A small group leader is frustrated.  His members are passive during discussion time.  They wait eagerly but they won’t participate.

In another group within the same church, the leader spends hours each week preparing.  But after a time of eating and fellowship, nobody is ready to settle down and listen.

In yet another group, someone feels lost and alone.  He is waiting for the leader to notice his pain.  All the while ignoring the overtures of the other members.

Quite seperate symptoms.  These, and so many other problems beside, all point to a common cause.

That cause is a failure to understand an answer to one of the most important questions that a small group ministry can answer.  The question is this:

Where is the holy spirit?

That kind-of question can be off-putting.  It seems pie in the sky.  It seems so theoretical and so theological.  It’s the sort of question that can be devisive.  It’s the sort of question that we can spend our whole lives arguing about and not feel like we’ve made any progress on.

I’m not going to offer an easy answer.  I don’t think there is a single correct answer at all.  But I do believe it’s critical that a small group within church has an answer to that question, has committed to some sort of guiding belief.  I believe that the process of asking this question and being consistent about the answer will guide nearly everything a group does.

There are two extremes that a person might take on this question, in terms of small groups.  On one side is the position that the Holy Spirit resides within the leader alone.  The other extreme is that the Holy Spirit resides right in the middle of the group, between the interactions, discussions, and debates.

If we believe that the Holy Spirit is working mostly though a leader then that leader is (among other things) a teacher.  Wisdom is coming from this persons understanding.  Training this kind of leader involves helping him to communicate and discern God’s intent.  Training this kind of group involves teaching them to be good students and listeners.

This is a fairly traditional model.  Adult Sunday school classes usually operate on this sort of idea.  Some churches call their small groups “cell church” or “mini church”.  The idea seems to be that the leader is quite similiar to the church pastor except that his or her flock is much smaller.

At the other end: all people bare a responsibility for finding the truth.  Interaction is much more important than teaching.  Disagreement is critical to success.  The leader of this group is less a teacher and more a facilitator, working at bringing the best out of everyone.

This kind-of model is sometimes identified with post-modern or emergent mind sets.  It is emphasizes the importance of the relationships.  There are fundamental differences not only between the scale that church pastors and small group facilitators operate on.  There are also fundamental differences between the nature of what they do.

In the examples given at the beginning of this post, there was a disconnect.  That disconnect existed between the ideas of the leaders and the ideas of the members about where the Holy Spirit resides.  A leader who believes that the Holy Spirit resides in the middle of all of them will place a high value on interaction and will expect interaction.  A group that disagrees with this leader is waiting, quietly and attentively, to be taught.

On the other hand, a leader who believes that he is charged with teaching, with dispensing knowledge, might easily work hard at preparing.  If the group is interested in finding truth among them, he is likely to be quite stressed out.

A member of a group might expect the leader to minister to his pain.  The leader of that group, though, might think about the priesthood of believers.  He might believe that the members are all ministering to each other and that it is not his sole responsibility to be taking care of individual needs.

There are countless plusses and minuses, hundreds of ramifications to the question, “Where does the Holy Spirit reside?”  It’s not easy.  In the act of saying “We believe that the role of a small group leader is…” we open ourselves to all sorts of criticism.

There are problems with whatever model a small group is operating from.  There are valid criticisms of the most leader-centered model and the most group-centered model.  There are problems with every single compromise between the extremes.

But not admitting our position doesn’t prevent us from taking a position.  Every one already has a belief about where the Holy Spirit is, whether they realize it or not.  Members have expectations on leaders regardless of whether this is discussed.  Leaders have expectations on members, regardless of whether or not these have been admitted.

In the end getting everyone on the same page is incredibly important.  Over the long haul, it minimizes conflict and increases satisfaction. 

I had started this post quite differently.  I had all these things to say about the growing decentralized power structure in the church.  They were deep things, and they were probably mostly true.

But they weren’t really important.

My experiences I think are more relevant to this topic than my contemplations about it.   I have been on a bunch of different sides of this issue.   This is probably why I don’t have clear solutions and easy steps.

During some of the darkest periods of my life I have been in a position of having to accept a sum of money from my small group.  (And actually, other groups that were quite close to mine.)

