Mark 3:13-19a
“Small Group Ministry 1: Not Alone”
Last
year for our work with the Congregational Health Adventure (or CHA), we did a
survey with 30 folks in the congregation.
The survey revealed our church’s relative strengths and weaknesses in
eight areas, from empowering leadership to inspiring worship. It didn’t surprise many of us that
One
way of looking at this is to say that small group ministry is our
weakness. The CHA, however, is
encouraging us to see it not as a weakness, but as an opportunity. Small group ministry is a place where,
because there is much room for growth, our efforts will see quick and rich
rewards. So the CHA team has been at
work, studying about small groups, surveying your interests in topics for small
groups, and training a first set of small group leaders. Our small groups will all serve at least
three purposes: to connect people to
God, to connect people to one another, and to reach and invite new people. And within the next few months we will roll
out several new small group opportunities:
--Donna Brooks will start a
group to have fellowship by playing games.
--Amy Radcliff will lead a
6-8 week group on the Purpose Driven Life
--Donna Boston wants to
create a group for those who serve as Shepherds in our church
--Connie’s going to do an
evening children’s Bible study group
--During Lent I’m going to
offer a 4-week small group on forgiveness
--TP is responding to the
interest so many of you expressed with a group focused on discussing movies
--And
And that’s just to get us
started!
As
we talked about holistic small groups as our minimum factor, some people have
felt a little defensive and pointed out that our church does have small
groups: two AA groups and an NA group
meet here, there are two adult Sunday school classes, choir and bell choir are
kind of like small groups for some people, most years we offer Disciple Bible
Study, we try to make every committee and ministry team a group of prayer and
support for its members, there’s the youth and the LaVada Bailey group for
women. Of course we have small groups. The survey didn’t say that holistic small
groups was our non-existent factor,
just a minimum factors.
There
is a small group ministry checklist in the book we’re using for CHA. As I turned to the checklist, I wondered how
far down the list I’d be able to check things off. I had my pencil ready. And the first item on the list is: In our
church the significance of small groups is regularly preached about. .
. . .
. . Well, that’s how far down the list I
got. In
our church, is the significance of small groups regularly preached about? Well, it is now!
It’s
curious that United Methodists, of all people, should need to rediscover the
importance of small groups. Methodism started as a small group ministry. First there was the “holy club” that gathered
with John and Charles Wesley at
Later
in his life when lots of people were being converted by John Wesley’s
preaching, he discovered that those who responded to his message and tried to
live a new life found themselves “surrounded with difficulties.” (Does that ring true to anyone here?) He suggested that they strengthen one another
through mutual conversation and prayer, that is, to meet together regularly in
what they called a “society” or “class meeting”—what nowadays we might call,
well, a “small group.” Within a few
months Wesley noticed that those who had not joined a group “fell back,” while
those who had joined “continued forward.”[1] And in its origins, that’s the genius of
Methodism—not in churches, but in small groups within churches.
Wesley
wanted these groups to do a couple of things for people:
1)
The group served as a HAVEN from a hostile world. Everyone needs a safe and supportive place to
turn.
2)
In these groups, people watched over one another in love. That is, they held one another ACCOUNTABLE in
their discipleship.
Now
I know that accountability is a fearful word of some people, conjuring up
images someone prying into your business or holding a stick over your
head. But let me give you a couple of
friendlier images of small-group accountability.
As
many of you know, I am part of a small covenant discipleship group of
clergy. They have never once tried to
make me do something I didn’t want to do, or that at least part of myself
wanted to do. They’ve never scolded me
when I’ve failed. They don’t need
to. I just tell them that I know I need
to journal and pray about a certain subject, or that I know I need to work on
my relationship with a certain person.
And next time we meet, I have to tell them how I’ve done. It’s amazing how many times it happens that
the night before we’re going to meet I’m busy doing what I promised to do—not
because they’ll scold me or frown at me, but just because they will know.
Here’s
another example. The night last week
that Doug Joseph’s mom would die, he didn’t think he was up to staying there
while she died. It just felt too
overwhelming. He put his coat on and
went outside. But before he drove away,
he checked his voicemail. And there was
a message from Leo, who told about his own struggle to be with his mom when she
died, how hard it was, but how glad he is that he did it. And Doug went back inside, took his coat off,
and stayed.
Now all along Doug had been treating
this church like a sort of email small group—sharing his joys and his fears,
asking for prayers, confessing his weakness, looking for help. And what Leo offered was gentle
accountability. In a small group, we help
each other be our best selves, to live the ways Christ would want us to live.
It’s
surprising that United Methodists should need to rediscover the importance of
small groups. A little deeper, though,
it’s curious that anyone who reads the
Bible would need to rediscover the importance of small groups. While Jesus healed many, fed thousands, and
spoke to great crowds, he taught the
Twelve. Jesus told his parables to lots
of people, but he explained them to the Twelve.
From time to time, Jesus would go away to a deserted place to pray,
taking with him only the disciples, sometimes only a few of them. And when it came time to teach about his
death and resurrection, to share the Last Supper and to pray in
In
part this is (I suppose you could call it) a “leadership strategy” on Jesus’
part. A person can work with lots of
people, but you can only shape and deeply influence a few at a time—say about
twelve. Jesus wasn’t thinking just only about
his earthly ministry, but about what would happen after he went back into
heaven. Who would heal people then? Who would teach then? Who would keep the movement going?
That’s
what the Twelve were for. Mark
--to be with him
--to be sent out to proclaim
the message
--and to have authority to
cast out demons.
They were, in effect, his
apprentices. And though they failed to
understand and fumbled around while they were with Jesus, clearly his strategy
worked. After his ascension, they pulled
themselves together, prayed themselves strong, and discovered that he had given
them everything they needed to keep on doing what he had done.
But
calling the Twelve wasn’t just a strategy for the long-term leadership of the
movement. This small group wasn’t just
for the disciples; it was also for Jesus.
Joseph Donders[2]
has pointed out that the first thing Jesus did after John the Baptist was
arrested was to leave
But
according to the gospel, Jesus did a third thing. He left
Now
you might say, why do I need a small group for that? That’s what the whole church is for. True enough.
But if we are going to grow beyond our current numbers, we are going to
have to quit acting like a small-group-of-the-whole, and care for and challenge
one another in smaller groups. Because
even in a group of—whatever we are--80 or 90, it is quite possible, it is very
easy, to be (or at least to feel) very alone.
You are less alone in a group of 6 than in one of 600.
We’ve
been using a small-group guidebook put out by
To
become a church where nobody stands alone.
That’s why John Wesley and the early Methodists had class meetings. That’s why Jesus called the Twelve. It’s the vision for Willow Creek and its
thousands. And now it’s the vision of