Community Archives - Group Ministry

July 17, 2019

Group Answers Episode 109: Darrin Patrick

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On this episode of Group Answers, Chris and Brian talk to Darrin Patrick about community and accountability.

Darrin Patrick is a teaching pastor at Seacoast Church. He is the founding pastor of The Journey Church and is the author of multiple books including the Dude’s Guide to Marriage.

Darrin is the former chaplain to the St. Louis Cardinals and former vice-president of the Acts 29 church planting network. He has appeared in the New York Times, The Today Show and Fox and Friends for his innovative approach to reaching the un-reached.

Darrin is married to Amie and they have four children. He enjoys reading, writing and coaching his kid’s sports teams.

Questions:

From the outside, you were a very successful pastor, chaplain of the Cardinals, head of a church network. What was happening on the inside during all of this?
What did community and accountability look like for you when career and reputation were at the perceived peak?
What happened when those friendships were suddenly gone?
In the sense of accountability and community, is there a limit to the number of people you really want to be in contact with?
What role did having healthy community around you play in your eventual restoration?
What advice would you give to leaders who may be heading down the same path that you were on?

Quotes:

My ministry was growing, but my soul wasn’t growing.
What really brought me back was community, and I’ll never do ministry without that again.
Ultimately, I wasn’t willing to slow down the pace to develop those relationships.
Always err on the side of reaching out.
It was like God said, “I’m perfecting you through this imperfect process.”
You’re moving into that “sage” stage and having a hard time moving on from “warrior.”
A lot of leaders have failed to develop those soft-side leadership skills, and it’s mainly related to them not engaging their emotional life.
We’re really good at following Jesus as God, but we’re not good at following Jesus as man.

This Episode’s Sponsor: The Overcomer movie has inspired the creation of several resources. For small groups, there is the Overcomer Bible study. For individuals, there is a book called Defined. Both are based upon powerful insights from the Book of Ephesians. Learn more about all the resources at LifeWay.com/Overcomer

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

July 16, 2019

Open Group or Closed Group?

By Joey Jacob

There are a few decisions for your group that will have trade-offs depending on the decision you make. You will need to decide what direction will be best for the long-term health of your particular small group.

An important initial decision to make is whether to be an open group or a closed group. Open groups are simply open to new people joining through the life of the group, and closed groups may be open for the first week or two of the group but will then close to new people until the end of the life of the group.

Case for Open Groups

Groups that choose to stay open to new members have a missional mentality that welcomes people who need biblical community. Having your group stay open also helps multiply the effectiveness of the church reaching people quickly with the gospel. Church buildings only have so much room for groups to form community, but there is no limit when we take our community outside those walls.

We sometimes picture small groups as a way to get current church attenders into biblical community, but think about how much more effective an invitation to your church would be if it came through an invitation to be a part of your small group first.

They will have already been exposed to the pastor’s teachings if you are doing a sermon-based study.
There is a built-in follow-up through the group meetings.
There is no rush to get them there on a Sunday.
The invite starts and continues with a relationship.

If groups are to become the new front door of the church, they have to start with our neighborhoods. Our world has changed so that most people don’t know their neighbors anymore. When I was growing up, our neighbors were a natural extension of our family. We knew all of our immediate neighbors, and I spent almost as much time in their houses as I did in mine. The thought of inviting a neighbor to your church wasn’t that scary at all.

Now, you are lucky to get a cursory wave before the garage door goes down and your neighbors disappear into the house. Who has time for connecting with neighbors anymore? When we first moved to Nashville, most of the houses in our neighborhood had garage entrances on the back of the house. The only way to catch your neighbor was by chasing their car down the driveway and performing a drop-and-roll maneuver under their garage door before it could shut! I couldn’t understand why my neighbor wouldn’t talk to me again after I did this the first time . . .

