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Group Answers Podcast

Group Answers Episode 92: Ben Reed on Building a Growth Track

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On this episode of Group Answers, Chris and Brian talk to Ben Reed about how to build a successful spiritual growth track. Ben blogs at BenReed.net and oversees small groups, mission, and care at Mission Community Church in Gilbert, AZ. He’s the author of the book, Starting Small. Ben is married with a son and daughter. His interaction with small groups, recruiting small group leaders, training and shepherding them is broad, and his heart beats for healthy, authentic, biblical, Jesus-focused community. He knows that without a healthy system, you can’t replicate what you do with any efficiency.

Questions:

  • You have been around small groups and discipleship strategies for a long time and in different ministry settings, how have you seen them evolve and change?
  • How do you counsel groups on curriculum or Bible study choices. Do you adhere to a scope and sequence or more a la carte?
  • How does having a growth track to follow help people in their spiritual growth? Where do groups fit on that track?
  • What’s the greatest challenge to you as a groups pastor and how are you addressing it?

Quotes:

I have seen a movement from high discipleship to a relationship and missional model.

I have the seen the rise of the franchise model of plug-and-play groups.

Here at Mission, we say that we want you to connect relationally and grow spiritually.

Holding relationships and spiritual growth up is where we are going to find health in groups.

When I get questions from group leaders, it’s about what we should do about childcare or what we should study next.

We have a suggested curriculum track for groups to follow.

You’re either an explorer, a builder, an owner, or a thriver. You self assess where you are spiritually through a series of questions.

A thrive spiritual tract is unique for every person going through it.

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 Small Groups for the Rest of Us.

Church Leadership

Why Your Small Group Needs to Study Biblical Women

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Heroes of the Bible.

When you hear this phrase, who comes to mind? 

  • David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14).
  • Joshua, a leader who brought God’s people to the promised land (Joshua 1-5).
  • Peter, the one on whom Jesus built his first church (Matthew 16:18).
  • Paul, an Apostle to the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:1-12).

All of these are incredible people who, by God’s grace, knew God and made Him known in powerful ways. We learn from them. We are inspired by them. We, in many ways, want to be more like them.

But, who might we be missing?

Some other heroes of faith often take longer to come to mind.

  • Ruth, a widow self-sacrificing, kind, and devoted (Ruth 1).
  • Deborah, a catalyst courageously speaking truth (Judges 4-5).
  • Anna, a prophet dedicated to fasting and praying (Luke 2:36-38).
  • Lydia, a hard-worker worshipfully showing hospitality (Acts 16:11-15).

These are just the beginning of women of faith who, by God’s grace, also knew Him and made Him known through their lives. 

Why study biblical women?

In our small groups and Sunday schools, we have strong reason to not overlook the sometimes shorter or less emphasized stories of the Bible, including the stories that highlight women.

In fact, we miss out when we do not study these.

  1. We all need the example

Amid a culture of women’s rights and feminism, and within the church’s subculture of egalitarianism and complementarianism, what it means to be men or women and the ways we handle biblical manhood and womanhood are intensely debated. We can look to what’s happening around us and our experiences within us to try to make sense of it all. But, why not the Bible?.

Just as we look to people in the Bible to learn how to deal with suffering, to learn what fruit of the Spirit we should have, or to explore what it means to trust God, we can look to the Bible to see what it means to be women who follow God. Whether we need this advice or whether we need to encourage women in our life toward seeking God, we can learn from what women (just as we can learn from men) did, what they said, how they prayed and praised.

  1. They show unique expressions of faith

As we dig into their stories, we will learn from their lives. First, we can see their relationships with the Lord. We can see the ways they talked about Him. We can look for the way the knowledge of God shaped how they spent their days. We can see the expressions their faith took: worship, prayer, fasting.

We can also see how this relationship and fear of the Lord impacted their relationships with people. We can see the ways they were loyal, courageous, truth speakers, justice seekers. We can learn from their actions about how to lead lives that model God’s truth and grace.

What and how can everyone learn from biblical women?

Women in the Bible can show us far more than we might imagine.

They can show us about relationship with the Lord. They can show us about relationship with others. They can encourage our faith. They can shed light into the sometimes difficult and often deeply personal discussions of manhood and womanhood.

