Three Myths About Small Groups

Philip Nation:

1. Small groups are just for fellowship. Small groups must be an environment where people grow closer but not just for the sake of friendship. As believers, our fellowship deepens when it is centered on the truth. Fellowship is one of the functions of the church but it is not the ultimate reason for small groups. Transformation is. Small groups draw people together with a higher purpose than just hanging out in the name of Jesus. We want to draw people around His Word so they can be fed and then transformed by it.

2. People in small groups should stay together indefinitely. In other words, breaking up a group is bad. The argument is made that “our healthy small group should not be separated.” But healthy group members will want to share with others what’s occurred in their lives. Conversely, it is also a myth that leaders just want to split every group for an underhanded reason; control, spitefulness, power-grabbing. In reality, we all know that healthy things grow and then multiply. As leaders, we also know that when things don’t grow, then they begin to drain energy from other parts of the body. Small groups are the same. Now, this is not to say that a small group that does not multiply is moldy, rotten, or cancerous. But it can be reveal an inward-facing spirit that runs counter to the mission of God. By engendering a spirit of multiplication, small groups will eventually reach more people for Christ and help more people mature in Christ.

3. Anyone can lead a small group. I want to tread carefully in this one because it is so close to true. If the statement read, “Anyone can learn to lead a small group,” then we’ve got it. But, as it stands, it is a bit naïve. It comes back to purpose. If you buy into myth #1, then anyone can lead a small group. Just be there to host everyone for a good time and a quasi-spiritual conversation. But, if you want to lead people toward transformation, then as leaders, we need to produce leaders. Rather than just throw people into the situation of handling whatever comes up on their own, teach/train/prepare them to be a great small group leader.

Read the rest.

A Missional Community Primer

Helpful stuff from Jonathan Dodson:

Over the past five years we’ve trained, failed, and multiplied a lot of missional communities. Several years ago we moved to a more formal training (and re-training) process to set and reset the identity and commitments for each missional community. We found this is important because it’s human nature to drift from your values and commitments. 

A group may start off with bold aims for engaging non-Christians with gospel hope, showing mercy to their city, and being a “family”  not meeting. When we set out with these aims, we’re driving upstream, against our self-centered, cliquish cultural current. However, everyone experiences mission and community drift. In order to remain focused and stay behind Jesus, not cultural currents, we need reminders, guides, and communally formed commitments. This is why we created a Missional Community Primer.

• Every missional community goes through the Primer at the beginning of the year.

• The process is very conversational, with the aim of applying our core values into clear, firm commitments

• We conclude the process by drawing up a Missional Commitment that everyone agrees on

• We occasionally pull it out through the year to celebrate, repent, or redirect.

Feel free to check it out, copy it, download it, improve upon it, or whatever you like (just include a link back or footnote for folks to find it).

Marks of a Healthy Small Group

Scott Sterner:

In this post Brandon Cox identifies some characteristics of a healthy group life in your church. He also provides some metrics that clarify the measure of success for each of these categories. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. If we have any hopes of creating healthy community in our churches and church plants, we need to do more than just celebrate the few things we do well. Embracing a clear and comprehensive vision for success helps to provide alignment and accountability as we work toward a healthy communal identity.

1. There is a consistency in meeting and a desire to meet.

2. There is genuine authenticity and transparent sharing.

3. People are growing in knowledge, but they are also growing in grace.

4. Real community and friendship is increasing.

5. There is an intentionality about serving together and developing as leaders.

6. There is a culture of inclusion and inviting.

7. New hosts are stepping forward.

Church Trends to Look for in 2013

Sam Rainer gives a list of church trends to look for in 2013. This one in particular resonated with me:

We are quickly becoming an urban society. Big cities are getting bigger. Big churches are getting bigger. People are leaving the countryside in favor of the concrete jungle. The gravitational pull of large cities and large churches will continue for a generation, at least. But the draw of the city and the large church does not mean people eschew intimacy. In fact, the crowds of megacities and megachurches mean people are more intentional about trying to find intimacy. Healthy churches will get bigger by getting smaller. In this era of urbanization, small group settings are arguably more important now than at any point in our history. Quite simply, you will not keep people in a large worship service for long without also connecting them to a small group.

Read the rest.  

New Small Group Resource

Many of you will want to follow this new blog for equipping small groups.

Simple Church and Small Groups

Let's Be Truly Authentic

Stephen Altrogge:

How many small group/home group/community group/cell group/care group meetings (did I forget any names?) have started out like this:

PERSON 1: I’m really struggling with [insert impatience, anger, lust, discontentment, and any other sin].

