Group Ministry

February 26, 2020

Group Answers Episode 141: Andrew Peterson

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris talk to author and musician, Andrew Peterson.

Andrew Peterson is an award-winning singer-songwriter and author. The second book in his Wingfeather Saga, “North! Or Be Eaten” (2009) won the Christy Award for Young Adult Fiction, and the fourth, “The Warden and the Wolf King” (2014) won Children’s Book of the Year in 2015 from “WORLD Magazine.”

In 2008, driven by a desire to cultivate a strong Christian arts community, Andrew founded a ministry called The Rabbit Room, which led to a yearly conference, countless concerts and symposiums, and Rabbit Room Press, which has published thirty books to date. He’s been married for 24 years to his wife Jamie, with whom they have three children.

His new book, “Adorning the Dark”, is both a memoir of Peterson’s journey and an encouragement for artists, written in the hope that his story will provide practical tools to others stumbling along in pursuit of a calling to adorn the dark with the light of Christ.

Question asked:

Why did you decide to create The Rabbit Room community?
Community seems to be important to you – The Rabbit Room, Behold the Lamb of God tour – why is it important to have a community – even in the world of artists?
How do you keep a consistent community when you’re constantly on the road as a musician and speaker?
What prompted you to write “Adorning the Dark”?
For whom did you write this book? Can those who don’t work in the arts and may not consider
themselves a creative person use this?
What is one thing you have learned about creativity and the Christian life in your 20 years as a
singer/songwriter, that you wish you could go back and tell your younger self?
How does our calling as Christians intersect and inform the “great mystery of creativity”?

Resources mentioned:

Episode Sponsor:

For more than 25 years, Portable Church® has helped thousands of churches launch strong and thrive in a mobile setting. They design custom solutions that fit each budget, vision, and venue. Everything you need to launch a mobile church — an inviting worship space, kids ministry areas, welcome spaces, storage cases, etc — all in a system refined to make it fast, easy & fun for the weekly volunteer teams.

The Group Answers Podcast is a weekly show designed to resource, train, and encourage small group leaders. Each episode considers current trends and resources as well as timeless truths and methods of discipleship. It is hosted by Brian Daniel, a Bible study and discipleship expert in LifeWay’s Groups Ministry, and Chris Surratt, the small group and discipleship specialist at LifeWay and author of Leading Small Groups.

Church Leadership

February 25, 2020

Genocide From Suicide and The Church’s Response

By Group Ministry

by Evan Owens

Suicide rates have been rising in nearly every state year over year for the past decade. Last year, over 47,000 Americans died by suicide, bringing suicide onto the infamous list of the leading causes of death. The American Association for Suicidology (AAS) estimates that there were 1.1 million suicide attempts in 2016. That translates to an attempt every 28 seconds.

We are experiencing the first-ever, self inflicted genocide. We are killing ourselves at a rate so astounding that it has caused the average life expectancy to decrease in America. In other words, statistically speaking, we aren’t living as long as we did twenty years ago. Fewer babies are dying at birth and people over the age of 80 are living longer, but drug abuse and suicide are skewing the data to paint a tragic picture.

Suicide is the second most common cause of death for ages 15-24, second only to accidental death. Those most common to die by suicide are white, middle-aged males. Your banker. The CEO of the healthcare company down the road. The guy in the pew next to you who lost his job last month.

Something has to be done – but what? How should the church respond to this epidemic?

We must continue to restore the value of human life.

As Christians, we believe that God breathes life into every living being. Genesis 2: 7, “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” This life has value simply because of the one who created it. It is a masterpiece, created to do great things. Psalm 8:5 says, “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

Our existence cost God greatly. Romans 5:8, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The value of human life is rising for the unborn. Despite what you may hear or read on social media, the battle to protect the unborn is being won in large, due to the efforts of evangelical Christians. In 1990, over 1.4 million babies were aborted. That number has steadily decreased and projections show that by 2020 there may be less than 500,000 abortions. Christians are restoring the value placed on human life inside the womb.

We must deploy similar tactics and passion in an effort to stem the tide of suicide. Those who have attempted but not completed suicide must be given platforms to share their stories. We must remove shame and instead learn from their experiences. The goal is not to glorify the attempt but rather to inspire prevention.

We must talk about perseverance and give opportunities for it to be developed.