On more than one occasion I have been on the other side of that coin.  Within a small group I have given financially to someone else in need.

Currently, one of my ministry responsibilities is to work with groups that have needs that are larger than can be met within the group: I facilitate communication between groups, and do my best to direct people to amazing people and resources outside and inside our church.

I probably don’t need to spend much time elaborating on how difficult this is.    We have all looked at our brothers and sisters in need and wrestled with all sorts of things:

* How much should I sacrfice to give to the people in need?  How much should I ask my family to sacrifice so that we can give?

* How can I assess their decisions without being judgemental?  Am I just feeding into foolish decisions by giving them a gift?

* How many details am I owed by someone in need?  How much do I have the right to know how they got into this situation?  How much do I have the right to know about how they will use the money? 

*  Do I trust them with cash or make sure the money goes to what it is intended to go to?  How much do I have the right to dicate how my assistance is spent?

I think we’re all good at memorizing the scripture that supports wherever we come from on this issue.  I think we’re all equally good at ignoring the scripture that does not support where we come from.

What I want to do is simply offer up a few observations about financial need and then sketch out some implications that these observations have to small group management.

#1) There are very few problems which are completely about the money.

It’s almost a cliche to point out that the ways in which we handle our money is an extremely spiritual issue.  This is a cliche because it’s true.

Having financial troubles is so often a symptom of bigger issues.  It was for me.  As I look back, I think that maybe God was trying to get my head out of the sand through these financial challenges.  As I look around, I suspect that I’m not alone in this.

What’s worse is that financial troubles are causes of bigger issues, too.   There are intense emotional issues involved with financial troubles.    We live a society that has made an idol out of self sufficiency.  It’s a very shameful experience for most people to be in financial trouble.  It’s also a fearful situation, anxiety provoking and stressful.  It can cause profound relationship problems and tie into feelings of being a poor parent.  Finanical diffuclties attract blame and fear and shame and anger.  We ignore these at the peril of everyone.  

#2) There are few problems which are completely divorced from money

While it’s true that money is rarely a problem that occurs alone, it’s equally true that there aren’t many problems which don’t have a financial side.  There are many reasons which might prevent us from talking about the financial aspects of problems.  But this does not mean that they are not there.  As we wonder about how best to care for people, it’s important to wonder about whether there is a financial aspect to the issues we are helping each other through.

Even if there are little or no financial impact to the crises, helping the person through might require some money.  Perhaps they need professional services which they would not normally have access too.  Perhaps one way you wish to show your support is through some kind-of gift.  There is a certain way in which giving a hurting person money is a crass response.  But one form of mercy that we can offer people, sometimes, is simply the ability to get some relief.   If a person is hurting it would be crass to simply hand them a $50 and walk away.  But if a person is hurting, and that money was used to purchase a gift card to a local movie theatre, the relief might be just exactly what the person needs.

#3 It’s human nature to be a short-sighted helper.

There is a disconnect between the support we offer people and the crises that people experience.  This disconnect is located in our attention span.  Many crises last so much longer than the help we recieve from people.  When folks have given so much, after a while, it’s so hard to ask for more.  I know of so many cases, though, where those being supported in all kinds of ways wish that those helping and supporting them had paced themselves a bit more.  Sometimes we jump in, meeting all the needs that we find.  And then… we burn out, wear out, run out of resources.  And the person we were trying to help, they are back where they started.  We wanted to rescue them but all we did is offer them a brief reprieve.

A few implications

One of the things that’s worth noticing about the 3 observations above is that financial need does not exist in a vaccuum: they are often part of a larger pattern of problems, nearly every problem has a financial side, and people tend to have less endurance than problems.  In knowing how best to respond, it is sometimes helpful to recognize that the ways we serve people don’t exist in a vaccuum either.

There are two different things I mean by this.  The first is that it helps to demystify troubling questions by recognizing that money is not really any different than any other way we might serve a person.

I participated in an interesting discussion.  There was a great need and someone who was normally a dedicated, 10% tither found himself wondering if he might channel some of the money which would normally go into the collection plate toward that need.  This is a complex question.  I don’t think I’ll try and answer it here.  But for my purposes, the next step was an interesting one.

