Thursday: Small Group Dynamics
Small groups are a vehicle that God uses to grow His church. They are “safe havens” for people to express their problems and discuss mutual concerns. They provide opportunities for spiritual growth in the context of caring relationships. Many non-Christians will initially feel more comfortable in participating in a small group meeting in a home than in attending a traditional church service for the first time.
Read Acts 4:31, Acts 12:12, and Acts 20:17-19, Acts 20 27-32. List all of the different elements in these New Testament groups. What activities were these groups involved in?
Image © Erik Stenbakken at Goodsalt.com
Early Christians met together to intercede for others, pray about mutual concerns, share in warm fellowship, study the Word of God, be equipped for service, help protect each other against false teachers, and participate together in outreach activities.
Small groups make a difference. People uniting their gifts in service, people focusing on the power of the Holy Spirit for outreach, are a mighty weapon in the Lord’s hands.
Read Matthew 9:37-38. What does Jesus say about the harvest, and what is His solution to the problem?
The disciples saw only faint possibilities for the progress of the gospel, but Jesus saw great opportunities. He shared the good news with them that “the harvest truly is plentiful”, then he pointed out the problem: “the laborers are few” (Matthew 9.37). Christ’s solution was to pray for “the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9.38). Small groups are an answer to Christ’s prayer and exponentially increase the number of laborers for Christ’s harvest.
The focus of all effective small groups is witness and service. Small group ministry will soon die out if its focus is inward and not outward. If the small group becomes self-serving and little more than a discussion group, it will fail in its purpose and lose the vital reason for its existence. Small groups exist to lead people to Jesus, nurture their faith in Jesus, and equip them to witness for Jesus.
| Is it possible that God is calling you to start a small group in your home? Why not begin to pray about what God may be impressing you to do? You may be on the verge of the most spiritually rewarding time of your life. |
(30)
Having worked in tertiary education for most of my life I am very much aware of the importance of small groups. When I had large classes, we had lectures but also had tutorials, labs, and seminars. It was in these smaller groups that I really got to know my students. An important dynamic in these smaller groups was that students could express themselves. In so doing I learned how much they understood about the concepts I was trying to teach them. ( ... and that was where they often found out too!😊)
During my lifetime I have seen the virtual demise of Sabbath School. There has been an increasing emphasis on preaching and often the only contact that church folk have with one another is the church service. It is easy to go to church, put your offering in the plate, sing a few songs, listen to a prayer, listen to a sermon and go home again, all without really interacting with anyone. That is not really a good dynamic for spiritual growth. It is when we can interact that we can develop spiritually.
Interestingly, I have been to a couple of churches where they do things back to front. They have the church service first, followed by Sabbath School. The sermon often sets the scene for a dynamic interaction in the following Sabbath School class. The folk in these churches have complained that the local conference puts them under some pressure to go back to the “normal” order of service, but there response is that it works for them.
Paul praised the Bereans for studying together. They were not sitting listening to sermons, but listening to one another and reading for themselves.
The Sabbath School class is really an existing small group environment that we already have. We should probably put some effort into rethinking how we use it.
Suggestions?
Maurice - what a great idea to have 'church service first', followed by the bible study time!!! It is my observation as well to see dwindling attendance during the earlier morning hours currently set aside for bible study time.
Teaching guides for the small groups would be chosen after prayerful contemplation by all - volunteers needed based on number of groups formed; do not need to remain the same ones 'forever'; rotation encouraged!
My suggestions:
Establish the communal Church Service to be a time dedicated/focused on the Praise and Worship of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Announce all church organizational 'news' and announcements through the printed hand-outs distributet to all attendees before church service - including contact info for more details if needed.
At the beginning of each quarter, Pastor introduces the new quarterly with his Sermon.
Have a short, pastoral introduction based on the current day's Sabbath lesson, before congregation disperses to separate classes.
Offering is received at this time, before congregation disperses to their separate classes.
At the end of each month, small-group-study attendees are given an opportunity to share their insights gained from lesson topics.
Establish separate areas, if available, for small-group-bible study time.
Establish groups based on either age or/and advanced understanding of biblical teachings (beginners vs. advanced) - leave this to be a choice arrived by the whole congregation.
A focused, short prayer time would be included in the setting of the bible study if needed/wanted.
Time 'allowed' would be flexible since the end of the study time transitions into the fellow-ship time of the shared meal. If needed, extra time is given to respond to needs arisen whiles at small-group or followed up later.
Great idea on small bible studying after the sermon. And to better continue the fellowship time for shared meals, the same person from those bible study group should sit in the same table for further comments. I have seen that while we sit at meal time , we seem to forget that we are still suppose to be keeping the Sabbath holy and just wonder off in into worldly conversation ( believe me ,I am just as guilty ) what a better way to really honor and enjoy our day.
To sit at the table with the study group is a very nice idea, Rafaela - it certainly can help foster community spirit!
Yes, I understand your concern keeping conversations related to matters of the Faith during shared mealtime; comments have been made by several contributors to this blog about this topic.
It is a matter of the heart; what is in the heart the mouth speaks. Prov.4:23
Maurice, I just have to share what happened a number of years ago, when our pastor announced that things were going to get flip flopped. You would have thought he had just announced that we were going to start meeting on Sunday. We actually lost church members over this decision to do church first, because it just wasn’t “right”. Sadly, it really didn’t make a difference in Sabbath School attendance and we are currently back to Sabbath School first, which works for me. Although, it was nice to be able to keep a good discussion going instead of rushing it to get to church.
We are indeed very reluctant to change. I understand that too. My current church toyed with the idea of making some radical changes too but in the end, it was too hard. When there are several hundred people involved changes become even harder.
My current church has no formal Sabbath School. It is run on the basis of small groups with common interests. There are a couple of downsides to this. A lot of folk attend church only and miss out on the small-group experience. We also have a group of families that bring the children to Sabbath School, socialise while they are there and then go home for church because it is too hard to look after their children during church. It is not ideal, but it is a dynamic we have to live with. We do have live-streamed church services for those who are unable to come to church.
I think it is important to understand where people are at and work with that to ensure that the interactive part of church fellowship is not lost. It is a reminder that sometimes we concentrate so much on the spiritual that we forget the social, when, in fact, we should consider blurring the lines of distinction between the two.
👍 is not enough!
We were ... enjoying the experience of the back-to-front service. Now it’s a brief and minimal service...outside with social distancing and masks and with minimal conversation...thank God for small groups! This lesson and your comments have articulated the direction as well as the motivation for our small groups...”grow” groups in our neck-of-the-woods. Thank all’y’all.
I enjoyed reading the comments this week on challenges and successful small groups. I noted that some were set up like Moses as sub sets of a larger group in a formal manner while others were totally voluntary. Others like the disciples where the core group were specifically chosen, but there were additional members that also went around with them. Note at one point Jesus sent out 70 people and when the had to replace Judas they said it had to be one who had been with since the beginning.
It was interesting to note now days that some groups were mainly of believers who reached out to unbelievers and then there were believers who joined secular groups or clubs and used them to expand their circles of influence.
I have learned that we can share the truth one on one and expand our reach by forming groups to reach even more souls, the LORD through the Holy Spirit will guide each of us how to best work for Him.