Reid Patton, Author at Group Ministry

May 9, 2019

When “What Can I Do?” Isn’t Enough

Group life allows us to enter into relationships that extend beyond a weekly meeting. As those relationships grow, we are near people during the best and worst times of life.

Paul advised the church in Rome to “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). This short exhortation invites us into an entire spectrum of life experiences. Through the good and bad we share in the type of mutual encouragement Paul mentioned earlier in Romans (see 1:11-12). Over the past several years, my wife and I have been the beneficiaries of our small group seeking to obey Paul’s command.

Four and a half years ago, our small group rejoiced with us as we welcomed a baby girl into our family. Our hospital room became a revolving door of visitors. The window sill filled with flowers. Our family came home to a clean house and a fully stocked refrigerator. Meals came by the dozens. We didn’t buy groceries for weeks. Our people rejoiced with us.

Fast-forward a couple more years, we received the same kind of love and generosity from our group for an entirely different reason.

I still remember sitting in down with the guys in my group and taking about how excited we all were to have our second kids. It was January and all the husbands were hoping to get that second kid and all the attending medical bills into one deductible year. While all our friends went on to have their second child, my wife and I experienced three consecutive miscarriages.

The people who rejoiced with us now wept with us. Three more times, the meals, the tears, the flowers, and the prayers came.

Reading Paul’s words, no one wants to be the person weeping. Yet, part of what my wife and I prayed when we found out we were pregnant after a second miscarriage is that God would allow whatever happened to us to be used by Him. So, in that vein, here are a few lessons we’ve learned about how to weep with those who weep.

Be Available

Our natural (and well-intended) response to tragedy is often to ask “what can I do?” People walking through hurt find it difficult to answer this question in the moment. A friend of mine whose wife was battling breast cancer put it this way, “I don’t know what I need, but when I need it, I’ll need it right then.” Instead of finding a concrete way to help, be present and willing to do whatever is needed when called upon.

Simply being present goes a long way.
Send a text or leave a voicemail without expecting a reply.
Drop a card in the mailbox.
Leave a care package by the front door.

Because our friends made their presence known, we knew we could call upon them when we needed a meal or someone to hang out with our daughter for a few hours. We knew our friends would drop everything at a moments notice to be there for us, to allow us to vent, to cry with us, or simply listen to us and say nothing at all.

Listen More than You Speak

When tragedy befell Job, Scripture tells us “when Job’s three friends […} heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. … Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.” (2:11,13) In coming and sitting with Job, they did the right thing. The trouble didn’t begin until they started speaking.

When our doctor told us that we miscarried, he prayed for us and specifically asked that God protect us from the unhelpful things people were going to say. Well-meaning friends will say unhelpful things. Job’s friends did not intend to hurt or frustrate him. They just misunderstood what Job needed. Instead of giving unsolicited advice or encouragement to your grieving friends, offer support and a listening ear. Don’t be afraid of their pain and be willing to hear it when they want to speak it. A listening ear is a great encouragement to a suffering friend.

Know that Your Faith Sustains their Faith

Walking through three consecutive pregnancy losses tested our faith in ways that we couldn’t have imagined. To be honest, it is still testing our faith. Yet, even in our worst days, the goodness of God’s people sustained our faith. We saw Jesus so clearly through the care and attention of His church.

Our friends sacrificed for us, prayed for us, and gave to us. Our loss, particularly the third miscarriage, knocked us completely off balance. As we tried to regain equilibrium, God’s people became a ballast of assurance to us. We knew Jesus cared about us because they cared about us.

Walking with people through pain and suffering requires much from you. Weeping with those who weep will cost you tears. Getting close to pain and ugliness is difficult, but that is what Jesus did for us. He entered into our brokenness, was present with us, listened to us, and told us to cast our burdens on Him when we’re weary and heavy laden.

Group life means embracing the good and the bad shoulder to shoulder with other people. Weeping with those who weep is not easy, but it is worth it. When the people in your community hurt, go to them and show them the same kind of love and acceptance that you’ve received from Jesus. He laid down His life for His friends. We must do the same in celebration and in mourning.

