometimes do better at addressing one another, including persons of all ages, while staying focused on God's word, doctrine, on the work of the gospel, and worship.
For Christopher Lake, I understand your sentiment, but I'm not sure such exclusivity always fits the purpose of the group. The church is exclusive - no sinners allowed, and no one without the doctrine of Christ is to be let into our houses. However, the church is not only inwardly focused on itself. Because of this, I've picked up strangers off the street, teens, addicts, and 'rejects of society' and brought them to house churches and small groups. We didn't give them the pulpit or any other undue trust, but they were fed, heard the gospel and prayed for. Besides the more desparate, people who are turned off of institutional religion may be more amenable to hearing God's word at someone's house. Plenty of this kind have visited groups I've been in. There has to be clear authority established in the house (usually by the owner) so that if anyone should disrupt, derail, act inappropriately or interfere they are dealt with firmly or shown the door. In my experience, it was the "qualified" Christians that usually stirred up the most strife and contention and not the visitors.
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