Here are a few ideas to connect with your neighbors who are not already plugged into the church or a small group:

Throw a block party. Opportunities begin as relationships, and block parties set the stage for future friendships.
Host a movie on your lawn for the families in the neighborhood. Put out a few flyers around the neighborhood and fire up the latest Pixar hit.
Take part in neighborhood-sponsored events like Easter egg hunts or quarterly “spruce up the neighborhood” days.
Organize welcome baskets for new people in the neighborhood. You can also include an invitation flyer to your group in the basket.

Case for Closed Groups

Some groups will choose to stay closed for the life of the group, or until the group members decide to open for new people. We can see this type of group modeled for us with Jesus’ small group. Once He had chosen His twelve, the group was not open to new members until Judas was replaced after the betrayal in the garden.

There are several benefits to staying closed as a group:

Accountability can be stronger when the group is full of people who know each other well and are comfortable being vulnerable with one another. Inviting someone new into that group can disrupt the needed intimacy.
It takes at least three months of consistently meeting together before most of the relational walls come down. We call those “refrigerator rights” in our group. When a group member feels comfortable enough to walk into our house and open the refrigerator without asking permission first, that’s when you know you have bonded as a family. Inviting a new person or couple into the group will reset the time to get to the refrigerator rights.
A few groups, like recovery groups, will by necessity need to remain closed for the life of the group. A more discipleship-intensive group of three or four people meeting outside group time will need to be closed as well.

The choice of being an open or closed group should be determined before the first meeting and included in the group covenant. The group members need to know if they are encouraged to invite guests, or if the group will close for community and accountability reasons.

Chris Surratt (@ChrisSurratt) is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience. He served on church staffs prior to becoming the discipleship and small groups specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of Leading Small Groups: How to Gather, Launch, Lead, and Multiply Your Small Group, from which this is excerpted and adapted with permission from B&H Publishing Group. You can follow his blog at ChrisSurratt.com.

Church Leadership

July 15, 2019

6 Ways to Discuss Politics in Your Small Group

By Ken Braddy

It has been said that the only two things in life that are guaranteed are death and taxes. In my experience, there’s a third: it’s guaranteed you’ll blow up your Bible study group if political conversations aren’t managed well. Perhaps you’ve been in a group when politics came to the forefront of the discussion. People literally have felt more passion about political topics, candidates, and policies than they have about evangelism, financial giving, or serving! It’s crazy. But it is also reality. And in the political season we now find ourselves, with the first Democratic debates having taken place already, and Republican debates soon to hit the airwaves and internet, you can bet that there will be conversations in your Bible study group that will have the potential to be a powder keg. How can you lead and teach your group, guide them well, and manage the political conversations you know are going to come up between now and the next presidential election? Here are some ways you can do that and lead your group well.

Set ground rules. It’s not too early to lay down some ground rules in your group since the presidential election process has begun. Tell your group how you’re going to lead them when the conversation turns political. Above all, remind the group that you will follow biblical mandates such as pursuing peace (I Peter 3:8), relating to one another with humility (I Peter 5:5), and showing patience towards one another (Ephesians 4:2).
Agree that both political parties are represented in your group. Anything said to malign one political party is going to offend a large percentage of your group members in most cases. That being said, your group members need to keep in mind that if they speak against one political party, they are risking offending their brothers and sisters in Christ, and perhaps losing friendships in the process.
Acknowledge that there are no perfect candidates. There is only one perfect ruler, and his name is Jesus. While we are thankful for the leaders he allows to rule us, our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus, not the president or the president’s political party. Or governor. Or mayor. You get the idea.
Pursue the biblical mandate of unity. Unity doesn’t mean uniformity, but it does mean that I place my thoughts and actions aside for the greater goal of maintaining unity in my group and in my church. You wouldn’t want discord in the Bible study group to spill over into the church and cause the church to develop a reputation for being a divided organization. That wouldn’t be a good witness to the community.
Agree to disagree. As much as you try, you’ll never completely agree as a group about a political candidate, a policy, or issues surrounding a political party. Disagreement is going to be a part of life, and a part of group life even in the church. Generations of people’s families have voted a certain way in some cases, and no amount of reasoning or Bible thumping is going to change their minds and cause them to vote against their family’s traditions. Deal with it and move on.
Agree that a political conversation is only allowed if it directly relates to the Bible study at hand. This one simple rule will greatly reduce the impromptu speeches that can take place when a passionate member of your group waxes eloquently about politics. Call a foul and ask the group member to not introduce political comments into the Bible study. Remind them that it is acceptable only if it relates to the study at hand.