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Short-Term Discipleship Team at LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. He is currently pursuing a Master’s from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. In his free time, Reid likes reading, watching NBA Basketball, Braves Baseball, and Auburn Football, and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

Church Leadership

November 23, 2018

When Group Members Leave

By Reid Patton

If you’ve led small groups longer than a little while, you’ve probably had people leave. Maybe they’re seeking a new church or a different kind of experience. Maybe your group was not a good fit for some reason. Maybe they want to launch their own group. Whatever the reason—people leaving is inevitable.

Even when people have good reasons, this process can be one of the more awkward parts of leadership. In the groups I’ve led, people have left for all of the reasons above and there is still some measure of awkwardness in each parting. So how should group leaders navigate this part of group life? Be gracious and encouraging.

Gracious

For many, this might be the most difficult part. When you share your life with someone, and they move on, it can be difficult to not take the leaving personally. Though it’s a natural feeling, resist the urge to feel wounded, and seek to be gracious. The goal of group life is move closer to the Christian life, and if people are stepping into a situation where they feel they will have a greater opportunity to grow, we should be happy for them.

But what if the people are leaving for no real reason at all? Still be gracious. People have their reasons, and even when you do not agree with them, you need to be gracious. Once again, the goal of group life is ultimately to lead people towards Christ. We want people to see him through our actions, so we need to treat people as He would treat them.

Encouraging

Next, you need to be encouraging. Christians are not meant to walk through the Christian life alone. Particularly when people leave for seemingly no reason at all, we need to urge them to be involved somewhere else. If you find that people are leaving because they “want some time off”, ask questions to try and see what is behind that attitude. Church is not meant to be just another activity.

Recently, Thom Rainer wrote about Four Key Attitude That are Killing Church Attendance. You may be able to identify some attitudes of those around you in that helpful post. Dr. Rainer points out that often when people shrink back from involvement in church it is for unbiblical reasons. As a leader, you have an opportunity to have a conversation with these folks and help them evaluate some of their reasoning. We can still be gracious while encouraging people to consider their reasons. Naturally, some people will not be open to this kind of conversation, but in my experience, more people than you would think are open to talk.

If your group is simply not a good fit because demographics, focus, meeting time or some other reason, you can encourage people to be involved in another group. All group leaders would serve their churches well if they simply took the time to familiarize themselves with other leaders and other groups in the life of the church. That way, you can always be connecting people to community. Hopefully that’s why you began leading in the first place.

Leading has its ups and downs, people leaving (even for good reasons) can be a downer. Hopefully you now have some handles for navigating one of the trickier situations in group life.

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Short-Term Discipleship Team at LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading, watching NBA Basketball and Auburn Football, and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership, Start New Groups

February 19, 2018

Leaders Can’t Do Everything

By Reid Patton

Most people look for leaders in the church like they are trying to fill a job—they look for the most competent person available. This may seem like a good idea at first, but it excludes people who may not appreciate the gifts they have. Having strong competent leaders is a blessing, but if you only seek out people who are ready to lead right now you are missing a great opportunity to build leaders through groups.

The reality is that not all leaders come to us fully formed. The best future leaders of your groups may be those who don’t show an ability or even a desire to lead right now. So how do we equip and identify leaders who do not come to us ready to hit the ground running?

We do it by equipping our current leaders to share the responsibility of leadership with others.

We build future leaders by refusing to do everything. Such an approach cultivates a culture where new leaders are continually being trained and sent out. This type of shared leadership is effective for at least a few reasons.

The best leaders are actually the ones who defer to others. Good leaders let different people lead in different areas. Most small groups include the following elements—teaching, praying, and cultivating relationships. Someone in your group is likely better at one of these things than you. As you identify this, encourage them to take ownership in that particular gifting.

Developing leaders gradually allows group members to grow in their calling. Jesus didn’t send the twelve out immediately. They only went out after they spent time with Him and observed what He did. Gradually, Jesus gave the disciples responsibilities in the mission. They grew in their calling, as well as their ability to depend on Jesus.

Refusing to do everything helps group members see that community is not dependent upon leadership or personality. Everyone loves to have a dynamic group leader, but groups are not about the leadership gifts of one person. Rather, groups are a conglomeration of individual members of the body of Christ coming together. Refusing to do everything trains the people in groups to take responsibility and see that a group is about everyone—not just the leader.