Suicide prevention is only part of the equation – and in my opinon – the less vital part. Romans 5:3-5 says, “Not only so, but we[a] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Catch this: in order for hope to be produced, we must first persevere through suffering. Remove perseverance and hope is lost. This is where the Christian message can flip this conversation on its head and offer a significantly different viewpoint. Scripture doesn’t say to avoid suffering, but rather to embrace it and let it produce something good in you.

As a culture we are losing our grit. Hard things that were considered part of the human experience are now being seen as illnesses to avoid. We seek comfort and wellness above all else. This is evidenced by a booming wellness industry and recording-breaking growth in pharmaceuticals. But while this search for more comfort allows us to numb the feelings that come along with hard experiences, it also robs us of their fruit. When we bypass the pain, we bypass the hope.

As contradictory as it may sound, the path to hope comes through experiencing pain, not avoiding it!

As Christians encountering those who are suffering or experiencing suicidal ideations, we shouldn’t make their life harder. But we should work to help them see the small victories. These small victories rebuild hope. We should encourage them that hardship doesn’t have to crush them, but instead can make them stronger.

We must all become first responders

It would be wonderful if heart attacks always happened in the emergency room, but they don’t! That’s why CPR is such a valuable skill to have. Every person who knows CPR has the ability to save a life with just a little bit of training. Imagine every Christian knowing trauma CPR or mental health CPR. How many lives could we save?

We aren’t all counselors, but we can all learn trauma CPR. Together, we can lead the broken-hearted to the Healer. The city on the hill becomes most visible during the darkest of nights. When people are suicidal, the city on the hill should be a beacon of light and life, offering hope to those who need it most.

Evan Owens currently serves as the Executive Director of REBOOT Recovery. He is certified in military ministry and has personally facilitated trauma recovery groups for over 350 combat veterans and military spouses. REBOOT is a non-profit that helps veterans, first responders and their loved ones to heal from the moral and spiritual wounds associated with service-related trauma.

Group Leadership

February 24, 2020

All Means All, Whether Big or Small

By Group Ministry

by Michael Kelley

Pretty Seuss-ian title, right? But let’s get down to it:

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.” —Romans 8:28

That’s arguably one of the most quoted verses in the Bible—the stuff that sympathy cards are made of. But there are two ways that I think we typically misunderstand this beautiful promise from God’s Word here.

The first way happens by replacing in our thinking the word “good” here for the word “comfort.” God does not work all things for the comfort of His people; He works all things for their good, and those are two very different things. A yearly physical at the doctor’s office might not necessarily be comfortable, but it’s good for us to have. And eating three gallons of ice cream might be a very comfortable thing for us to do on a Saturday but that doesn’t mean it’s good for us. The promise here, then, is not that we would, as the people of God, be supremely comfortable in our big houses with our big incomes and our big lives, but instead that God will engineer and work everything for our good. So what is that good, ultimately, for us?

That we might know Him in a deeper and more full way. That we would be conformed, little by little, into taking on the character of Jesus. And that we might learn the true value of the kingdom and the King and help others see the same. God is actively—all the time—working things for our good.

Couched in that promise is a three-letter word that deserves some extra attention, which is the second misunderstanding we might bring to this promise. The word in question is this:

“All.”

The way we read this word betrays our obsession with the big and important. When we read that God works all things together for our good, we tend to think of the most significant, life-altering situations we’ve ever experienced. We think of the cancer. The job loss. The death. The difficult relationships that go on for years. On the good side, we think about His miraculous provision during times of need. The healing. The wonderful friendship of another. The child. We take stock and look back over the course of our lives and realize that, in both the best and worst of times, God has been working for our good, even (and perhaps most especially) when we could not, for the life of us, perceive how.

But those are all big things. The milestones. The dividing markers. Curious, though, that the verse doesn’t say that God works the big events of life for our good. In fact, we could go so far and say that if we only think of this promise in terms of the “big” then we are failing to grasp the true—and somewhat ironic—immensity of what we find here. “All” is, if I could say it like this, much bigger than just the big things.

“All” means all.

It means the daily commute. The casual conversation over coffee. The date night with your spouse. The almost nightly discipline of your children. The prayer before dinner and the bedtime stories at night. “All” means all. “All” even goes beyond those events of which we are immediately aware. It means those things right now happening halfway across the world we have no idea about. It means political decisions made at the highest levels. It means acts of nature and random news stories we read about. Somehow, even these things are for our good. Such is the amazingly intricate work of God—that God might be working in yet unknown ways and in yet unknown people to provide for His people in yet unknown ways.