Christians and churches should talk about politics and consider the positions of candidates and parties, but it can be a powder keg. Do your best to approach political conversations with great humility and a dependence upon God to know how to guide your group’s conversations. Above all, remind people that the earthly leaders we have are temporary leaders we are placed under while on earth. We have a heavenly King who is our ultimate authority – the One who is right, just, and will one day return to establish His kingdom where righteousness will reign. Until then, we pray for our leaders as Scripture commands us to do, and we eagerly await for Jesus’ return.

Ken Braddy manages LifeWay’s adult ongoing Bible studies and leads a group at his church. He has just released a book to help churches strengthen their Bible study ministries. Find Breathing Life Into Sunday School at lifeway.com.

Group Answers Podcast

July 10, 2019

Group Answers Episode 108: Reid Patton on Asking Good Questions

By Group Ministry

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On this episode of Group Answers, Chris and Brian talk to Reid Patton about how to ask good questions when facilitating a Bible study.

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.

Questions:

If I’m using a pre-written curriculum, how can I make the most out of those questions?
What types of questions invite conversation?
How should I structure the questions in my group?
How would you sum up the big questions small groups should answer?

Quotes:

As someone who writes Bible studies, I don’t know your group better than you do.

I would rather give someone more than they need than less than they need.

The open question is far superior to the closed question.

There are going to be three types of questions in every Bible study: observational, interpretive, and application-based. A good Bible study will balance between those three types of questions.

The three big questions are what? so what? and now what? What does the Bible say? So what do we do with that, why does that matter? Now what do we do with it?

A holistic approach to the text will give you a holistic disciple.

Church Leadership

July 8, 2019

4 Questions to Ask About Prayer Requests in Your Group

By Dwayne McCrary

In almost every Bible study group, prayer requests are shared. In fact, we may even feel cheated if prayer requests are eliminated from our group! Unfortunately, gathering prayer requests is as far as it usually goes. But what if we saw a prayer request as an opportunity?

Here’s what I mean: some prayer requests require ministry action. For example, if a couple uses the prayer time to announce that they are expecting a baby, passing that information along to the Preschool Sunday School leaders would be important. Deacons and other ministry leaders could be informed about hospital stays, family crises, and deaths of family members. In this way, the prayer request becomes an opportunity for ministry action, reaching all areas of the church.

Prayer requests also represent opportunities for church leaders. By knowing needs, leaders can make wise choices when they plan events, host fellowships, and train leaders. The pastor could better understand the needs of the church and prepare sermons that meet the needs expressed in the prayer requests. Being aware of specific needs makes him a better pastor.

To do this kind of intentional action, you need to ask four questions:

How can we efficiently gather accurate prayer requests?
How do we communicate the requests?
To whom should we communicate these requests?
How can we encourage those making a specific request?

Let’s take a deeper look at these questions.

How can we efficiently gather accurate prayer requests?

Notice the two words, efficiently and accurate. A Bible study group could spend the majority of their time gathering requests, but that would compromise their time of actually studying the Bible. For me, making a sheet of paper available during the study time for people to record their requests has been the most efficient. The second element is accurate. We want to make sure that the requests shared are up to date. There is nothing worse than telling someone that you are praying for their loved one, only to find out that the loved one passed away a month ago.

How do we communicate the requests?

