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Church Leadership

Launching Groups After Easter

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by Jared Musgrove

It can be commonly accepted in our groups world that there are times of year that are just not good time to launch a group. Spring Break is one. After a late Easter going into Summer is another one all together. I understand the tension point. And while it’s true that these may not be optimal times, they’re not impossible times. It might even be part of the plan.

For years we’ve been trying to whiteboard our way out of the alleged conundrum of starting a group during one of these periods. We will probably keep trying. Because if you have one group, you have one group. They are all unique.

So as we head into the months when our people’s vacation, sports, and fireworks schedules reign over weekday evenings, don’t abandon the basics. I propose to you that we stick to what it time-tested in group life season after season, even if that season is after Easter.

Why Does This Group Exist and Meet?

A group that meets after Easter should have the same rhyme and reason (even if the rhythm of meeting is different) as a group that starts any other time of the year. Can this new group answer why the group exists and meets? What is the compelling biblical reason you are giving them all year round? That will be what carries a group through the dog days of Summer.

Who Is the Leader(s)?

An identified leader or leaders is essential to the success of a group, in season or out. Are these leaders committed, calendared, and have conviction about the group’s purpose and time together?

When and Where Do We Meet?

“Even if three people come, we are still having group.” Let this be the resonating resolve regardless of the season. Have that place and time set. Don’t decide to have group or not by consensus. Even if three people come, have group. This builds expectation and solidifies group time as a calendared constant.

What Do We Follow and Submit To?

In season and out, God is still at work in your group. Even if three people come, the Scriptures can be opened, read, considered, prayed through, members prayed over, and spiritual fellowship can be had. Because the group submits to the Lordship of Jesus Christ unity may be had, Christian practice and partnership deepened, and the biblical purpose of your groups furthered.

How Do I Participate?

Is the connection to group life in your church as clear after Easter as it is the rest of the year? This also shouldn’t change. If there are system considerations, get creative and still capitalize on the fact that people are coming and want(!) to be in a group. Make sure their pathway is straight as it would be any other time of the year.

Sometimes a smaller group can be a blessing of warmth and intimacy for a season. And even if numbers are down in your group for a month or so, who knows what the LORD has in store to grow you in gospel partnership together. He put these people in your group for this time in this Summer season. He has work to do. This group that begins after Easter was His plan all along for the spiritual growth of those in it. Including you.

 

Church Leadership

Unlocking Balanced Disciple-Making

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by Reid Smith 

Balance has always been elusive for me in ministry. Earlier on, I grew skeptical of it because I pictured it as being something that literally meant I was giving equal time and attention to multiple things but somehow not cheating anything. Life rarely allows this luxury. So when I heard balance applied to small groups, my instinctive reaction was “Nope – that’s just setting leaders up to fail.”

If we’re honest, we’re probably not doing all of the things we’ve learned that we should be doing in our groups. People connect and grow together regularly through some form of fellowship, Bible study and prayer in most groups. Far fewer develop a plan for building in other spiritual practices, different expressions of worship, and outreach to make a group experience well-rounded, or dare I say, “Balanced!”

Over time, however, “balance” for me became less about maintaining perfect equilibrium, and more about planning ahead on how you can incorporate activities that are commonly omitted from group life, but vital to the health of it. You need to have a plan to have balance. 

The group leader is the person responsible for driving the process of developing a plan with the group about how they will be intentional about including spiritual practices that do not normally occur in their gatherings. I’ll share a few pointers on how group leaders can lay the groundwork for balance by planning ahead for it followed by practical ways members can pursue balanced group life together.

Laying the Groundwork for Balance

  • Pray – The most powerful thing you can do to facilitate the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives is to pray specifically for your group members to exercise faith and take steps to grow ever closer to Jesus!
  • Have a Sidekick – You need a close companion who sees the vision of balanced group life and understands the “why” behind it before you share it with the group. This is important because you need feedback and somebody who is in the room with you affirming the dream as you share it with everyone.
  • Maximize your Kick-off – Be highly-relational, but very strategic during your first session of a new study or season as a group. Get to know each other better, but be sure to discover how each person would like to grow as a result of being part of your group. Help them unearth their spiritual growth goals before diving into curriculum.
  • Have a “Locker Room Talk” – Before an important game, a coach will get the players fired up by telling them why he sees them being victorious and what they need to do to get there. Is a group’s life together any less important? Of course not!
    • Start by explaining how a well-rounded group will support each member’s personal transformation and help everyone grow stronger spiritually. Then share how the Lord has a purpose in each one playing a part in fulfilling it because of how He has gifted them (more on that in a moment).
    • This builds buy-in to the vision, increased participation in living it out together, and consequently, the group will have healthy longevity and greater impact.