The next step was simply to observe that we feel that God is owed a variety of things, in addition to money.  Some of us feel that we owe God our time.  We work in a ministry, for example.  It is illuminating, I think, to explore the tithing question in this way:

What would you do if you saw a great need that you could meet with more time?  Would you channel the time that you normally feel is owed to God in the direction of that need, even at the expense of the church?

Or consider a second example: we might be grappling deeply with whether to give to someone in financial need.  Our hesitation might fear from the fact that we are enabling the person.  Giving them a financial gift might allow them to continue on a sinful or destructive path.

It does not answer all our questions, but it does help, to recognize a parallell.  We watch people who have troubles all the time.  We know that we can rescue them by doing all sorts of things.  It’s worthwhile to ask ourselves: how do we determine when to help and when not to, when it’s not a question of money?

The second thing I mean, when I say that we shouldn’t financially serve in a vaccuum is that we should do our best to offer support in a comprehensive way.  Money might be one way we take care of people… but it should not be the only way.  There are some ways in which money is easy.  It allows us to stay out of the dirt and still feel like we’re helping.  I think that our love will be most evident when it is multifaceted.  This helps also deal with concerns around enabling others.  Perhaps with the financial gift will come assistance in preventing the problem from happening again.

Actually, that’s not quite right.  There’s lousy stuff that’s lousy in many different directions.  But the stuff that’s good, there is an air of similarity about it all.  And in my less paranoid moments, I realize that the reason that all the stuff that I like looks the same is because there are just certain sorts of questions that I like.   The questions that I like are tied closely to what it is that I believe small groups should do.  Once these questions are identified, we are suddenly freed up in a variety of ways.

We aren’t always dependent on using a study that somebody else has made; we can have a way of judging which questions are the best questions when we have more questions than time to get through them; we can create a study, more or less on the spur of the moment, when our original plans have fallen through; we can have some relevant extra questions waiting in the wings when we have a little extra “study” time on our hands.

The questions that follow are ones that would be easiest to apply to a passage of scripture.  You’ll probably need at least a chapter.  It’d be hard to cover much more than an entire book of the bible.  Your discussion will be greatly enriched by study bibles, bible reference tools (such as concordance) access to the internet (it’s good to develop a stable of trusted, reliable sources.) and by mature, reliable readers of scripture.

In future posts I will explore ways to modify these questions to other situations, such as adapting them to discussing a sermon or a book other than a bible.

Template #1: A book or chapter of the bible.

#1) What did you know about this book of the bible before reading it preperation for this conversation?  What had you heard about it?  Are there any verses that people often quote out of this book?  What is the wider context of this quote?

#2) After having read it, what is your favorite verse or section?  Why? 

#3) Are there any portions of this book of the bible that indicate areas you need to work on?  If so, what sorts of things can you do to get better at this?  Can you think of anyone in your life that illustrates how to do well at this?  Can you think of anyone in your life who illustrates how not to do well at this?  Can you think of any figures from the bible who illustrate this idea, verse, or principle?

#4) Are there any portions of this book of the bible that simply don’t make sense to you?  Perhaps you litterally don’t understand what is going on.  Maybe you’re simply troubled by what it seems to be saying.  Are there any other portions of scripture that you know of that deal with a similiar topic?  (Perhaps you can use a concordonce or other reference tool) Is there any one in the group who can help this make sense to you?

#5) Can you relate to the choices and personality of any of the figures in this book of the bible?  How so?

#6) Can you relate to any of the events in this book of the bible?  How so?

#7) How would you summarize what happens in this book of the bible?

#8) What do you think God wants us to learn from this book?  Why do you think it was  included in scripture?

#9) After this discussion, what are some areas that still confuse you about this topic?  What are some things that you can research, pray over, and continue to discuss that came up?

These resources were chosen because they tend to be interactive and application oriented, and they avoid unnecesarily divisive issues that will create more problems than they solve.   These resources are arranged under 3 different categories.  These categories correspond to the 3 vital relationships we are pursuing and the 3 of the key values of our small groups.  (Each of the relationships corresponds to a value so there are only 3 categories, not 6.)