We build leaders by not doing everything.

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Short-Term Discipleship Team at LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading, watching NBA Basketball and Auburn Football, and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

Group Leadership

August 24, 2017

Three Questions to Ask When Preparing to Teach Sermon-Aligned Content

By Reid Patton

Teaching any Bible study is really about answering three questions:

1) What (does the Bible say)?
2) Now what (should I believe)?
3) So what (difference should that make in how I live)?

Answering What? means digging into the portion of Scripture and uncovering what the Scripture means in its context. Hopefully your pastor has helped you along in this, but you will still want to read through a commentary or study Bible notes to make sure you understand what the Holy Spirit is saying through the biblical author. Even with the most explicit pastors, people in your group are still bound to have questions—and you should prepare to help them think deeply about the text.

Answering Now what? means helping your group process the heart change that should result from studying this particular text. One key way to process this question is to locate and meditate upon the gospel implications of the portion of Scripture that was preached. The central message of the Bible is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and every verse of Scripture supports this message. The gospel is the only message with the power to transform the heart. Helping the people in your group find this message will help them think about the heart change that comes from interacting with God’s Word. To prepare to answer this question, you may look into other portions of Scripture that support what your pastor said, or you may read devotional material that helps you process the heart component more.

Answering So What? means applying the sermon content to our lives. Hopefully your pastor has done the heavy lifting for you here, but you know the people in your group better than your pastor does. We should never read the Bible or hear it taught without being pushed to live out its truth. This part is where the rubber meets the road. You will want to think about what the specific people in your group need to glean from this sermon. What are they struggling with or asking questions about? How can this particular sermon speak to their lives right now? How should they (and you) be different having heard this sermon?

You will want to think through each of these questions in your preparation time. It may be that your group time will spend an equal amount of time wrestling with each question, or you may want to focus your time in response to the style of your pastor.

For example, my pastor spends a substantial portion of his sermon explaining the Scriptures to us. This means that when my group meets during the week, I feel confident that they have a solid understanding of what the Bible is saying because my pastor has explained it thoroughly. The What? question has been answered for the members of the group. This means that the majority of my group time I spend answering the So What? and Now What? questions. In practice, this means I take the application points my pastor gave us in his sermon, and spend most of the time in my group exploring those.

If your pastor spends most of his time on application, you may consider giving more time to helping your group understand the portion of the Bible that was taught. Remember, the goal is to supplement the sermon itself—and that may require some flexibility. Yet, you should also feel the freedom to spend an equal amount of time on each question. Answering these three questions gives your group a robust understanding of what God is saying through your pastor and helps them live out truth in a way that changes their lives.

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Custom Content Team at LifeWay Christian Resources, where he produces biblical small group studies for Discipleship In Context and SmallGroup.com. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading, watching NBA Basketball and Auburn Football, and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

Group Leadership

August 17, 2017

Consider Teaching Sermon-Aligned Content

By Reid Patton

The team I have the pleasure of serving with at LifeWay is tasked with creating custom content as a silent partner with churches all over the country. Before my work on this team, I was fortunate enough to create sermon-aligned content for one specific church. All that to say, creating and teaching sermon-aligned Bible study content is a passion of mine. Here are a few key takeaways I’ve gleaned over the years that could be helpful to those of you who currently use or are interested in using sermon-aligned content for your groups.

Benefits of Sermon-Aligned Content
The benefits are twofold. First, this approach offers your groups an attempt to go wider and deeper into what their pastor taught over the weekend. I heard pastor Mark Dever say one time that the job of a pastor is to spend 1 hour on Sundays resetting people to live for the remaining 167 hours in their week. What Dever meant was, we have limited time with our people—they spend far more time in the marketplace and in the world than they do in church. One of the goals of the worship gathering is to prepare them to live out their faith for the rest of the week. Thus, teaching sermon-aligned content provides a platform to extend what God has laid on your pastor’s heart into the week.

Second, this type of content gives group members a way to process and apply what God is saying to them through the sermon. Many people walk away from Sunday worship wrestling with some truths to apply, and have additional questions about what was preached. Sermon-aligned groups provide a context to address these questions.