Balancing Group Life Together

  • Serving Together – Engage in a service project or group outreach at least once per season / semester. Present this idea at the outset of your group and schedule it in advance. You might choose to do this in place of your group meeting for a week.
  • Worship Together – Click HERE to access ideas for “Unleashing Creative Group Worship.”
  • Remembering Together – Celebrate communion once per season / semester – Talk with your church’s leadership to learn about how you can do this in your group.
  • Confession – Some spiritual breakthroughs necessitate confession, which opens the way for God’s light to shine on the dark places sin wants to remain hidden. As a group deepens its bonds with one another, subgroup by gender to minister to one another. Refer to Ed Stetzer’s article on “Accountability Questions” for examples that you can select and use in your own group.
  • Spiritual Gifts – If you believe that every Christ-follower has been graced with spiritual gifts to build up one another as the Church then don’t you think He has a purpose in them for your group (1 Cor 12:7)? Group members provide the necessary feedback and encouragement for one another to identify their God-given spiritual gifts and begin to use them in faith and boldness. Step-by-step guidance for group leaders on how to have conversations to help members find and use their spiritual gifts can be found HERE.

This last point is a master key to balanced discipleship in your group. Maybe the Lord has a unique purpose for every group that is unique to it based on the supernatural composition of spiritual gifts represented in its group members. Maybe every group has its own divine palette of colors that can be mixed together to produce a one-of-a-kind work of art to the glory of God.

If this is so, it stands to reason that a group will experience “balance” as each member of it works in concert with one another to make his or her own special contribution to God’s mission in the world. Group leaders can catch a vision for unlocking balanced disciple-making when they tap into the spiritual growth goals and gifts the Lord has planted in their group members.

Reid Smith has been equipping leaders in churches of all sizes and stages of growth for effective disciple-making since 1996. He currently serves as a Pastor of Groups at Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach County, FL and has been a contributing author for various publications, including LifeWay’s Ministry Grid. Learn more about how to start and multiply healthy groups throughout your church at www.reidsmith.org.
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.

Church Leadership

The “Why” Behind Small Groups

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by Jared Musgrove

Why do we do Groups? Why does any church have some type of smaller group context? Even if your church does not have a formalized pathway for this, I can almost guarantee you that it is happening in some informal sense. 

We do groups because we’ve always done them. As the church of Jesus Christ, We have 2000 years of God’s people leaving large teaching gatherings going into smaller contexts, usually homes, to encourage one another and build each other up. 

We see this as early as Acts 2. They met in First Century homes and groups, gathered around the Word (at that time the apostle’s teaching), they broke bread to mark and celebrate milestones, had fellowship out of the shared story of life transformation in Jesus, and they prayed with and for one another. And it had an incredible evangelistic effect as “the LORD added to their number day by day.” 

“Why groups?” is a question each of us needs to be asking. Where in your church context are you making time and space for Christians speaking words of life, for Christian practice of the 59 One Another passages of the New Testament? Where is the context for Christian courage to be enflamed? For believers to speak a word in season to a soul who needs it?  Where is there time and space into which others, maybe even outsiders, may be welcomed in to see Jesus at the center of our circle? Where are Christians getting personally encouraged in your church?  

Encouraged Christians are incredibly brave with the gospel. 

One example of this is from our own Home Groups: We had a man very hesitant to join one of our groups. “Why share my feelings?” he said. “What more do I need but my Bible and a study guide that tells me exactly what God’s Word says?” But he did reluctantly joined a Home Group. And it so happens that the group was halfway through sharing their individual testimonies of Christ transforming their lives. And this man, sitting in that circle, was so powerfully affected by each of these stories being told that he was given the courage to share his Christian testimony with a group of people for the very first time. 

And he wouldn’t stop sharing it after that!

What happened in this 21st Century small group was that this man sat in the center of Christian practice of sharing his testimony. Out of this he was given Christian courage to continue sharing it with believers and non-believers alike. That’s plugging into the ancient stream of what brothers and sisters have been doing in and out of smaller groups for 2000 years. This is why we do Groups. 