PERSON 2: Thanks for being so open and honest about your struggles. We can all identify with that struggle.

PERSON 1: Yeah, it’s just so hard to overcome. I feel like I’m struggling with this all the time.

PERSON 2: I can relate to that feeling. I feel the same way. In fact just yesterday I [yelled at my kids, looked at porn, wasted money, etc.] We’re all broken people. Thankfully there’s grace. Let’s pray and ask God to help us.

Now, is there anything wrong with this interchange? Not exactly. It’s good to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another. Plus, if there’s one thing the world hates, it’s hypocrites. So, in an effort to obey scripture and be “authentic”, we confess our struggles. And we drink fair trade coffee, listen to Bon Iver, and wear faded jeans.

But I think in general, we as Christians need to be less authentic.

Read the rest.

More resources from Stephen.

For People Who Are in the Grip of Suffering

Recommended reading:

• When the Darkness Will Not Lift
• Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
• When God Weeps
• How Long O Lord?

"We have to see community as more than a place to meet our own needs."

As fallen people, we want a group to meet our needs and keep us from getting uncomfortable. Jesus, however, brought together fisher- men, tax collectors, prostitutes, and Pharisees. He challenged them to look beyond the external and their own comfort. He drew people together who had to be reconciled through his blood in order for them to share a meal together. To make this possible today, we have to see community as more than a place to meet our own needs. Calling people to that kind of community is calling them to a great blessing. One of the coolest experiences in a community of believers is seeing the eclectic mix of people God has drawn to himself through Jesus to accomplish his mission. So affinity-based groups have their place, but building groups around the mission of God will create opportuni- ties for the gospel that affinity groups cannot.

- Brad House, Community, p. 112

Does The Way We Talk Indicate a Compartmentalization of the Gospel?

When we get together over a meal, why do we fill it with idle chatter about the local sports team and American Idol and then transition to “spiritual” time in a drum circle? What if we reclaimed the dinner table for meaningful conversations about what Jesus has done and how the Holy Spirit is leading us today? We don’t have to be in a circle to talk about conviction, repentance, and the excellencies of Christ. When we relegate these conversations to specific times of “care and share” or Bible study, we are effectively compartmentalizing our lives. We are propagating the belief that these conversations and convictions should not spill over into unsanctioned times. We condition people to make a mental separation between spiritual and practical matters. When should our talk not be salted with the gospel? I am not saying that every conversation has to be an exegesis on propitiation. There are times for small talk and banter about our favorite sports teams. But if we talk about Jesus only during Bible study, if we pray only in that circle, if we cannot articulate the gospel’s influence on our view of politics, business, sports, and entertainment, then we are not living transformed lives. We are still compartmentalizing the gospel.

- Brad House, Community, p.98

How To Do Community When You Don't Live In Close Proximity

At The Vine, this has been a challenge for our church.  Since we don't have a ton of small groups yet, many of our people coming from different parts of town to be in the same small group.  When you live spread apart, steady-state community is challenged.  Tim Chester addresses this.

Tim Chester:

Missional community life and everyday church requires a certain level of proximity. I’ve had a lot of questions on this issue, especially when I’ve been in the United States. Let’s take a church I spent some time with in New Jersey as an example. They have people living half an hour drive from the church building in one direction and half an hour drive in the other direction. So some people live an hour away from each other. How are they going to share their lives?

Read the rest.



Books by Tim Chester:

• You Can Change: God's Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions
• Closing the Window: Steps to Living Porn Free
• A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table (RE: Lit) 
• Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community (Re:Lit)
• Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Mission (Re: Lit Books)

One Downside of the Internet

And one huge upside to Christian community.

The Daily Stat:

Between 1985 and 2005, the number of Americans who said they definitely felt satisfied with the way their lives were going dropped by about 30%, and the ranks of the most dissatisfied rose by nearly 50%, according to a study involving thousands of people by Chris M. Herbst of Arizona State. The reasons appear to be related to Americans' declining attachments to friends and family, lower participation in social and civic activities, and diminished trust in political institutions, Herbst says. The only good news: The rate of decline in satisfaction appears to have slowed during that two-decade period.

What Gospel Community Should Look Like

Great video here.



Get this video in book form here.

Small Groups Shouldn't Be a Christian Cul-de-Sac

Logan Gentry:

Small groups have become a staple in the American church as a way of cultivating friendships, developing community, and encouraging spiritual formation. Pastors and other small group leaders often cite Acts 2:42-47 as the model for such community devoted to God and devoted to one another through shared time, resources, and space. But there is growing sentiment for small groups to fulfill the rest of that passage---God adding to their numbers daily---by extending the gospel of Jesus Christ to unbelievers.