What Kind of Groups Can Use Sermon-Aligned Content?
Any kind of group can benefit from this content—from a traditional Sunday school model, where the groups meet before or after the worship gathering—to small groups that meet in homes throughout the week. The process will look different for different groups.

For groups that meet on Sunday the day the sermon is preached, it may be helpful for you to work a week behind and cover last week’s sermon before the current week. This gives you adequate time to prepare. Additionally, people have (hopefully) wrestled with the content for a week and will (once again, hopefully) have some thoughts about how to live out what they heard.

Groups that meet throughout the week after the sermon has been preached can feel more comfortable expanding on the material that they heard on Sunday. Many churches provide their groups with sermon-aligned lesson plans, which make this process easier; however, the preparation for all types of sermon-aligned groups should look pretty similar. I’ll tackle what preparation looks like in a later blog post.

Group Leadership

October 3, 2016

The One Thing We Don’t Do

By Reid Patton

In a recent sermon on guilt, my pastor said to the church, “I know you people. You come to my office for counseling, and most of the problems you have come because y’all don’t deal with your stuff.” What my pastor was saying is that most of us are not great at dealing with the sin in our lives. Even though we believe the gospel, that our sin has been taken care of at the cross, we still need to deal with the indwelling sin still lurking in our hearts. My suspicion is that the local church where I am member is not alone here. In fact, this problem goes all the way back to the garden.

When God did not accept Cain’s sacrifice, and Cain was sullen, God said, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent. If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Gen. 4:6b-7). The great Puritan pastor John Owen put it this way: “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” Because Cain did not deal with his sin, his sin dealt with him, and he killed his brother. We need keep watch over our lives because sin looks for any opportunity.

What my pastor, the Book of Genesis, and John Owen are all saying is that it is the duty of every believer to confess their sin and repent of it. Sin keeps us from fully experiencing the joy we were designed to have in Christ and damages our relationships with God and with other people. The mechanism God has given us to deal with our sin is confession and repentance (1 John 1:9; Mark 1:15). Repentance is not simply what brings us into faith with Christ, but it sustains our faith in Christ as we grow. We say no to sin and yes to God. That is what Owen had in mind when he wrote about killing sin—we continually repent of sin throughout our Christian life.

Our small groups are the ideal place to invite people into your personal battle against sin. Yet how few of us ever confess our sins to another believer as James suggested we should (5:16)? No, we typically do the opposite. We try and hide our sin from other people, afraid of what they might think of us. But guess what, everyone in your church and in your small group is a sinner. Therefore, after confessing your sin to God, the community of faith is the next best place to express your struggle with sin and find encouragement.

In her book Openness Unhindered, Rosaria Butterfield writes about the grace of confession in the community of the church: “After Pentecost, believers were ‘continually devoting themselves…to fellowship’ (Acts 2:42). In a real Christian community, there is no shame in repentance. Real Christian communities view repentant sinners as God sees them: cleansed and robed in Christ’s righteousness. And we know that that battle with sin is not finished until we die or Christ returns. For this reason, ‘from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh'” (2 Cor. 5:16).[1]

Butterfield’s point is that when we entered into the community of faith, we found a place where we are accepted despite our sin, because we aren’t recognized by our sin, but by the grace of God at work in our lives. Confession then is not a weight, but a freedom we can only find in Christ.

The people in your group should know about areas of your life where you are wrestling with sin. They should be aware of your struggle so they can pray for you and support you. They should know so they can hold you accountable. Confession is not an embarrassing burden but a great freedom secured for us by the blood of Christ.

All of this begins when you are open and honest about your own struggle and model what confession looks like. Lead from the front, and confess what is going on in your own heart. Be vulnerable to ask for prayer and accountability. Receive others confession with acceptance and grace while addressing it with prayer and pointing them back to the gospel. Make your small group a place where people can “deal with their stuff,” as my pastor suggested.

As small group leaders, you are on the front lines of ministry. You are the arms of the church and the first stop for pastoral care. Humbly embrace this responsibility and lead your groups to become a refuge where people can experience the life giving grace that comes from confessing sin and looking to Christ.

