What do transformational small groups look like, and how do we make our groups more effective?
Much of Christian discipleship resourcing deals with what you need to know, not who you need to be with. That is sad, because if we get the relationships right, the information will follow.
In other words, if we connect people in real gospel community, they will learn, but the opposite is not always true. We’re too often concerned only with post-conversion information download, and we don’t take community and relationship-based discipleship seriously enough.
In our research, particularly in Transformational Church, Transformational Discipleship, and Transformational Groups, we found that the best churches take small groups very seriously, start new groups regularly, and grow the church’s involvement in them for the good of the people and for the sake of God’s mission.
Four key things that we found were foundational to small group success.
First, personal discovery happens in small groups.
You can learn, ask questions, involve yourself in the lives of others, and generally make yourself vulnerable among other people who are doing the same in small groups. You just can’t do that in sermons when there is no conversation, no feedback, and no questions. Sermons leave no room to interact with or possibly even question any part of what’s being taught.
On the other hand, spiritual growth happens better with others, in community, with open lines of communication and freedom to speak into one another’s lives.
Second, smaller communities act more like, well, communities.
That may seem like a given, but the bigger the group is, the less like community it feels. The kind of community I am advocating requires a level of intimacy easily lost as numbers grow.
You simply cannot …
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