We love to study the Scriptures and discuss the glorious truth of the gospel with one another, and we enjoy spending time with fellow believers. Yet we're often fearful and uneasy about what will happen if we invite people who do not believe as we do into these environments. What will happen to our intimacy? What will happen to our deep community?

I worried about the same things when church leaders first asked me to transition my community group toward an outreach focus. Now, as a pastor seeking to foster community, I'm encouraging others to transition their groups, and they're reacting with the same skepticism.

Read the rest.

In this article, Logan references the books, Total Church and Forgotten Ways.

Don't Program Your People Away From Being Needed

We spend our whole lives creating ministries to serve people and then complain that they want to be served. What if we took a different approach? What if we expected the church to love and serve one another rather than doing it all for them?

- Brad House, Community, p.77

Orthodoxy of Doctrine and Community

One cannot explain the explosive dynamite, the dunamis, of the early church apart from the fact that they practiced two things simultaneously: orthodoxy of doctrine and orthodoxy of community in the midst of the visible church, a community which the world can see. By the grace of God, therefore, the church must be known simultaneously for its purity of doctrine and the reality of its community.

- Francis Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World

(HT:  CJ)

Why Community is a Big Deal for Evangelism

Basically, the witness of community is more powerful than an individual witness. Loving your neighbors is much easier if you never have to deal with them. Living in light of the gospel is much harder in community where people sin against you. Your neighbors know this and that is why talk is cheap. Experiencing a people who confess their sins against one another, repent, and forgive is foreign to the world. Communities that live in this way, transformed by the gospel, will not only have a good reputation among their neighbors, but also they will point them to hope in Jesus. This is a community that has joined the mission of God.

- Brad House, Community: Taking Your Small Group Off Life Support, p. 41

Getting Through Challenges To Missional Community

Jonathan Dodson has a helpful article here.  He writes:

The popularity of missional community is rising among evangelicals, and yet, the American church is nowhere near a missional tipping point.

I’ve faced missional highs and missional lows. Along the way, I’ve considered a number of things that are absolutely necessary for us to endure the transition to missional church. How should we respond to the challenges of missional community? Here are three things to keep in mind as you lead in God's mission.

Read the rest of this short and helpful article.

Five Steps to Planting Life Giving Community Groups

Get Brad House's book for a more fully formed explanation of all these points.

Brad House:

1. Ask why.

The first question I ask any pastor or leadership team is, “Why do you have community groups in your church?” The answer sets a trajectory that may determine your success. At Mars Hill Church, we don’t build community groups to grow the church or retain visitors. We build community to reflect the grace of God through Jesus Christ and to accomplish His mission of reconciliation.

2. Establish community groups as an essential element of the church.

If community is an option in the beginning of your church, it will become difficult to make that shift later. Churches who start there tend to have a culture of community that naturally propagates.

3. Build structures and systems that reinforce your vision.

The structures and systems you employ for developing community can reinforce or undermine your vision. A tension exists between a loose management structure and overbearing dictates. One fails to proactively make disciples, the other feels obligatory and artificial. Take the time to consider the effects of your structures and systems to prevent unintentionally snuffing out what makes community life giving.

4. Invest in high-level leaders who own the mission and vision.

You need a handful of leaders who are willing to do the hard work of plowing, seeding and harvesting. Take the time to build up these leaders and they will help you sustain a movement of reproductive community groups. These will be your first coaches who oversee groups and disciple leaders. It is critical to get leaders in these spots that own the mission and vision. Starting a bunch of groups without them is like expecting crops to grow without someone to nurture, water and weed. These leaders should be your highest priority.

5. Teach your leaders to lead and let them.

I see two mistakes regularly in small group ministries. The first is neglecting to teach leaders how to lead without letting them actually lead. Teach your leaders to be Gospel centered shepherds of the appointed flock among them. The second mistake I see is not teaching them how to engage culture with the Gospel. The group needs to own the vision to make disciples and not just become an insular Bible study. This is the natural tendency if it is not monitored closely.

What Is The Goal of Community Groups?

Brad House:

In order to have a vision for community, we need to understand the purpose of community. In my experience with community group ministry, I have heard many purposes for joining community groups, including but not limited to: belonging, making big church feel small, learning the Bible, pastoral care, fellowship, friends, closing the back door of the church, evangelism, and so on. Each of these purposes has merit and can be argued as essential to the church. I would suggest, however, that these “purposes” are in fact the product of community rather than its ultimate goal.

Read the rest.

Check out Brad's new book here.