[1] Butterfield, Rosaria Champagne. Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ. Pittsburgh, PA: Crown & Covenant, 2015. Pg. 90.

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Custom Content Team at LifeWay Christian Resources, where he produces biblical small group studies for Discipleship In Context and SmallGroup.com. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter@jreidpatton.

Group Leadership

September 19, 2016

Lessons Learned from Connecting People to Community

By Reid Patton

The months of August and September bring new, usually predictable, rhythms to families, particularly families with young children. In these months, kids have gone back to school and started new grades, while others are changing schools or moving away to college.

We see some of these changes mirrored in our church as the same children starting a new school year often move to a different class or small group at church. Additionally, what is going on with the youngest members of the family mirrors itself with the parents, and they begin to search for a new group themselves.

Recognizing these times of natural change can help you take advantage of what is already going on in the lives of the families you lead. At my church, we recently made a push to connect new people to groups, and today, I’d like to share a few takeaways from our efforts to connect new and existing families to groups.

1. Consider a semester system. Because it is more affordable than the city center, the community I live and minister in is filled with young families. As a result, it makes sense for us to have our discipleship groups follow the same schedule as the school district

Regardless of whether or not your community looks like mine, there are a couple of reasons to take advantage of a semester system: first, it provides two scheduled times for people to connect to groups, in the fall and in the spring. Second, it gives people the freedom to change groups after a semester if the one they try doesn’t work out for whatever reason.

2. Promote some groups and not others. You likely have those groups at your church that are filled to the point of overflowing while other groups are still trying to build a regular core of people. To combat this, consider promoting new and still growing groups over groups that are “full.” This isn’t to say that people can’t or shouldn’t join a vibrant group, but focus the bulk of your attention on those new groups that provide the best avenues for new people to connect.

3. Host an event to connect people to groups. It is not uncommon for churches to make a big deal out of the day children move up to a different group or Sunday school class. On those days (or the Sunday before or after), make a big deal out of your adult groups as well. For example, at the beginning of our fall semester my church set up a few booths in a lobby, and people were told in the service that they could meet group leaders after the service. This was helpful because it put a face with a group and helped new people make their first connection with a group leader before ever attending the group. We’ve found these events to be valuable enough to do them at the start of each semester.

Lastly, while these things may work at my church, they may not work at yours. I don’t offer these as hard and steadfast rules but as practical takeaways from what worked for us in Spring Hill, Tennessee. If they work for you, modify them and make them your own. The goal is simply to connect more people to life-giving community.

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Custom Content Team at LifeWay Christian Resources, where he produces biblical small group studies for Discipleship In Context and SmallGroup.com. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

Group Leadership

June 30, 2016

Three Reasons to Start Connect Groups

By Reid Patton

Do you have people who are new to your church and community and are looking to make some good friends? Do you have people in your church who, for whatever reason, don’t feel comfortable joining a group? Or maybe you know of people who should be leading a group, but for whatever reason they don’t feel comfortable?

You could probably answer each of these questions in the affirmative. People are built to live in community with God and with other people, but in reality this is much harder than it should be for some people. To provide an easy access point for each of the people mentioned in the questions above, you may want to consider launching some connect groups.

A connect group is an affinity-based group that meets anywhere from one time to upwards of two months. At my church we take a break from our regular discipleship groups for eight weeks over the summer and launch a variety of connect groups. Some examples are: a one-day canoeing trip, a five-week intro to wood-working class, a six-week women’s study through the Book of Galatians, or a grilling night for men.

Your small group ministry, the place where disciples meet week-by-week to study the Bible and share each other’s burdens, should be the bread and butter of what you do as discipleship leaders. However, that does not mean connect groups do not have a place in our groups strategies. Today, I’d like to share some of the benefits we have found and ask you to consider these three reasons to launch connect groups at your church.

1. Friendship: One of the reasons we launch these in the summer is because many people are done with school and moving into our growing community. In addition many of our regular members are gone at different times throughout the summer on vacation. Either way, new families will always be moving to town, and for some people, making a connection and forming adult friendships is difficult. Because connect groups don’t come with the pressure or commitment of joining a small group, they provide an easy access point for new people because they go in understanding there is no commitment involved. Additionally, since many of these groups are based around affinity and common interest, there is a built-in conversation starter. At my church, we have found that many of the friendships that begin in connect groups do not end there, but continue on far beyond them.