This question involves both form and medium. How we word something is very important. If someone requests prayer for a nephew who hates his job and is looking for a new one, that request could be worded when shared with others as a request for a nephew who needs wisdom about his future. We don’t know who may read the requests in today’s world, so we need to be careful. Hospital stays and other events requiring time away from home become important information if it falls into the wrong hands, which brings us to the medium: should we post all our requests on social media? What are the risks of making a request public? Do we really want everyone on Facebook to know about Dave having surgery and being in rehab for 6 weeks? How we communicate is important.

To whom should we communicate these requests?

We have already mentioned sharing requests with the pastor and other church leaders. Who else needs to know about the prayer request? We mentioned a couple announcing an addition to their family earlier. Who all needs to know about that particular request, and why?

How can we encourage those making a specific request?

Gathering prayer requests is certainly about being aware and knowing how to pray intelligently, but it is also about encouraging those for whom we are praying. There is nothing like getting a note from someone who is praying specifically for you. Those notes lighten the load and help us face whatever challenge we are facing. Part of this is celebrating God’s answers as well. Both the one being prayed for and the one praying are encouraged by answered prayer, so finding a way to include answers to requests is also important.

Prayer is an important part of the life of a Bible study group. Requests serve as a means of communicating priorities, needs, and victories. They give us clues about each other, helping us build deeper relationships. They also provide opportunities for us to minister to people and involve others in the process. If they are that important, then some strategic thought is in order. The four questions identified above should serve as starting points to help you think strategically about the requests shared in your Bible study group.

G. Dwayne McCrary is a project team leader for ongoing adult Bible study resources at LifeWay, including the adult Explore the Bible resources. He also teaches an adult group and preschool group every Sunday in the church he attends.

Church Leadership

June 27, 2019

3 Things a Small Group Leader is Not

By Chris Surratt

The number one barrier to someone stepping up to lead a small group is the word leader.

Take five seconds right now and think about what you imagine when you hear that word. Go ahead, I’ll wait. What came to mind? A CEO of a large company? A head of state? The senior pastor of your church?

We all have preconceived ideas of what a leader should be, sound, and look like. I imagine someone who is tall (I’m short), extroverted (I’m an introvert), a scholar (I, um … struggled), and forceful (definitely not me). Basically, someone who is the opposite of me.

There is no template for an effective leader. Every successful leader is flawed. In fact, the Bible is filled with damaged and flawed leaders. Here are just a few:

Adam, the first human being, couldn’t lead his own family. His firstborn ended up killing his brother.
Eve, the first woman, became greedy and took the first bite (literally) into sin.
Noah, the last righteous man on Earth at the time, got drunk and slept in the nude (in view of his kids).
Abraham, the forefather of faith, let other men walk off with his wife on two different occasions.
Sarah, the wife of Abraham, let her husband sleep with another woman and then hated her for it.
Moses, the humblest man on the face of the earth, had a serious problem with his temper.
David, the friend of God, concealed his adultery with a murder.
Peter, the man Jesus named “the Rock,” denied Christ three times.
Paul, the author of most of the New Testament, was a Pharisee who persecuted Christians before becoming one and was hampered by a “thorn in the flesh” after becoming one.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture: the Bible shows us men and women who had issues just like us. Yet, God still used them to build a movement that has not slowed down in more than two thousand years. Even with the death of the only perfect leader, Jesus!

Michael Kelley says that “Leadership is the joyful acceptance of responsibility at a given moment.” I like that definition because, ultimately, leading a small group is supposed to be joyful. It won’t always be easy or fun, but knowing you were integral in someone’s life being changed through the power of community is one of the most joyful things you will do.

To help us know what a small group leader is, let’s consider a few things he or she is not.

1. Someone who has all the answers.

A leader who has all the answers is not a leader anyone should follow. First, it’s impossible, but most of all, we want to follow someone humble enough to admit they don’t know it all.  

2. Someone who can teach the Bible weekly.

There are some with the gift of teaching, but a small group experience is not about one person teaching and the rest learning. It’s a shared discussion where we are all growing together.

A small group leader is a facilitator of a synergistic conversation with the Bible as the guide.

3. Someone who is everyone’s best friend.

Our job as small group leaders is not to make deep relationships with every person in the group. Not only is that unwise, but it’s also unhealthy.