So I encourage you to consider in your church where you are making time and space for such a circle to encourage one another and build each other up. Groups are a standard part of almost every church, but why are they so important? For almost 2,000 years, groups have provided a critical space for Christian practice. And Christian courage to share the gospel. 

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.
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

When Panicky People Go To Small Groups

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by Scarlet Hiltibidal

I had just started taking brain medicine again for my hyperventilations. I’d grown up with anxiety—anxiety that was so crippling at times that it landed me in the hospital as a child and in urgent care as an adult. Anxiety that had led me, during one season, to step out of a small group leadership position because I didn’t feel capable of leading.

So, I was dealing with debilitating panic (again) in this particular season. I found myself (again) in an office with a sound machine, (again) picking up a prescription that would, as I knew from some experience, help me stop panicking. My response to all these anxiety-related agains was to become very hermit-like and refuse to tell people about my situation.

I felt ashamed. Leading a small group again was the furthest thing from my mind. Instead, I just attended one and mostly kept my mouth shut.

But, here’s the beautiful thing. When I finally opened my mouth and shared my struggle, I wasn’t mocked or shunned and kicked out of the group. I was given grace and love. A moment of vulnerability that could have caused yet another run of panic instead brought peace. It was special and powerful.

If you are a small group leader who struggles with anxiety or panic disorders, or if you lead people who do (chances are this is always the case), here are three things I’d encourage you to keep in mind as you lead your group.

Lead with Vulnerability

A former pastor of mine, Josh Howerton, spoke a lot about “going below the line of shame.” He would encourage our congregation, as they met together in small groups throughout the week, to share, not just surfacey or relateable struggles, but to go below that line we all have, the line that makes us question, If I share this, will I still be accepted? Will I still be loved?

The reason he encouraged this in our church body was because he knew the truth and beauty of a Biblical community centered around applying the gospel and living in the light.

“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.” — 1 John 1:7

This is completely transformational — believers exposing and turning from their sin in Biblical community. We should share our sins, our struggles and the “agains” that are trying to crush our hearts.

When I was walking through that season of medicating my panic and trying to hide it, I finally decided to share. It felt impossible to even let the words leave my mouth, because I assumed I was more broken than everyone else in the room.

But, my small group surprised me by not being surprised. Instead, they were kind and loving, and my willingness to share about this struggle that embarrassed me, prompted others to share theirs.

If you are the group leader and anxiety is an issue in your life, sharing it really sets the tone for your group to look to you, not as a “perfect” or “together” leader, but as a co-laborer who understands struggle, just like they do.

Lead with Hope

In the past, I’ve been part of unhealthy small groups that were basically clusters of people who would open in prayer, complain for fifteen minutes each, and say, “See you next week!”

It is so healthy to share struggles within the context of a small group, but it is vital that the tone of the group be one of gospel hope and encouragement. As a small group leader, you can be intentional about steering your group members away from negativity and toward hope.

If they battle anxiety, your group can spend some time sharing verses of comfort and hope. I would also encourage group leaders to make it a point to always end your time together reflecting on the finished work of Jesus..

This is what our lives are about and this is the way we should lead one another — to share our burdens, but look to the cross.

Lead by Listening

I think it’s really important for a group leader to be open and share struggles, as a way of encouraging other members of the group to do the same, but a group leader should definitely not be the only person talking.

Once you’ve shared your own struggles and how you apply the gospel to it, listen to the other members of your group. Let them process through their feelings and questions, but don’t just leave it there. Don’t simply wrap it up with a “Let’s pray.” In a small group setting, you have this beautiful opportunity to take sin and struggles of all kinds to the Bible. You have this guide that we hide in our hearts. Share the worries. Then, share the Word.

Don’t be afraid to confess your struggles, and always, always, always, point your own self and your people to the hope of the world, our Jesus, who died to defeat everything we’re afraid of.

Scarlet Hiltibidal is the author of Afraid of All the Things and He Numbered the Pores on My Face. She also writes a regular column for ParentLife magazine. She loves sign language with her daughters, nachos by herself, writing for her friends, and learning how to be a pretend-farmer with her husband in Middle Tennessee.
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.

 

Group Answers Podcast

Group Answers Episode 87: Jen Wilkin

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On this episode of Group Answers, Chris and Brian welcome Jen Wilkin. She is an author and Bible teacher. Jen and her family are members of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, where she serves on staff. She is author of Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds and most recently In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character.