Yet, just as any story in the Bible, they can bring us further into the heart of God and spur us forward into a life compelled by God’s love (2 Corinthians 5:14). 

What can we learn from biblical women? Much more than we might imagine.

How can you get started? Try studying, walking through the very texts of Scripture where these women are chronicled.  It starts with scripture. Seeking out the stories of women and diving in. 

But we don’t want to leave you alone in your search. We can help you and help you lead others on this study. LifeWay’s Women’s Ministry Specialist, Kelly D. King, walks us through six stories of biblical women in Bible Studies for Life: Living by Faith – Women who Trusted God. She’ll lead you into the stories of Rahab, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, the poor widow, and the Samaritan Woman. 

What you’ll find? Hope, strength, perspective, wisdom, and so much more. Find out more here.

Deborah Spooner is a Minnesota-born analytical creative serving as a Marketing Strategist for LifeWay’s Groups Ministry. As a pastor’s daughter with a background in Digital Communications and Media and Biblical & Theological Studies, you can find her at her local church, in deep conversation, or with a book or pen in hand as she seeks to know Christ more and make Him known.

 

Group Answers Podcast

Group Answers Episode 91: Building Your Spiritual Pathway

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian, Chris, and Michael, discuss how to build a spiritual pathway for your church and groups that is centered on the Gospel.

Spiritual Pathway Example

For more information and resource recommendations for the pathway, go to www.lifeway.com/balanceddiscipleship.

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 Small Groups for the Rest of Us.

Church Leadership

What is the Balanced Discipleship Pathway?

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As Christians, we understand the importance of balance. Balance in our lives, our family, our prayer time, and even our health. Do you ever stop to think about balance in your discipleship plan?

Being a group leader, there is nothing more daunting than picking out the next study for your group. If you start by searching for small group Bible studies in your search engine, you are immediately given 57,300,000 results. It’s going to take some time to sifter through those results to find the perfect Bible study for your group.

Our goal as the LifeWay Groups Ministry is to help the Church in Her mission of making disciples. This applies to small group ministry. Having a balanced discipleship plan should be easy, but it can oftentimes be difficult to remember and keep up with.

In an effort to make it easy for small groups and their leaders, we have the Balanced Discipleship Pathway. This pathway, or plan, is built on three characteristics of Bible study: centered on the Gospel, expanding in scope, and displayed in real life.

LifeWay research has done studies to find out what would be included in a balanced discipleship plan, and these steps on the pathway are lifestyle patterns that ought to be growing in ever-increasing measure the longer a person walks the pathway of discipleship.

The eight signposts on this pathway are:

  • Obey God & Deny Self
  • Engage with Scripture
  • Share Christ
  • Exercise Faith
  • Seek God
  • Build Relationships
  • Live Unashamed
  • Serve God & Others

By choosing a study from each of the following categories (signposts) over the course of a year, you will ensure your group is taking a balanced approach to attaining spiritual maturity.

Friday Features

Friday Feature: Counter Culture

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This article is an excerpt from the Bible study Counter Culture.

Christianity and culture. Our faith and our world. Truth and love. How do we engage with our culture in a way that both shows the compassion and love of Jesus while also pointing back to the foundational truth of the Gospel?

Often, instead of doing this well, we in our churches and Christian communities can engage with culture in ways that are not helpful to others or ourselves.

In his Bible study A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture: In a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Persecution, Abortion, Orphans, Pornography excerpted below, David Platt lays out different approaches Christians often take to culture. We can aim to identify which category our group might fall into as we seek to lead ourselves and others into healthy, constructive engagement:

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say we can have one of four possible responses in engaging our culture.