Our goal should be to find two to three same-sex people in the group we can disciple outside group time and help other people in the group do the same.

I identify with what Paul said in 1 Corinthians:

“I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power”(1 Corinthians 2:3–5).

Isn’t that freeing? God chose me and you, sinners and flawed human beings, because He wants all our faith to be in Him, not in our own abilities. When your group members look at you, they are not putting their faith in you as the leader, but in the Spirit’s power working through your weakness.

The Shepherd Leader

Peter gave us this definition of leadership as he exhorted the elders of the first-century church:

“Shepherd God’s flock among you, not overseeing out of compulsion but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed for money but eagerly; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:2–4).

Notice Peter did not say, “Teach God’s flock.” The spiritual gift of teaching is not the most essential gift for a small group leader. In fact, the teaching gift sometimes does not translate well into leading a small group. That is one reason why a senior pastor is not always a great small group leader. I always suggest  a teaching pastor be in a small  group but not lead a group.

The elders of the church were put in place to shepherd the congregation in the same way we as small group leaders are to shepherd our portion of the church.

Although we are not that familiar with shepherds in today’s society, God chose shepherds throughout the Bible to lead His people. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David were all shepherds chosen as leaders by God.

Jesus even referred to Himself as a shepherd: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me” (John 10:14).

Small group leaders are called to follow in His footsteps.

Chris Surratt (@ChrisSurratt) is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience. He served on church staffs prior to becoming the discipleship and small groups specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of Leading Small Groups: How to Gather, Launch, Lead, and Multiply Your Small Group, from which this is excerpted and adapted with permission from B&H Publishing Group. You can follow his blog at ChrisSurratt.com.

Group Answers Podcast

June 26, 2019

Group Answers Episode 106: Bobby Gruenewald

By Group Ministry

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On this episode of Group Answers, Chris and Brian talk to Bobby Gruenewald about the Bible and technology.

Bobby Gruenewald serves as Pastor, Innovation Leader at Life.Church and is the founder of the YouVersion Bible App, which has been installed in every country of the world. As one of the leading voices in the Church on innovation and the use of technology, Bobby has been featured in The New York Times, TechCrunch, CNN, and more. Prior to joining the Life.Church team in 2001, he started and sold two technology companies as well as served in advisory capacities for various startups and venture capital funds. Bobby and his wife, Melissa, live in Edmond, Oklahoma with their four children.

Questions:

Tell us about your journey from rapper/entrepreneur to pastor.
What was the impetus behind creating YouVersion?
Why do you think people struggle with consistent engagement with the Bible?
What do you say to people who have issues with others reading the Bible digitally?
The opportunity for community is built into the YouVersion app. How can small groups take advantage of it to encourage and challenge each other?
How can Bible Plans help people engage with the Bible on a deeper level?
What is next for technology and the Church?

Quotes:

We were beginning to connect with Scripture more consistently in places we had not done that before.

It’s been a sprint of us racing to keep up with what God’s doing.

For many people, I think the Bible is a bit intimidating.

There are some things about technology that give some new opportunities for people to experience Scripture in different formats that have been very helpful for people in their consistency and their engagement.

The Bible has changed formats many times over the last few thousand years.

There are many people today who still cannot read Scripture in their own heart language.

It’s difficult today to have meaningful conversations around Scripture in some of the more public social media environments. We wanted to create a safe place for that conversation to take place.

We just see technology as a tool that can be used for the Gospel.

Church leaders need to be asking the right questions.

Sometimes the most effective thing to do is write it on a piece of paper.

This Episode’s Sponsor: Feeling unequipped for marriage ministry? Woo Marriage is here to help. Backed by research and designed with your church in mind, Woo Marriage provides Christ-centered marriage coaching for your entire church. Get your first month free with offer code LEADERSHIP at WooMarriage.com/FreeTrial.