The group environment provides a unique opportunity to reflect together on “all”—not just the big, but also the small. It affords us a chance to view the everyday with new lenses, confident together of God’s enduring presence and work.

“All” means all. Breathe it in. Because it’s happening right now.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter: @_MichaelKelley.

Group Answers Podcast

February 19, 2020

Group Answers Episode 140: Claude V. King on Experiencing God

By Group Ministry

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris talk to Claude King about the 30th anniversary of the Bible Study, Experiencing God. Claude King serves as Discipleship Specialist at LifeWay Christian Resources. After attending school in New Orleans, Claude began work as an editor at the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville, Tennessee. He met and began working with Henry Blackaby in 1986. That relationship led to their developing “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God” which was first released in 1990. In his current job at LifeWay, he speaks, leads workshops and seminars, and consults with pastors and church leaders to help them and their churches obey Jesus Christ’s final command to make disciples of all nations.

Questions asked:

Tell us about the genesis of Experiencing God.
What was it like to work with Henry Blackably?
Were you surprised at how well received the study was, and how it has impacted almost every Bible study written since then?
What kind of stories have you heard about its impact worldwide?
Tell us about your newest resource, Return To Me.

Resourced mentioned:

Experiencing God Bible Study

Return To Me Bible Study

Episode Sponsor:

Group Answers Podcast

February 12, 2020

Group Answers Episode 139: My New Life Study

By Group Ministry

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris talk to Tyler Quillet about the new Bible study, My New Life. Tyler is the Discipleship Strategist for the Custom Bible Study team at LifeWay Christian Resources. He previously spent 15 years as a pastor and is passionate about serving churches and pouring into church leaders in a variety of ways.

Questions asked:

What was the genesis of the new study, My New Life?
Why is it important to have a study like this for new believers?
Can this study be done individually?
Walk us through the spiritual journey that this study takes people on.
What kind of tips would you give a group leader or mentor who is leading new believers through this study?
What would you suggest for someone’s next steps after this study?

Session topics:
1. My New Life in Jesus
2. Understanding the Gospel
3. The God Who Made Us
4. Abiding in Jesus
5. The Importance of the Church
6. Joining God on Mission

Resources mentioned:

My New Life Bible Study Book

Episode Sponsor:

Church Leadership

February 11, 2020

3 Mistakes We Can Make When Helping People Struggling with Mental Illness

By Group Ministry

by Evan Owens

We all want to help our friends who are struggling with a mental health challenge or healing from a traumatic experience. But knowing what (and what not) to say can feel totally overwhelming. If you’re like me, you worry that you might say the wrong thing and trigger symptoms that make the situation worse. Afterall, you aren’t a certified counselor or medical professional. Sadly, too many of us end up missing the chance to help those we love because we are afraid of doing the wrong thing.

Over the past nine years, I’ve had thousands of conversations with people who have endured chronic illness, mental health illness and post traumatic stress. I’m not a certified counselor. I’m just like you– an everyday guy with a heart to help others. And after thousands of conversations, I’ve learned that there are three common mistakes that Christians make when trying to help their friends and family. But before I share those, here’s the good news:

These mistakes are easy to avoid.

When I first began meeting with hurting people, I was overwhelmed. I remember sitting in my car, nervously rehearsing in my head the upcoming conversation. I felt totally unprepared and under-qualified. But nonetheless, I went in ready to help! I did my best, but honestly, the conversations were often awkward and aimless.

I asked stupid questions, I tried too hard to relate to their experience by sharing personal stories that weren’t even in the same realm of hardship. I didn’t ask some good questions in fear that I might bring up a painful memory that they didn’t want to discuss. The conversations were not disasters, but they weren’t masterpieces either. Looking back, I dramatically over complicated them. I’d like to spare you from following in my footsteps, so here are the three most common mistakes I made:

1. I didn’t wait for an invitation

Newsflash – sometimes people can put out the fires in their own lives. They don’t always need me to rush in and save the day. This was a hard lesson for me to learn. My intentions were pure, but my tact was way off base. The moment I saw a fire in someone’s life, I would run towards it ready to help. Have you ever been on the receiving end of help that you didn’t ask for? It is uncomfortable at best, if not downright offensive.

Those of us in leadership positions, whether it be leading a Church, a small group or a prayer team, are constantly bombarded by people with problems. This can train our brains to assume everyone wants our help. In those early days, I never once asked the person I was meeting if they would like me to join them in their journey of healing. I just assumed they would since I am such a charming individual!