  1. WE CONFORM. We start compromising what we believe and the way we act in order to appeal to and appease the surrounding culture. We may even genuinely believe that doing so is both loving and strategic, hoping somehow people will be attracted to Jesus through a less offensive form of Christianity and will ultimately be saved. However, we have to realize that our goal isn’t to make following Jesus easier. We’ll look more closely … at the message of the gospel, but we’ve already seen that at its core, it’s necessarily countercultural and offensive to the human heart.
  1. WE CHECK OUT. The opposite extreme is to secede from culture, distancing ourselves so completely that we never have any interaction with the world around us. Again, the intent may seem honorable and sincere because we want to remove even an appearance of evil and the temptation of sin. But Jesus specifically prayed that His Father wouldn’t take His followers out of the world but protect them while they were sent into it (see John 17:15-16). The world around us desperately needs the life-changing power of the gospel. Forming an isolated, insulated subculture may feel countercultural, but it isn’t an appropriate response. Countering culture doesn’t mean withdrawing and isolating ourselves from culture.
  1. WE COMBAT. This approach is antagonistic and defensive. While the intent begins moving in the right direction, refusing to give in to or give up on the world around us, it misses the heart of Jesus. This response sees culture as an enemy to be defeated instead of people to be saved. Our desire mustn’t be to prove ourselves right or to force our way on the world around us. Instead, our goal is to show Christ to be true and worthy. Just as wrong as running away from our culture is driving people away from the church. Countering culture doesn’t mean attacking it.
  1. WE COUNTER. Countering culture means engaging culture with conviction and compassion. We stand firmly on the truth of God, empowered by the Spirit, to extend the love of Christ to a lost and dying world. Our desire isn’t to conquer but to redeem. It matters what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. A wrong response to culture is more than unhealthy or unhelpful. It’s potentially damning. Engaging our culture is literally a matter of life or death—eternal life or death.
How do we move past these three harmful responses to culture and engage with “countering” like Jesus would? Platt dives deeper into the problem, the solution, and practical ways to start living in the remainder of his Bible study. Find out more at LifeWay.com/CounterCulture. 

 

Church Leadership

Why the Image of God is So Important to How You Lead

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The image of God.

What does it even mean? It can be like a vague idea that doesn’t impact how we lead at home, work, or church. But what if it actually played an important role in our daily lives? Turns out, it does.

  1. Sin corrupts

We are made in the image of God. Made to know God and make Him known. Made to be ambassadors of reconciliation. Made to bear God’s image in all the ways that he equips us. But sin. We all have sinned and just miss the mark. Romans describes how we can fade (Romans 1:18-25). Our thinking becomes worthless (v. 21). Our hearts are darkened (v.23). The image of God that could be showing so clearly through us now isn’t everything that it was intended to be.

  1. We exchange

Yet it doesn’t stop with our lives being corrupted by sin. We start looking, but as we are no longer reflecting God’s image and his goodness like we could, we make an exchange. We decide seeking other things, lesser gods–idols–to worship. And? We begin to reflect whatever it is that we worship. One psalmist describes it this way:

“Those who make them [idols] are just like them, as are all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8).

As we give our lives over to seeking and worshipping anything less than God himself, we reflect those things in place of the Creator who gives it all life. Power, money, fame, sex–the image we begin reflecting can be deeply scarred.

  1. We change

We become blind. No longer worshiping God’s image, we start to be blind to seeing it.

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Then, we can’t see Jesus as He is. Life becomes hopeless, apart from the grace of God. And this grace? Changes everything. The grace enters by the Holy Spirit’s power, and just as Jesus healed many from physical blindness, our spiritual blindness is lifted. It shows us the sinfulness of our fallen world, God’s righteousness, and the judgment coming and our rebellion. Only when we see the depths of our sin can we see the power of Jesus’ redeeming life.

  1. He restores

Seeing Jesus as He truly is, is our first step toward the imago Dei being restored within us. The step that can bring us back into reflecting his image as we were made to, and being the men and women God has created us to be. This restoration doesn’t stop with our first step; it continues as we live for Jesus, following Him and trusting the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We start changing, being restored, more fully reflecting God’s image.

“We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

And your journey with the image of God is just beginning.

These ideas are adapted from LifeWay’s Imago Dei Bible study created in partnership with The Gospel Coalition and Mike Cosper. Check out the resource to see how understanding the image of God can continue to impact your life as you understand it biblically, relationally, and missionally.

Deborah Spooner is a Minnesota-born analytical creative serving as a Marketing Strategist for LifeWay’s Groups Ministry. As a pastor’s daughter with a background in Digital Communications and Media and Biblical & Theological Studies, you can find her at her local church, in deep conversation, or with a book or pen in hand as she seeks to know Christ more and make Him known.