Overall, the expectation is that a group has participated in atleast one resource from each of the categories each year.  With the time remaining in that year. the challenge I’d like to lay out to small group leaders is this: spend more time in the areas where you believe your group needs the most help, not in areas that you are naturally gifted and aware in.  This isn’t always fun but it’s so important…

I’d also like to encourage strategic, varied decisions around the length of the studies and the format.  If you’ve just finished a long book, spend a couple week doing short-video driven studies.  On the other hand, if you’re entering a time in the calendar after a period when attendance is tough, take on something more in depth that might renew group cohesion.  (For example, if attendance has been spotty over the Summer, once the school year resumes, jump into something longer and in-depth.)

In the interest of length, I omitted synopsis of these materials.  I have included links to the web pages of materials that have them.  Use these sites are other resources such as Amazon to get a synopsis of books you are unfamiliar with.  Or simply ask me or someone else.  Virtually all of these resources have been used by one small group or another.  In fact, extra copies of some of these materials are around.  Check in with me on this if you have any questions.

The last thing I want to say before I print the list is PLEASE HELP!

If you have ideas from your own reading, or items that I forgot that were on previous lists I’ve circulated, please let me know.  Remember, our 2 biggest criteria are relevance/applicabality and docrtinally sound/not unnecesarily devisive.

Though I’ll leave comments below, I will also incorporate approved suggestions into this list.

Small Group Leaders: If you’re using resources not on this list please check them with me before you purchase them.  It’s really important that all the small groups are on the same page in terms of the sorts of things we’re learning.

Intimacy with God/ Transformation

Blue Like Jazz -Don Miller

A book

Author website including study questions: http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/resources.php

Bible 101 Small Group study Guides

 Series of 6 session studies on the following topics: Foundations; Times & Places; Cover to Cover; Study Method; Interpretation; Parables & Prophecy, Great Themes;  Personal Devotions by Willow Creek

Website: http://www.willowcreek.com/group.asp?groupid=56

Nooma: (most of the Noomas deal most directly with Intimacy with God/Transformation.  If they are more directly related to the other topics they are listed below.)

DVD series featuring Rob Bell & Discussion questions

Website with brief clips & discussions:  http://www.nooma.com

Each nooma is a stand-alone, one-week study

Purpose Driven Life a book by Rick Warren

Website: http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/en-US/Home/home.htm

Video-tape video components; countless study guides, workbooks, and devotionals available.

I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt by Vincent Antonucci

Book,

Website: http://lousytshirtbook.com includes discussion questions, illustration videos, activities, song lists, etc.

Velvelt Elvis by Rob Bell

Book

Siezing your Divine Moment

Erwin McManus

Book

This Beautiful Mess by Rick McKinley

book

Influence With Outsiders/Outward Reaching

Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America
By: Mike Yankoski

A book

Author website including discussion questions, video, testimonies etc:

http://www.undertheoverpass.com/uop/home.php

Nooma: Bullhorn; Rich

DVD featuring Rob Bell & Discussion questions

Website with brief clips & discussions:  http://www.nooma.com

Just Walk Across the Room by Bill Hybels

Website: http://www.justwalkacrosstheroom.com/

Book includes discussion questions; there are also independent study guides with different questions, and a DVD component to this.

Case for Christ by Less Strobel

Book with discussion questions, a movie based on the book is also available

Website: leestrobel.com includes newsletter, blog, videos, etc.

Community With Believers/Authenticity

Crave: Intimacy

DVD featuring a short film and observations by Irwin McManus with study questions

Crave: Meaning

DVD featuring a short film and observations by Irwin McManus with study questions.

(A stand alone study; might be combined with the other 2 in the Crave series)

Nooma: Flame; Mathew, Name

DVD featuring Rob Bell & Discussion questions

Website with brief clips & discussions:  http://www.nooma.com

40 Days of Community By Rick Warren

a video curricula and study guide

website: purposedriven.com

Sex God By Rob Bell

Some discussion questions are included in the end notes.