Church Leadership

June 13, 2019

#GroupGoals

By Chris Surratt

It is sometimes hard to know what is real in our society. We live in a world where we judge ourselves with comparisons to viral hashtags and perfect Instagram filters. Everyone’s best life is on full display 24/7. We all have our #SquadGoals and #RelationshipGoals.

Ironically, those Instagram and Facebook posts signal the presence of authenticity. “I’m being authentic by letting you in to what’s going on in my real life.” But we all know that’s a fake authenticity. There is a near-paralyzing fear that comes with true authenticity. The thoughts bombard us every time we start to grow in relationship with others. If people only knew . . .

· The things I have done in my past

· My shortcomings as a spouse

· My failures as a parent

· My private thoughts

· Sin based in my insecurities

The beautiful and freeing truth of true authenticity is that being open and vulnerable to a group of people doesn’t require walking in perfection; it requires walking in confession. Scripture lays it out this way in 1 John:

Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. If we say, “We have fellowship with Him,” yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:5–9 hcsb)

Our natural reaction to sin is to run and hide in darkness, but the power of the gospel frees us to come out into the light. Because of the blood of Jesus, we don’t have to be afraid of confessing our sin—not because we don’t sin or our sin doesn’t have consequences, but because through the gospel, we know we are forgiven of our sins. That allows us to confess without self-justification. Now we can confess to one another not just so we will receive forgiveness from one another, but so that the forgiveness Jesus has already given to us can be pronounced again and again in our communities.

The picture is found in James 5:16: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect” (hcsb).

This verse is transparency at its best. It’s a picture of someone who, convinced of the limitless grace and promised forgiveness of Jesus, confesses their sin. They lay themselves open and bare before others, not expecting shame or guilt, but instead expecting healing. It’s a crucial step on the road to holiness, but that’s just the thing—it’s one step on the road. It’s not an end in itself.

The gospel both enables us to be truly transparent and compels us toward a greater end that lies beyond transparency. We confess to one another not so we can be real with one another; we confess to one another because we have a desire to be made holy. To be healed. To stop sinning. And we are responsible and even blessed for aiding one another on that journey. James continues on in verses 19 and 20:

My brothers, if any among you strays from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his life from death and cover a multitude of sins. (hcsb)

The work of Jesus makes confession and repentance more beautiful than burdensome. We can share “below the line of shame” because we already know we are so broken that Jesus had to die for us. But we also know we are so loved that He was willing to die for us.

The only way for a small group to embrace this power of healing is for the leader to model and practice it from the beginning. That is how our group can finally achieve #groupgoals.

Chris Surratt (@ChrisSurratt) is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience. He served on church staffs prior to becoming the discipleship and small groups specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of Leading Small Groups: How to Gather, Launch, Lead, and Multiply Your Small Group, from which this is excerpted and adapted with permission from B&H Publishing Group. You can follow his blog at ChrisSurratt.com.

Church Leadership

June 6, 2019

Depression, Solitude, and the Small Group

By Group Ministry

by Jared Musgrove

We are so hurried. Busy-ness is truly the ultimate virtue of the age. Henri Nouwen phrased it this way, “In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolical chain in which their anxieties grow according to their success.” Such 21^st Century souls demand that the truth be stated in an elevator conversation, because we are moving on to the next projected “success”. But this attitude misses the biblically human truth that transformation by the truth takes time, examination, and community.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ collection of sermons on the matter of Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures has always been a personal friend to me, but I’ve begun to look at it all over again as a community resource when I consider our small groups and the transformation we all pray happens in them. The way to go about this will be both the individual being led by the Lord into holy introspection and then to processing in the community of God’s people in a smaller group.

Lloyd-Jones writes,

“We are meant to examine ourselves periodically, but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it, that is introspection. And if we were always talking to people about ourselves and our problems and troubles, and if we are forever going to them with that kind of frown and saying: I am in great difficulty – it probably means that we are all the time centered upon ourselves. That is introspection, and that in turn leads to the condition known as morbidity.”