 

Friday Features

How Understanding God’s Image Changes You

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 Paul painted a bleak picture of the fallen heart:

God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness andunrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress thetruth, since what can be known about God is evident among them,because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is,his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since thecreation of the world, being understood through what he has made. Asa result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they didnot glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking becameworthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise,they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God forimages resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexualimpurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. Theyexchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served whathas been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

Romans 1:18-25, CSB

Sin leaves us with deeply corrupted hearts. Paul said, “What can be known about God is evident” (v. 19), but humanity chose to suppress the truth. As a result, our “thinking became worthless” and our “senseless hearts were darkened” (v. 21). God turned humanity over to its rebellion and let us go from bad to worse. Key here to our discussion of the imago Dei is Paul’s teaching that humanity “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles” (v. 23). In rebellion we looked for lesser gods—idols—and we failed to reflect the goodness of God. The image of God was effaced, but it wasn’t erased. Humanity retains its dignity and a measure of its glory, even at its most corrupt. But that glory is dimmed or hidden. Only through Jesus can we begin to flourish and reclaim God’s design for our lives.

Romans 1 is true for all image bearers. When have you exchanged the glory of God for lesser images? What were the results?

If we’re not reflecting God’s glory, we begin to reflect whatever we worship. As one psalmist put it:

Those who make them [idols] are just like them,

as are all who trust in them.

Psalm 115:8

If we give our lives over to worshiping fame, power, money, or sex, we’ll begin to reflect what we worship without reflecting the God who gives any of those things their purpose. And the image we present won’t be pretty.

List specific ways you see image bearers (including yourself) becoming like the idols they worship.

When we worship idols, we fail not only to worship the image of God but also even to recognize it when we see it. Paul wrote:

The god of this age has blinded the minds of the

unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the

gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

2 Corinthians 4:4

As a result, we’re left blind to Jesus’ identity and His nature. It’s a hopeless situation apart from the grace of God. But that grace is extraordinary, and when it touches our lives, it changes everything.

Grace comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. Just as blind men were healed and able to see when Jesus touched them, our souls are cured of their spiritual blindness when the Holy Spirit touches them. Jesus Himself described this transformation when He promised the coming of the Holy Spirit. He told his followers:

It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor

will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will

convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment: About sin, because

they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the

Father and you will no longer see me; and about judgment, because the ruler

of this world has been judged. I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t

bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the

truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears.

He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will

take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything the Father has is mine.

This is why I told you that he takes from what is mine and will declare it to you.

John 16:7-15

Jesus was describing the work of grace. It begins with the Holy Spirit’s convicting work, revealing the sinfulness of the world, the righteousness of God, and the judgment that’s coming as a result of our rebellion against God. Only when we’re taken to this low place and made aware of our sin and our idols are we able to fully comprehend the depth of our sin. At that point,we’re able to see the light of the gospel in the redeeming work of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. From this place of humble brokenness, the Spirit continues His work, guiding us to truth. The Spirit enables us to see Jesus for who He truly is, and that’s the first step on the road to the restoration of the imago Dei within us.

As you’ve walked with Jesus, how have you begun to see more clearly the sin in your own heart and in the world around you?

How does the Holy Spirit’s ongoing restoring work help you see the image of God more clearly?

Restoration continues as we live our lives with Jesus, seeking to follow Him in all the ways He taught and learning to trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Such a life is transformative. As we begin to look more like Jesus, we begin to more beautifully reflect the image of God:

We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory

of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image

from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

The imago Dei is shattered and distorted by sin, but it doesn’t have to remain broken. In Jesus we have a pathway to its restoration and, furthermore, to a restoration of the world around us. The restored imago Dei makes us better neighbors; better caretakers of creation; and better husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters. Image bearers are the best-equipped people to bring peace and reconciliation to society. They’re best equipped to tear down boundaries of race, class, and ethnicity. Their presence heals their communities as they carry the glory and love of God with them wherever they go. As we go about our lives in this tumultuous world, we should pray that God will give us a vision for ways to demonstrate the healing power of His image.