Epic by John Eldridge

Book, film available with discussion questions

More resources: http://www.epicreality.com/author_story.html#top

Big-picture patience is trusting in God over a period of weeks or months.  There are several areas that this can be hard.  One is in the area of the size of the group.

When it becomes time to sign the covenants it’s easy to think that the size of the group is pretty much set.  It’s easy to believe that the faces you’re looking at are the core of the group.

What I’ve seen is that this is not often the case.   Virtually every small group has grown considerably after the signing of the covenants.  Some have undergone considerable evolution after the signing of the covenants.

There were weeks that it felt like I was spinning my wheels.  Times I’d prepared and struggled and it turned out hardly anybody was showing up.  I was reassured to hear that a small group leader whom I respect a lot, in a similar situation, starting throwing stuff around in frustration.  It was reassuring to know I wasn’t alone.

In these situations, when it seems like it’s going to be hardly anybody, the temptation will be to cancel.  I am increasingly convinced that this is the worst decision a small group leader can make.

Some of these nights that I walk in frustrated that there’s hardly anybody showing up have turned out to be the best nights I’ve had.  Occasionally, folks who think about not showing actually turn up.  (That’s what happened wih the above-mentioned leader: nearly everybody ended up showing up after all) 

More frequently, these nights take on a casual, even intimate flavor that larger groups don’t afford.  Sometimes I wonder if God watches us cancel small group, frustrated.  I picture him saying “The knucklehead!  I engineer this perfect opportunity for close fellowship– just the leaders and one other couple– and they threw it all away because nobody else was going to show.”

I think it’s also important to continue to meet even with mediocre turn out because it sets a precedent, even an expectation.  I’m not saying that we should expect 100% attendance from anybody.  But I am saying that human nature works such that sometimes we fabricate excuses not to show up: I can’t count the number of times that I have not particularly wanted to go to small group and I have ended up so very thankful that I did, as I look back on it.  If this is true of me, the small groups guy, how much more true will it be of somebody who’s just started going!

Meeting regardless of attendance means rewarding those who always show up for their ongoing commitment.  It helps everybody stay in the habbit of meeting together, which is what Paul told us to do.

In a subtle way, it kind-of raises the bar, too.  If I don’t show up on a given week but the whole group cancels, I can think “Well, that worked out for the best.  Nobody really wanted to meet.”  Then, a week or two later, when another reason not to show up rears its ugly head (and we all know that they will!) if I don’t show up, in my own brain at least, I don’t really think in terms of having blow off small group twice in a row.  I can rationalize that the first time wasn’t really my decision, my fault, my responsibility.  And in a certain sense, this rationalization is true… however, if I hadn’t decided not to show, the small group most likely would have met, whether I realize it or not.

The truth is that it takes a certain brand of stubborn determination to meet consistently.  Especially early on.  Eventually it becomes a habbit, it becomes easier.  Easier… but it’s never easy.

 Little picture patience is trusting God for a few moments.  Perhaps you’ve asked for volunteers to share in some aspect of leadership.  Maybe you’ve thrown out a discussion question.  The silence can seem deafening.

As the leader it’s easy to feel personally responsible for that silence… Like it’s my problem to fix by filling.

The truth is, that everyone in a group shares responsibility for the silence.  Everyone bares a burden for filling it.  I say frequently– though probably not enough– that the leader ought to talk LESS than everybody else.  This means that sometimes there will be silences that somebody else will have to fill.

One of the best reasons to have others lead discussions is that standing outside of this role, you can learn a lot.  When I was recently sitting back and listening to someone else lead a discussion, I was interested to notice that I didn’t hold her responsible for the silences, when I was a participant.  I felt like the silences belonged to all of us.

This was a marked contrast to my experience as a discussion leader.

The truth is that even if others do hold us responsible for the silences, even if people don’t like them, this doesn’t change much.  Silences can be powerful.  Sometimes that’s the only time we hear God speaking to us, is in those silences.  Sometimes we run away from silences for this very reason.

Because it’s no fun to spend an evening in a conversation that  is punctuated by numerous awkward silences, this might be a good thing for folks to experience.  It might lead them to question themselves, to wonder why there are these silences.