Questions:

  • You’re a Bible teacher at heart. What have you learned over the course of your time as a teacher that you think would be most helpful for group leaders.
  • In terms of sanctification, how does clinging to the gospel produce growth in individuals? What do we mean by “clinging to the gospel”?
  • In what ways does solid biblical teaching and group life help us form a more gospel-centered, or maybe better put, godly understanding of our identities in Christ? As a teacher how do you take measures to be intentional about helping disciples root their identities in Christ?
  • Why do Christians need the gospel just as much as those who haven’t yet believed?
  • How does the Village Church help groups progress in the Christian life?

Quotes:

Home groups can be difficult places for teaching environments.

Groups are really good at building community, and having peer-to-peer application driven discussions around the text.

When Matt Chandler is the pastor, the assumption can be that everyone in the church knows the Bible. That’s not true.

When many people hear the term, “the gospel,” they default to thinking strictly in terms of justification.

Sanctification is a grace driven effort.

Start by asking what the text is telling us is true about God, so that we can then see ourselves in relation to that and have true self knowledge.

The gospel to the believer is that you can change. You can grow in holiness.

Resources Mentioned:

www.jenwilkin.net

https://www.instagram.com/jenwilkin

Knowing Faith Podcast

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

Character That Catches God’s Attention

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Recently I looked at the Christmas narrative in a new way, focusing on Joseph. It occurred to me that we know little about this important man of faith. In the Christmas narrative, Joseph doesn’t speak a word! But he did have character that caught God’s attention.

Here are a few things we know about Joseph:

  • He was from the line of King David (Matt. 1:1-16)
  • He settled his family in Nazareth (Matt. 2:23)
  • He showed concern/love for Jesus by fleeing to Egypt to escape King Herod’s execution of little boys (Matt. 2:13-15)
  • He was a carpenter (Matt. 13:55)
  • He taught carpentry skills to Jesus (Mark 6:3)
  • Joseph led his family to observe Holy Days (Passover)…Luke 2:41-42
  • No mention of him during Jesus’ ministry days…scholars presume he died after the events of LK 2:41-42

As I looked at the story of Joseph as presented in Matthew 1:18-25, I believe there are several character traits that most likely caught God’s attention. God wanted a person of good character to raise His son here on earth. By extension, I believe these character traits are important for us to possess as group leaders so that others see them in us as we represent Him as His ambassadors. As disciple-makers, we want people to see our lives and feel great about saying, “I want to be like him, as he follows Jesus.”

As a group leader, I hope that the character traits of Joseph are found in you as well. People are watching us to see if our faith is real, and if the Savior we claim to know makes any difference in the way we live. We are all works in progress, and no one is perfect. God is changing us daily to show these character traits to our families, friends, co-workers, and strangers in an ever increasing way:

  1. Joseph was self-controlled. In verse 18 we learn that before Joseph and Mary came together, she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. In Jewish custom, the engagement period lasted a year and during those days, the couple was considered husband and wife, even though they lived in their parent’s homes. Joseph kept his God-given sexual needs in check during this time and was self-controlled. How do we know this? Just see the words “before they came together” – Joseph was putting no pressure on Mary to fulfill legitimate needs they both had in an illegitimate way.
  2. Joseph was righteous. Verse 19 simply tells us that Joseph was a righteous man. This doesn’t mean he was perfect. It does mean that he generally did the right thing and tried his best to live according to the law. The base word in the original language means “to move in a straight line” or “straight way” – God’s way.
  3. Joseph was merciful. We learn of Joseph’s great mercy and love for Mary in the last part of verse 19 when we read that he did not want to make a public spectacle of her; he decided to divorce her quietly. This divorce would only require two witnesses and could be done quietly and quickly. Although stoning an unfaithful spouse was a right under the law (Deut. 22), Joseph loved his wife and showed her mercy and love.
  4. Joseph was in control emotionally. Verse 20 records “But after he had considered this…” The word “considered” is taken from a Greek word enthymeomai. That word is a combination of two words: one means passion, anger, rage; the other means to contemplate. Joseph literally had to think through his anger and the revelation that his wife was pregnant by someone else. He did not fly off the handle, accuse her wildly, or break things. Instead, he spent time grieving, hurting, and thinking so that he could act rightly.
  5. Joseph was obedient. We learn that when Joseph was told by the Lord’s angel that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, he immediately did what God had instructed him to do, which was to marry his bride. He acted quickly and decisively.
  6. Joseph was courageous. Joseph acted courageously to wed Mary. They lived in a small town and the townspeople would have looked down upon the young couple for being pregnant before their official wedding ceremony. Joseph knew that there would be a stigma about them in the town, and that they would forever be labeled “that couple.” Even though people would not have understood Mary’s miraculous pregnancy, Joseph acted with courage and did what God told him to do. Sometimes the courageous thing to do means that we have to do it and be misunderstood by others; only God may know that we were in the right.