Tragically, in a few cases, they had to tell me they weren’t ready for my help or they just no-showed my meetings. This was a hard lesson, but one I had to learn. Now, I simply ask for permission and wait for an invitation before running towards the fires in other people’s lives.

2 . Instead of leading with grace and love – I led with advice

Advice without grace sounds like judgement. Have you ever been on the receiving end of ungracious advice? Seeds of advice that aren’t planted in the soil of grace won’t produce any yield. As the number of people I was helping began to increase, I found myself over-extended. Instead of 2 hour coffee meetings I had to shorten them to 45 minutes. In other words, I needed to get to the point faster. Less rapport building, less listening and more advice giving. Like a spiritual vending machine, they’d put in a token of their time and out would come some advice. Shockingly, in many cases God redeemed my lack of humility and allowed my advice to help them in their situations, but it felt like commodity advice.

Leading with grace and love sounds like this, “I want you to know I love you and care about you. No matter what you choose to share with me (and what you ultimately choose to do), I want you to know that I am in your corner.”

Leading with that kind of commitment and support changes the entire atmosphere and opens up the conversation. Too often, we lead with advice that isn’t received. Save yourself some time and energy, don’t give advice until you are certain they understand the source from which it is coming.

3. I tried to fix their problem for them

John 15:1 says, ““I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.”

Sometimes I want to be the gardener. I want to prune the unruly branches and make the plant look healthy.. I have learned that when we do this, we risk burnout and compassion fatigue. Our role when helping those who are struggling with trauma or mental health challenges isn’t to fix them. Our role is to help them grow through the suffering as best we can by ensuring that they are connected to the true vine: Jesus We can encourage them, pray for them, love them, weep with them and rejoice with them, but we can’t heal them. This is what bearing one another’s burdens really looks like..

For many living with mental health challenges or coping with trauma, there will be good days and bad days. Symptoms will ebb and flow. Others will come into their lives for a brief moment to offer unsolicited advice on how they would manage the situation, but few will join them for the long journey.

Learn from my mistakes: helping someone dealing with chronic illness, trauma or mental health challenges isn’t about “fixing” their problem as much as it is about carrying that problem with them. Wait for an invitation. Lead with grace.

Adopting this mindset will eliminate many of the all too common mistakes the faith community has made in this area such as bad theology, denial that mental health struggles exist and so on. The mistakes, while still present, are rapidly becoming less common as our congregations become more informed.

As you continue serving your community, overcome those feelings of inadequacy and simply be a friend first. While institutions and medical professionals diagnose and treat, they don’t sacrificially love people very often. That’s where you come in.

Evan Owens currently serves as the Executive Director of REBOOT Recovery. He is certified in military ministry and has personally facilitated trauma recovery groups for over 350 combat veterans and military spouses. REBOOT is a non-profit that helps veterans, first responders and their loved ones to heal from the moral and spiritual wounds associated with service-related trauma.

Church Leadership

February 6, 2020

The Recipe for a Small Group Disaster

By Group Ministry

by Scarlet Hiltibidal

My house was so tiny and so lacking air conditioning and so full of so many kinds of bugs. And my hair was so bright red. And my necklaces were so cheap they turned my neck green. I was 22. I had plenty to learn and needed much maturity, but I really wanted to love Jesus. So, while I lived life with the hair dye and the bugs, once a week, I crammed 15-20 high school girls into my stuffy little living room to talk about Jesus.

A lot of great moments happened in that little warm room. And a lot of foolish ones, too. A stand-out, “seriously—I can’t believe that just happened” memory for me was when this group I co-led got into a full-blown fight, complete with semi-shouting and soft-glaring and possibly the passive questioning of people’s salvation.

I’m not even kidding you right now. We were really riled, and I can still picture the faces of the younger, impressionable girls in the room as they whipped their heads back and forth while I, in a full Pharisaical moment, bellowed, “If speeding is against the law, doing it is wrong! And if you know you’re doing something wrong and you don’t change, you’re in sin!”

Yep. Thank you, ladies and gentleman! This small group meltdown peaked with me passionately preaching condemnation on all the speeders in my life.

It was a disaster.

I’ve learned a lot from the mistakes I made while leading that group, and hopefully, God’s grace overcame my foolishness and reached the hearts of those young girls. But, if you’re a first-time disciple-maker, or if you’re just a young group leader, here are three ways you can avoid setting yourself up for small group disaster.