Maybe you’ve had that member in your small group. Maybe you even recognize yourself in the above paragraph. We are designed to spend times of solitude with God, to read His Word, to hear from Him, to pray, and commune with Him. Jesus, our Master of Model of living, did just this. And so too should we encourage our small group members to cultivate a life with God outside of our community time.

But our life with God cannot stay in solitude. That’s the tricky part. There are introverts and extroverts and we approach solitude differently. Lloyd-Jones is helpful here:

“We have to watch our strength and we have to watch our weakness. The essence of wisdom is to realize this fundamental thing about ourselves. If I am naturally an introvert I must always be careful about it, and I must warn myself against it lest unconsciously I slip into a condition of morbidity. The extrovert must in the same way know himself and be on his guard against the temptations peculiar to his nature.”

But we can’t know ourselves or God fully if we try to do so apart from the community of saints He has given us. This is what we do in small groups. We help each other process our introspection and remind one another of the gospel’s application in both our solitude and our solidarity.

Jared Steven Musgrove serves as Groups Pastor and elder at The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The University of Oklahoma, a Master of Divinity in preaching from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate of Ministry in leadership from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the husband of Jenny and the father of two sons, Jordan and Joshua. You can follow him on Twitter @jsmusgrove

Church Leadership

May 28, 2019

Why Does Your Group Exist?

By Chris Surratt

Every small group needs a reason for existence. Why should we carve out more time in our busy lives to spend it with people we might barely know? For most people and groups that reason is the desire for community. We desire friendship, and that is a good thing.

We all need community. In fact, we were designed by God to be in community. You can see it modeled for us with the perfect relationship of the Trinity in Genesis.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” (Gen. 1:26 hcsb)

We then see it prayed for by Jesus with His final prayer before His death on the cross:

“May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me.” (John 17:21 hcsb)

Community is important, but a problem arises when community is the destination of the group. A small group that gathers strictly around the desire to make friends will live or die on the strength of those relationships. If those relationships begin to shift or separate, so will the group. Without the imperative of being on mission, community is fragile.

Like all aspects of God’s creation, our relationships have been broken by sin. In our sinfulness, we use other people instead of live in God-honoring community with them. But when we believe the gospel, our relationships begin to be reshaped. We, together, are meant to help each other follow Jesus more closely and in so doing to extend the gospel into all the world. This is our mission. This is the redeemed version of community—it’s relationships that are centered on seeing the mission of God come to pass first in our own hearts, and eventually in the world.

We can look at the life of Jesus to see how community was used as the foundation for mission. As we saw in Genesis 1:26, Jesus had this perfect community with the Trinity, but chose to not only leave home, but to leave heaven on a mission to die for those He came to reach. Jesus was the first and greatest missionary of all history!

John testified to the fullness of Jesus’ mission in John 1:

Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him. (vv. 16–18)

Jesus left His community to come to Earth, to realign our priorities, and to make us citizens of a new kingdom. Because of sin, our priorities are broken, but the gospel puts them back in line. The truth of this gospel was the sole mission of Jesus’ life on Earth.

When Pilate questioned who He was, Jesus replied, “You say that I’m a king . . . I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Jesus was born to share this truth.

We can see clearly why living out the mission of Jesus is related to the gospel. After all, the final instructions of Jesus before He ascended into heaven were centered around this mission—that His followers should “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20).

And as you align your group around this gospel-centered mission of Jesus, remember that we had to hear the good news before we could share the good news. We had to be brought to life by the message before we could be its messengers. What this means practically is that we have to be open to living out the gospel in our group by inviting those who need the gospel the most.

With time of living it out, this missional way of looking at our world becomes a natural outflow of what the gospel has produced in our lives. We desire deeply for others to experience what we have in our life-giving community. Helping group members see their world through this new missional lens will slowly move them beyond just the desire for friendships.

This article is excerpted from the just released book, Leading Small Groups: How to Gather, Launch, Lead, and Multiply your Small Group by Chris Surratt. Used by permission from B&H Publishing.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.

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