Which one (or ones) of these six character traits would we need to improve during 2019? As God looks at our lives the way he examined Joseph’s life, would we be seen as people of character? Would we have the kind of character that would catch God’s attention?

Ken Braddy blogs weekly about Sunday School and small groups at kenbraddy.com. He manages LifeWay’s ongoing adult Bible studies.
Church Leadership

How to See Your Group in Light of the Gospel

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by Deborah Spooner

Gospel. We speak it in our churches. We hope it saturates our homes. We pray it impacts our groups.

But sometimes we become so familiar with the word that we lose sight of its power. The gospel is the profound, life-changing truth of Jesus.

“Jesus is God’s word to us, breaking through our dark, silent prison and saying ‘let there be light!’” (Gospel Foundations, volume 1).

It’s that moment when you realize your heart cannot begin to hold all the love Jesus has for you. It’s when you realize that moralism is empty and all of life is really about His life, death, and resurrection. When the light of the gospel transforms just one individual, it also has the power to illuminate your group, your church, and even your entire community.

How can you see your group in the light of this gospel?

1. First, see Jesus.

We’ve all been there. Tired. Close to burnout. Knowing it’s because of Christ we lead our group but feeling like we need a little more grace and a lot more of Jesus to open up our space, our time, and our hearts yet again.

“How else could you describe the creation of everything unless you’re first introduced to the Someone who preceded everything? That’s the whole point of Genesis 1:1. The God who simply is, who preceded everything and is not dependent on anything, created all that we know and all that we don’t know as well.” (Gospel Foundations, vol. 1).

For us to see our groups in light of the gospel, we must begin by looking at the gospel’s beginning, The Creator. The One who is not dependent on anything but who we depend on for everything. Before we take more gospel-centered steps, we must turn to Him, seeing Jesus and holding fast to the reality that He is the way, truth, and life who supplies all we need (John 14:6; Philippians 4:19).

2. Look through the lens.

What is the foundational, gospel lens? We can look at our groups through the lens of the truth of Scripture.

“The Bible is a God-centered book. We have been given Scripture so that we might know God. That means when we read Scripture, we should focus primarily on what we can learn, love, and embrace about God and His Son, Jesus” (Gospel Foundations, volume 1).

We don’t let our judgments, our complaints, or even our pride about our groups taint how we see our members and interact with them. Every thought that is not in obedience to the truth of Scripture, we take captive (2 Corinthians 2:5). This is our lens.

What does Jesus show us about seeing people? Instead of responding from our frustration, our desire to please others, or even our selfish ambition, we have compassion (Luke 7:12-15). We speak truth in love (Ephesians 4:15, 25).

We see people through the fact that Christ died for them just as He did for us. That we show the fruit of the Spirit in our actions: being loing, kind, faithful, and self-controlled (Galatians 5:22-23). That we love because He first loved us, regardless of if we feel like it or not (1 John 4:19).

3. End with wonder, not wondering.

Even when depending on Jesus and seeing others through the gospel lens of Christ’s sacrifice, we can still wonder. “I wonder if they’ll even make it through that difficulty.” “I wonder if they’ll ever stop talking so much.” “I wonder if I’ll ever be as good of a leader as I want to be.”

“When there was nothing but nothing, God was, and that ought to create in us a sense of wonder about Him that trumps all our other wonderings” (Gospel Foundations, volume 1).

At the end of the day, the gospel leaves us in wonder. Who are we that Christ died for us? Who are we that we experience reconciliation with a Holy God? This worshipful wonder can quiet our wonderings, frantic thoughts, and worries. We don’t have to question the power of the gospel. We can rest in the fueling wonder, knowing that it is by Him, for Him, and to Him that we live (Acts 17:28).

The gospel? It’s our foundation. And, we’re only beginning to explore this. Check back on the blog all this week for more gospel insights to guide you in finishing out this year as we head towards 2019.

And you don’t even have to wait till then. We have an entire Bible-study line that walks you through the storyline of Scripture to point you to the gospel. It reveals how Jesus is the hero from beginning to end. Sound too good to be true? Try it. Find a free download of the Bible study PDF and video content 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.