2. Community: Sometimes there are people who aren’t new, but have never connected to an ongoing discipleship group for one reason or another. Unfortunately, these are the people in your church who fall through the cracks. Connect groups provide an easy access point for these people as well. It allows them to feel comfortable with other people at the church by meeting in a group where there is a fixed end date. I have been able to see people come out of connect groups with a newfound desire to connect to a regular, ongoing discipleship group. Many times, they join the regular groups of those they meet in the connect group. These types of groups build community and help connect more established members as well as newcomers.

3. Leader development: Any discipleship leader will tell you that they have people who are gifted and should be leading a discipleship group, but they just won’t commit because they feel like they don’t know enough or aren’t qualified. Consider asking these people to lead a connect group; it might be just what they need to build their confidence. The connect group gives them a lot of freedom to plan and schedule and test their strength as a leader. A groups pastor I know at a church with many people in their mid- to late 20s had a guy he wanted to lead, but this guy didn’t have the confidence to lead just yet. My pastor friend let him plan and lead a connect group with some other men, and now he leads those same men in an ongoing men’s small group. While this won’t always be the case, the connect group provided a low-impact way to build the confidence of a qualified leader.

Ongoing, biblically based communities of believers will and should continue to be the focus of all we do as discipleship leaders, but I have seen so much good kingdom impact start from connect groups. We want to lead our people to be maturing and healthy disciples, with a concern for community. Sometimes people need a little help taking the first step. That’s where connect groups have become helpful to us, and could be helpful to you as well.

Image: http://www.personalcreations.com/

Group Leadership

June 2, 2016

Three Questions to Ask About Commentaries

By Reid Patton

Recently during a small group I help lead, a couple of friends made the comment that they fell off the wagon in their Bible reading plans about the time they hit Chronicles. Why? Because 1 and 2 Chronicles are books of the Bible filled with lists and names. We don’t know what to do with texts like these, so we skip them or gloss over them in hopes for a “better” text. However, God could have chosen to leave these texts out of the Bible, but that’s not what He did. He included them for a reason, even if that reason may be hard for us to discern.

This discussion got me thinking about how we as small group leaders should equip ourselves to then equip others. According to Paul, every part of Scripture is profitable for us (2 Tim. 3:16). As leaders, we need to understand the text ourselves to help others see why it is profitable. Yet, sometimes we need a little extra help to see what is profitable in a difficult text. In those instances, it is worth your time to consult a reliable commentary.

The following passage in Nehemiah shines a light on the need for commentaries, so let’s take a look at a passage and then ask three questions about how to best use commentaries as we prepare to lead or facilitate a small group.

⁴Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform made for this purpose. Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah stood beside him on his right; to his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.⁵Ezra opened the book in full view of all the people, since he was elevated above everyone. As he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and with their hands uplifted all the people said, ‘Amen, Amen!’ Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

⁷Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah, who were Levites, explained the law to the people as they stood in their places. ⁸They read out of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was read.” —Nehemiah 8:4-8 (HCSB)

While much of Nehemiah tells a story, verses 4 and 7 remind us of those passages we tend to gloss over. But these two verses also show us the value and need for commentaries.

What is a commentary? At the most basic level, a commentary is an aide to help you understand the Bible better. Commentaries include information about the author and the context of the passage you’re studying, and they help us to see what the Holy Spirit meant when He inspired the original authors of Scripture to write. Commentaries come in different shapes and sizes as well as different levels of difficulty. They can be highly practical and devotional in nature, or highly technical with emphases on things like original languages and historical context. Either way, the goal of a commentary is to help you understand the passage in the original context.

Were you to consult a commentary on the above passage, you would find helpful information about verse 4. For example, the men whose names we can’t pronounce likely stood with Nehemiah for the solemnity and importance of the moment because the law was being reinstated. This is not an earth-shattering revelation, but it is helpful information that rounds out our understanding of this passage and of the Book of Nehemiah as a whole.