Perhaps as good leaders we can even call this for what it is.  What would happen if, when a silence erupted, we didn’t give up on the silence.  What would happen if we didn’t find a way to express the answer we were looking for.  What would happen if we said something like “Nobody is answering much tonight.”  or “That’s a long, awkward silence.  Does anybody have any thoughts about why that question was is so hard to answer?”

Big-picture or little-picture patience can be taken too far.  There’s a point at which it is simple foolishness, even insanity, to expect things to change if we keep doing things in the same way.

Patience is only a virtue if we’re doing everything we can.  Sometimes people aren’t showing up because we haven’t created an irresistable environment.  In fact, almost by definition, if they are not showing up, we haven’t created an irrestible environment.  Sometimes the silence comes from people feeling unsafe to answer or simply confused by the question.  

It’s so hard to find the line… I don’t have a hard and fast rule… But Jesus’ illustrations, as always, help.

He so often spoke about growing plants.  This is such a great image because a gardener doesn’t actually grow the plants.  God does.  A gardener creates an environment that fosters growth if he is good at what he does.  If he’s not so good, the environment isn’t either.

Small group leaders are gardeners.  They create an environment that fosters growth.  Growth always takes time.  Seasons in our souls are not like seasons for a plant.  They aren’t measurable by a calendar. 

Ultimately, a good gardener will know he’s on the right track because he’s reaping one harvest after another.  As brutal a bottom line as this is, a small group leader knows he’s on the  right track in exactly the same way:  S/He experiences the harvest of watching people grow in Christ.  Not growth that they are responsible for, simply growth that they created an environment for.

Good gardeners occasionally have bad luck.  Bad gardeners occasionally have good luck.  The good news is that none of us is stuck.  None of us are hopeless.  We can always get better.  It’s just a matter of balancing patience with realism. 

It’s funny how we can’t escape some ways of categorizing the world, even when we know those categories are wrong.  One wrong-headed category that I engage in all the time is dividing the world up into God-stuff and Not-God stuff.

There are all kinds of problems with this scheme.  The problem I’m focused on right now is this: I rationalize that work I do for my small group counts as God-stuff.  Since this is the same category that I place things like prayer and scripture reading, I can think ‘well, I can skip out on spending time with God today, because I spent all this time planning for Small Group.’

That’s not how it works.  God expects me to do lots of stuff, I think.  He wouldn’t be pleased, I think, if I decided to quit my job and let my kids go hungry so that I could pray more.  Part of the way He grows us, I think, is to challenge us with increasingly complicated balancing acts.

And it is a balancing act!  But when I’ve been investing time into my relationship with God I’m in a much better position to lead.  Preparation or other work that feels specific to my group goes so much smoother when I’ve mantained a balance.  When I fake it, and go all-out on investing all my time on these external things, it is so much more difficult.  It ends up taking more time anyway.

The second way I can fail to take care of myself is by acting like a spiritual super-hero.  If I see myself as to much the leader and not enough a member, I rob myself of all sorts of things.

It can be scary sometimes.  I do have the fear when I’m vulnerable and honest and open that some body is going to think– or say “What right does this guy have to be running the show?”

But when I’m looking at things in the right way, I get it.  The person who is vulnerable, who is admitting his fear, doubts, and failings… That is exactly the sort-of person we want running the show. 

It’s great to have somebody in charge of arranging meal assignments.  It’s a bad idea to spend much of the group’s precious time discussing whether we should have rotating assignments or just bring whatever we feel like.
It’s a great idea to ask someone to lead next week’s discussion.  It isn’t very practical to ask everyone to lead the discussion.
Shared leadership avoids the pitfalls listed above.  That quiet person who can’t get a word in edgewise in the discussion, we can use there strengths and allow them to impact group life.  It takes mere seconds to say “Suzy, would you be in charge of X” rather than taking hours to hash things out.  A good leader, of course, will be on top of Suzy’s progress.  He won’t duck responsibility for overseeing Suzy’s assignment.  But s/he can check in and work directly with Suzy around the bumps in the round rather than trying to work something out with the whole group.  Finally, people are enpowered to have an impact in those areas they have a strong opinion.  Somebody who states a strong opinion will have the oppurtunity to see it through.