This article is excerpted from the Bible study Imago Dei.  See more on this study at Lifeway.com/ImagoDei
Group Answers Podcast

Group Answers Episode 85: Writing Sermon-Based Studies

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On today’s episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris welcome Dr. Rob Tims to talk about how to craft a well-written sermon-based Bible study. Rob is a Christ-follower, husband, and father of four living in Nashville, TN. With more than 20 years of ministry experience in the local church, Rob currently manages the editorial team at Lifeway Christian Resources that provides trustworthy, customized Bible studies for individual churches through personal relationships and smallgroup.com. He also is an Associate Professor for Liberty University Online, a researcher, and enjoys preaching and teaching in various venues throughout the year. His first book, Southern Fried Faith, is available exclusively on Amazon for Kindle or in print.

Three Things to Know for Writing a Sermon-Based Study:

  1. Know the goal
  2. Know the culture
  3. Know the basics

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 Small Groups for the Rest of Us.

Friday Features

Bible Studies for Life: Connected

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Ephesians 4:1-2

God clearly wants His children to get along. His will is for Christians to be unified. But unity doesn’t just happen within a group of people simply because they all decided to join the same church. Unity takes work. It takes sacrifice. It requires individuals who recognize they can serve as a unifying or divisive force within the body—and choose to seek unity.

Paul emphasized this choice in Ephesians 4:1-2 when he challenged his readers about the way they treated one another. He pleaded with them to live in a manner worthy of their calling as members of God’s kingdom. The word translated “worthy” in the original language typically referred to balance, as in the balancing of scales. In essence, Paul was saying, “Let your actions equal what you profess.”

The same principle applies to those of us in the church today. If we say we are following Jesus, our treatment of other believers ought to corroborate our testimony, not conflict with it.

So, how should we treat one another today as followers of Christ? Paul laid out several characteristics in verse 2: humility, gentleness, patience, and loving acceptance.

Gentleness is linked with humility. Being gentle isn’t the same as being a doormat. It isn’t being weak or cowardly. Rather, it involves showing kindness. It means being considerate of others. Those who are gentle don’t demand their own way or grasp for power. Jesus showed gentleness by welcoming little children who wanted to be near Him (see Matt. 19:14). He was gentle when He offered encouragement rather than condemnation to the woman caught in adultery (see John 8:10-11).

In addition to humility and gentleness, Paul called for patience among believers. Patience carries the idea of putting up with others’ faults and failures and not seeking revenge when wronged—which goes hand in hand with accepting one another in love. It’s the willingness to forgive and not bear a grudge. It’s the Christlike view that says: “I see your imperfections, but I love you anyway. I forgive you because God has forgiven me.”

Each of these attributes is vital to maintaining unity within the church.

Excerpted from Bible Studies for Life: Connected
Church Leadership

Best Bible Studies in the New Year

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What’s a better New Year’s resolution than spending more time in God’s word?

We can’t think of one, but we can think of countless reasons why making Bible study a priority in 2019 is one of the best decisions you’ll make.

Whether we like it or not, we can’t change anything about 2018. The days turned to months, and these past 12 months may have filled our days with not only joy and success but also pain and difficulty.

Yet, here we are on a fresh page. We can start off strong by keeping Christ central. Good news? You can saturate yourself and your group in the ultimate Good News through these studies:

Foundations: New Testament by Robby and Kandi Gallaty with Gus Hernandez and Tim Lafleur

In Foundations: New Testament, Robby and Kandi Gallaty lead individuals through the 27 divinely inspired books of the New Testament in one year, while still offering the flexibility of reading only five days each week. The HEAR journaling method will allow individuals to read and respond to God’s Word as they highlight, explain, apply, and respond to passages throughout the yearlong plan.

Pathways by Tony Evans

The story of Esther appears to be a series of coincidences that deliver the Jews from certain death. However, God selected Esther for a particular purpose at a particular time in the history of His chosen people. These resources will help you discover the power of God’s providence in the midst of your personal pain, fear, gain, loss, and love. You’ll see that God has a purpose for your life, and He uses every action and event that occurs in it to make that purpose a reality.

Gospel Foundations

The Bible is not a collection of scattered stories and books. From cover to cover, the Bible is the story of God’s plan to redeem sinners through Jesus—the gospel. Gospel Foundations tells that story. From the creators of The Gospel Project, this six-volume resource is comprehensive in scope yet concise enough to be completed in just one year. Each seven-session volume includes videos to help your group engage in discussion with a clear understanding of how each text fits into the storyline of Scripture.  Get a free preview of the study here!