1. Don’t Co-lead with Someone When You’re Lacking Unity

This is something I could have easily avoided. You’ll probably never find another human that you agree with about every little thing 100% of the time. But, if you’re co-leading a small group, which is always wise if you want to be ready to multiply, you need to be pretty unified. Since you will differ on some things, even biblical interpretations, it’s so important to pow-wow about issues privately BEFORE they arise publicly.

If you know that your group is supposed to talk about something divisive like speaking in tongues or how the Bible speaks about politics, or, you know, how many miles over the speed limit constitutes unpardonable sinning, make sure you and your co-leader are on the same page before your group meets.

If you don’t agree, hash it all out in private, or just agree to facilitate that question for the group members without weighing in in a divisive way.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” —Ephesians 4:3 (NIV)

2. Don’t Meet Without a Study Plan

Many groups these days don’t have a content plan with a curriculum designed to help disciples grow. Studying the Bible by itself is awesome, but if you get a group together without any plan to facilitate a discussion, you’re setting yourself up for unexpected detours that could lead to unhealthy conflict.

I’m pretty sure the high school group I led was going through a book together. Going through books is wonderful too, but if you’re reading Scripture, or reading an author, and then setting up a discussion with the can-of-worms phrase, “Tell me what you think about…,” your conversation is very likely to take turns into places you are unprepared to handle or places that lead to little spiritual growth.

Have nothing to do with pointless and silly myths. Rather, train yourself in godliness.” —1 Timothy 4:7 (CSB)

Be ready to train. If you don’t have a plan, you could have a problem.

3. Establish a Culture of Grace

Any group of believers should go into their small group ready to talk in a gracious way. Groups that don’t lay the groundwork of grace are bound to go sour.

If Co-Leader and I had started from the beginning of the group saying things such as, “We share the same spirit…we speak the truth in love…we fill in the gaps with trust…,” the tone of conflict could have been vastly different. We could have disagreed in a more respectful way. We could have sought to understand instead of overstate.

If those girls and I were in a room together today, having that same discussion, we might have the same differing opinions we had then, but I hope I would communicate my thoughts in a way that displayed the grace of Jesus.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.” —Ephesians 4:32 (CSB)

Scarlet Hiltibidal is a writer living in Nashville, Tennessee. Scarlet has a degree in biblical counseling and worked as a Christian schoolteacher before she started writing. She has written for and managed several online publications. Currently, she does freelance writing for various Christian publishers and produces small group curriculum for children. Scarlet is wife to Brandon, who is part of the Groups Ministry Team at LifeWay, and Mommy to her daughters, Ever Grace, Brooklyn Hope, and Sawyer Joy. Visit her blog at scarlethiltibidal.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @ScarletEH.

Group Answers Podcast

February 5, 2020

Group Answers Podcast

January 29, 2020

Group Answers Episode 137: Dan Darling & Trillia Newbell on The Church and the Racial Divide

By Group Ministry

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris talk to Dan Darling and Trillia Newbell about the new small group study: The Church and the Racial Divide.

Daniel Darling is the Vice President for Communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (ERLC), and the author of multiple books.

Trillia Newbell is the Director of Community Outreach for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and also the author of several books.

Questions Discussed:

Tell us about The Church and the Racial Divide. How did this project come together?
What is racial reconciliation and why does it matter?
How can this be pursued by racially homogenous churches and groups?
What does a church look like that’s pursuing diversity and practicing healthy racial reconciliation in their church and city?
What would you tell a group leader that was considering this study for his or her group?
What tips do you have for someone who might be leading this study?
What excites you about this study? What do you hope this does for churches?

Resources Mentioned:

The Church and the Racial Divide Bible Study

The ERLC

Group Answers Podcast

January 22, 2020

Group Answers Episode 136: Derek Olson

By Group Ministry

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris talk to Derek Olson. Derek loves espresso, the outdoors and is passionate about building biblical community! He has been active in small group ministry since 2004 and is honored to serve as Pastor of Small Group Network Development at Saddleback Church.

Questions Discussed:

What started your passion for coffee and community?
How did you end up at Saddleback Church and The Small Group Network?
What does The Small Group Network do?
Why is it important for small group point people to network?
Who are you learning from now?

Resources Mentioned:

Genocide From Suicide and The Church’s Response

3 Mistakes We Can Make When Helping People Struggling with Mental Illness

The Recipe for a Small Group Disaster

Group Answers Episode 137: Dan Darling & Trillia Newbell on The Church and the Racial Divide

Group Answers Episode 136: Derek Olson

All Ministry Sites

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LifeWay Network