Our agressive small group strategy of splitting every two years is what I believe God wants us to do.  It requires leaders.  Shared leadership is a powerful way to build these leaders.
Fellowship Church has adopted “intentional apprenticing” as a core value.  These practices lend themselves to this task.
I’m not saying that there is no place for consensus within a small group… however, this place is much smaller than what I’d originally thought.

Small groups are groupings of people put together to discover God through fellowship, service, and bible study. They meet weekly (with brief breaks around Christmas and in late summer) and engage in service projects together.

The life span of a small group is a bit over two years. In the first couple months, the group is in the “open” phase. During the open phase, a group is getting to know each other. Folks are encouraged to just drop in. No attendance expectations are expressed. Discussion and fellowship is usually light (read “shallow” or “superficial”) My focus on filtering new people into groups is to steer them into open groups.

After a couple months, the group enters the “covenanted” phase. (We used to call this the “closed” phase but decided the term sounds exclusive and isn’t very accurate, anyway) The covenanted phase is one which begins with the signing of a covenant.

Until now, all the groups have signed identical covenants. The covenants expresses commitments to pray for each other, commitments to regularly attend small group, etc. Currently, I’m working on a flexible covenant. The flexible covenant expresses the parameters within which we’re comfortable with small groups operating. It’s a bit like a menu, with a variety of ways to express expectations for group life. I’m excited to see how this will work out. The idea is rooted in the fact that we have certain expectations for what counts as a small group but we don’t need to have them all be identical, and sociologists talk a lot about how important and bonding it is for groups to create their own norms.

Anyway, my goal for a closed group is to have about 12 adults. One couple within the group lead it though we try to encourage a sharing of leadership and expect an apprentice couple to be identified within the group.

I will only place new members in a covenanted group if I can’t find room for them in an open group. (Sometimes the night that open groups meet on doesn’t work, for example.) And I only do this with the group leaders permission. (Almost always this isn’t a unilateral decision but a group discussion.)

This is the second-most controversial aspect of how we do small groups. People feel that it’s snobby and cliquish. And I realize that’s how it looks.

But the truth is this: if I’ve just unearthed all the skeletons from my closet one week, and Joe Newbie and his wife Mary Newbie show up the next, I’ve not only been shut down from continuing to be authentic… It’s also the case that I (and others) will be less likely to open up and be real next time, knowing that our authenticity might get derailed by the arrival of someone we haven’t built up trust with.

At the end of about a year and a half, the group prepares to multiply. The apprentice will take half of the group members into a new open phase; the old leaders will take the other half of the group members into open phase.

This is probably the #1 most controversial aspect of the philosophy. People grow really close. It’s kind-of brutal to break groups up. Virtually every group has had reasons– sometimes compelling ones– to alter the timelines for their specific cases.

But I know how I am, and I know that most people are basically like me. We like comfort, safety, and the known. Left to our own devices, we will be quite engenuious at mantaining the status quo.

I won’t go so far as to say that safe, established groups can’t reach out; I won’t go so far as to say that they don’t evangelism. But it takes on a very different character when you’re out of the same-old, same-old.

An established group, based on my experience, is likely to feel safe to folks who are already pretty close to God. A friend of a couple who have been attending a small group might join an established group. A couple who have been attending church for a year might go. A person who feels like their world view, politics, socio-economic status, would have a comparitively easy time walking into a group that’s already been established.

We should all want to do everything we can to move people closer to God. I love that I get to put people in established groups. It’s awesome that so many groups welcome as many people as they can even after the covenants are signed.

But we’d be leaving behind a lot of people if we didn’t multiply.

Because a smaller, new group is easier to join for the people who need it most, it’s much more likely that they will join. This is not just about keeping people in their comfort zones. It’s about operating in the real world where seekers– and all of us– are free to do what we want.

Furthermore, splitting a group gives a little incentive for people to evangelize. It creates an occasion to reach out, gives some members the kick in the butt that they need. There are people who will work harder at reaching out when they are in a smaller group, when they have a reason to want it to be bigger… Again, maybe not pretty, but it is reality.