Why should I use a commentary at all? Can’t I just rely on the Holy Spirit? One objection to consulting a commentary is that we don’t need it because we all have the Holy Spirit. While it is true that each Christian has been given a new heart to read and understand the Scriptures, we can still benefit from the wisdom of others.

Commentaries are written by people with advanced degrees who have devoted years of their lives to understanding one book of Scripture. If you turn your attention to the second list of guys whose names you can’t pronounce, you will notice in verse 8 that these people were Levites who stood with Nehemiah to help people understand what was written in the book of the Law. The Bible is meant to be understood, but sometimes we need a little bit of help. The returned exiles in Jerusalem of Nehemiah’s day benefited from the help of others as they sought to understand and obey the Bible. When we read commentaries, we aren’t replacing the work of reading and interpreting the Bible ourselves but getting some outside help to better understand what is being said.

How do I find reliable commentaries? Not all commentaries are created equal. So here are some good resources to help you find trustworthy commentaries. MyWSB.com comes with a small library of commentaries, including all the content of Holman Christian Standard Study Bible for free. Additionally all of LifeWay’s ongoing curriculum lines as well as SmallGroup.com lessons come with trustworthy commentary to help you better understand the passage in the lesson.

Additionally, Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has created a helpful guide for choosing the best commentaries. Blogger Tim Challies also has a series of posts that serve the same purpose.

Next time you come across a difficult text preparing to lead your group, remember that commentaries are there to help.

Group Leadership

April 21, 2016

Increasing vs. Multiplying in Small Groups

By Reid Patton

One of the great blessings of Christian community is the depth of relationships that we experience. People I have been in small groups with have supported me through some of the toughest seasons of life—helped my wife and I move four times, provided meals for us when I came down with the flu for a week, supported us when my wife was recovering from the birth of our daughter. During a recent health scare, the amount of prayers that poured in through text messages, phone calls, and emails from people I live in community with was simply astounding. In community, I have seen the Scriptures come alive to people in such a way that families and lives are changed to the glory of Christ. I believe Christian community is so valuable because I have felt and experienced the value when I needed it the most.

When we experience these benefits, our natural inclination is to dig deep and hunker down. Relationships of this depth are hard to move beyond. And that’s a good thing! That means we are embodying the type of Christian community we find in places like Acts 2:42-47. Men and women connected to Christ and devoted to each other. However, the person we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about is the person who is not there because he or she isn’t connected to a small group.

According to Dr. Thom Rainer, people who become involved in a group in a church are five times more likely to still be plugged in five years later. Small groups make a significant impact on long-term discipleship. We should want to see people find the same type of support, grace, and encouragement we have found in Christian community. To accomplish this, we must begin to value the people who are not there as much as the people who are.

Leaving groups to start new ones is hard. Once we have put in the hard work of fostering community, who would want to leave? To see the value of new groups, let’s turn to the first small groups that ever existed in the Book of Acts. In his history of the early church, Luke regularly provides us with status reports to let us know how things are going. We first find these reports in Acts 2:47 and 5:14 where Luke describes how the Lord “added” to their number. Yet when we get to Acts 6:7 we see the same idea but with one critical difference: ^“So the preaching about God flourished, the number of the disciples in Jerusalem multiplied greatly, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7, HCSB).

The difference is the word multiplied, which is a different word both in English and in the original language of the New Testament. Added means “an incremental addition.” This is what happens when we stay in our same groups and continue to accept more and more people. Multiplied refers to exponential growth, meaning the disciples were making disciples who were making disciples and the church exploded.

Some of us have become so comfortable in our own group that we cannot imagine leaving, but starting new groups breaks down barriers because it places new people on equal footing—the group is new, so everyone is new. Starting new groups fulfills the Great Commission mandate to “make disciples” (Matt. 28:19-20) by providing new avenues for disciples to be made.

If you want to create a culture of disciple-making in your church, the best way to accomplish this goal is to focus on multiplying the number of groups instead of increasing the number of people in groups. Take your groups and start to multiply for the glory of God in your community and in all nations!

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Custom Content Team at LifeWay Christian Resources, where he produces biblical small group studies for Discipleship In Context and SmallGroup.com. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

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