Perhaps the most important reason to break groups up is because it grows even the established members. There is a tendency, after a while, to settle into stale-mates that don’t help or challenge anybody. Creating lots of new relationships isn’t easy… But it is valuable.

This post is part-reminder me, partially intended for any Fellowship Church Attenders, and partially intended for folks in other churches.

Today, I’m thinking about the challenge of walking the fellowship-study tightrope very carefully. On the one hand, spending too much time just hanging out turns the small group into a social club. On the other hand, doing nothing but study turns it into a Sunday School class.

Early in a group’s life, this issue is even more complicated. Folks may not know each other. They aren’t likely to give real answers and ask real questions… But the beginning is the important time. It’s the time’s precedents will get set. It can be hard to get everybody back in a studying-sort of mode once people get used to the idea that things will be just be casual.

The best way I know how to navigate this challenge is by keeping two things in mind.

The first is to be explicit and open. Explain that you might spend a little more time getting to know each other early in the group’s life.

The second is to be quite intentional. By being intentional I mean choosing carefully how people will share and how long you’ll spend doing it.

Let’s begin with the latter: how much time do I think a group ought to spend, out of the “study” time, getting to know each other?

As a very rough guideline, I’d suggest that it’s first few weeks, a small group might spend even more than half of its time doing get-to-know you activities. Within those first few weeks, the leader should aim to wittle this down. Perhaps a month after the group begins about 25% of the “study” time is spent on get-to-know you activities. Within about 6 weeks, I would say most groups might engage in an ice breaker every week or two.

(I’m assuming that before or after study the group is hanging out and eating and that people are working on cultivating relationships outside of group time.)

As for the second part of being intentional: how do we get to know each other…

I often hear small groups say that they are going to have a game night, go see a movie, or watch some sports thing as a way to get to know each other.

These are all fine things to do, especially as a way to cement bonds that are already existant or to reach out to others who might be spooked by the idea of a bible study. But I’m skeptical that they do much in forming bonds in the first place.

It can be intimidating to be open and honest and make ourselves vulnerable to others. There is some element of this that only occurs over time. There are things that can speed this process up: however, a rousing game of scrabble isn’t really one of them.

Giving people opportunities to talk is a much more efficent way to get them to know each other. (That’s almost so obvious it’s silly to write down. But it’s so important it’s worth writing down.) People should talk about their past, their present, and their future hopes and dreams. People should talk about their spiritual lives and the aspects of their lives that seem disconnected from the spiritual. They should talk about their relationships with people who are in the room and their relationships with people who are not in the room.

Giving people an oppurtunity to talk in a structured way can encourage quiet folks and make the people who are looking for a study feel a little less like they are spinning the wheels. There are all kinds of ways that this can happen. Here’s a few that I like:

A) Prepare a number of discussion question and place them in a hat. (E.G. What’s the best thing about where you’re at right now, spiritually? What’s the hardest thing?; What is an average day like for you at work? At home? Where was your life like 5 years ago? What do you hope it will be like 5 years from now?)

People select from the hat and present the question to someone they’d like to hear the answer from. This is a cool activity because it gives the answer-er an oppurtunity to speak but it also gives the question picker-outer an oppurtunity to say “I would like to know this about you.”

The best way to do this is to start with the hat of one end of the circle, and do all the picking and assigning of the questions first, ensuring that everybody gets a question and that everybody has a few minutes to process it.

Well-written questions give oppurtunities to go as deep as the person wants to go. They aren’t shallow (what’s your favorite color?) and they don’t demand intense, private sharing (What’s the cruelest thing you ever did to somebody?) I’ll maybe post more about this later, but well-written questions shouldn’t make assumptions about where people are at spiritually. (E.G. beware of questions like “What’s your favorite part of being a Christian?” because this assumes that the person is a Christian.)

A second activity– actually, a modification of a drinking game. Give people some advance notice to come up with a mental list of things about themselves that are unusual. If people come in with a story that isn’t unique, then they have to try and come up with a story that is unique.

(Example: if somebody’s story is around flying a helicopter, if somebody else has flown a helicopter, the person would then come up with another story.)

There’s no real winner or loser: it’s just an oppurtunity for people to share stories about themselves.