Small groups 3 – What should happen in your small group?

What should happen in your small group? 

It depends.........What is your principle purpose for your small groups?

•  Developing closer relationships between church members,
• Assimilating new people,
• Numerical Growth'
• Spiritual growth,
• Equipping opportunities,
• Developing new leadership,
• and/or Maintaining accountability.

The format and content of your small groups will be determined by your purpose and your church’s values and priorities.

Over the years we have initiated small group ministries in several different churches - often with different values and priorities - but most of the content was consistent and based upon Acts 2:42. 

After Pentecost, the followers of “The Way” gathered together on a regular basis.

Acts 2:42 (NIV)  They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

It is always important for the meetings to begin on time and to close on time. The fastest way to kill a small group is to start late and end late. Life today is jammed with important activities and people are hesitant to commit to a new activity unless they realize its value.

• Open on time: Group leadership generally includes the leader, hosts, and worship leaders who need to arrive early so the meeting can begin at the prescribed time whether or not anyone else is there. 
• Closing is a little trickier. Almost always there will be ministry to individuals that cannot be stopped at the closing time. It is important that those not directly involved in ministry be released to go to another room for snacks or go home.
• We normally started the sessions with the singing of praise and worship songs to provide a transition from a hectic worldly schedule to a more relaxed, worshipful, and spiritual mood.  
  When groups are new and people do not know each other well we have found “Ice Breakers” useful to learn more about one another. You can find any number of “Ice Breakers” in youth ministry resources. They are great to get for adults loosened up!
  It is best to break the ice after all have arrived – after the worship time.
• Then it is time for an opening prayer.
• Sharing of scripture: This is not a time for a lecture, sermon, or even a homily. It is important that each person has an opportunity to interact with the scripture. 
  The leader is a facilitator, rather than a teacher. As such, he/she must have an overall direction as to where he/she will guide the discussion, through questions to which others will respond.
• Sharing of needs: At this point, everyone is encouraged to share what is going on in their lives and to share prayer needs. Be careful here, because there will always be some who feel a need to dominate this time week after week with the same issues. Leaders must understand how to handle this with grace and firmness.
• Individual Prayer ministry. 
• Closing prayer and dismissal
• Snack time and fellowship after the closing. [this was optional as some would have to get home.]

Please feel free to share your comments or suggestions below!

Where are you going? Where Have you been?

If failure was not an option and money was no problem, what would you do with the rest of your life?

Deep down inside, there lies a hidden desire which is stuffed away because we are afraid to even think about it - let alone go for it. We have so suppressed it that we often do not even remember that we ever had the desire. 

We bury these desires for a number of reasons: We are convinced that it was only a childish dream, it is too incredible to even consider, or we are afraid to hope because we are might fail. We do not want to be disappointed again,. People will laugh at us. 

So we stuff the dream and convince ourselves it was mere foolishness to even hope. We say to ourself, “Get a life and find a real career.”\

The dream dims and eventually dies. It is shoved so deep that we totally forget about it and go on with our lives. 

Unfortunately, we may have missed God's purpose for our life.

That abandoned dream that you just remembered may be the Lord calling you into your destiny.

God prepared you from the very beginning. He has been steering you toward your destiny. It is God who wants to give you the desires of your heart. He is the one who put them there originally. It could prove informative to look back at your life and see how the Lord has been steering you and what He has already accomplished in you.

Landmarks

Jeremiah 31:21 (NKJV) "Set up signposts, Make landmarks; Set your heart toward the highway, The way in which you went.

The literal translation of the word “landmarks” means to pile up rocks or stones to make a landmark. After Joshua led the Hebrews across the Jordan River, the Lord commanded them to take rocks from the river and put them in a pile to commemorate that important event in their history.

Landmarks of our lives represent places we have been and the experiences we have had which have affected our lives. As we look back on our lives and identify specific events that have affected our progress, we will find signposts pointing us toward God’s purpose for our lives.

What has God been doing in your life?

Answering this question requires serious and objective analysis of your life up to now to see where the Lord has taken you.

Realize that you have been on a spiritual journey, sometimes programmed by God and sometimes going your own way. You will want to identify landmarks that show where you have traveled.

Try this Activity

Draw your spiritual timeline highlighting experiences when you felt exceptionally close to God, when you heard from Him, and the times you felt that you had a particular sense of His power.

List the period and the event. It may be helpful to find someone with whom you can share your spiritual walk.

Develop an Ear For God

Which is harder, to hear God’s guidance, or to obey His direction? 

If Jesus were to come into your room at night and give you firm direction, you would probably obey without question. But what if He spoke to you in that still, small voice? (1Kings 19:12) Then you could argue that it may not have been God, it may have been my own thoughts, or it might have been the enemy trying to confuse me.

We must all develop an ear to hear God often and clearly, even when He speaks in that still small voice. That still small voice tends to get drowned out by all of the noise around us.

Learning to listen

How well you listen to your spouse, neighbor or friends is an indicator of how well you listen to God. How you listen to others is exactly how you will listen to God. The key to hearing God clearly is learning to listen. You can begin practicing by listening to others.

One of the most loving and healing human acts is also one of the easiest to accomplish. That is listening - not advising or coaching, but sincerely, silently, and fully listening. If you love your spouse or neighbor as you love yourself, you will listen to them. If you love God with all your, heart, mind, and strength, you will listen to Him. There is no greater expression of love than to listen to somebody else. When you listen, you are laying down your life and your agenda to listen and help them reach their agenda.

Listening creates relationships; it helps us connect with others. It values what they have to say. Listening is one of the clearest signs of deep, genuine spirituality.

Some may believe that God no longer speaks to His people, and if you don’t believe He still speaks the odds of hearing Him are pretty slim. At times we may not want to hear. If we hear God speaking to us, we may be required to respond. If we know it is God we have no wiggle room. If there is a doubt in our mind, then we can make excuses. We may not want Him to get too close. When God had given the Ten Commandments, Moses invited the people to come forth to hear His voice. But the people refused (Exodus 20:19-20). But, God can and will break through our blinders and communicate with us regardless of our reasons.

We Need to Hear

When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment in the law, He responded;

“Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ‘and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:29-30).

Jesus then adds another commandment not found in the Shema but taken from Leviticus 19:18;

 “And the second, like it is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31) Jesus responded by citing the Shema and the Vaharta, the main prayers of the Jewish faith, found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

In the Old Testament, the word for “Hear” or “listen,” is Shema. Shema includes hearing but has a further understanding of obeying the words heard. Obedient hearing brings blessing (Proverbs 8:34), while judgment comes against the refusal to listen.

Zechariah 7:12-13 (NKJV) Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen," says the LORD of hosts.

In New Testament usage, the Greek term akouo also refers to the simple hearing and obedience but is often used to denote hearing with faith. (Romans 10:17; Galatians 3:2, 5; 1Thessalonians 2:13). The expectation is that when the gospel is heard it will be responded to in faith and submission. The refusal to listen is considered to be disobedience (John 8:47);

 "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it." Luke 11:28 (NIV)

Submission

It was Monday, but very different than the rest of my Mondays at work. We had spent the weekend at a men’s retreat and were basking in the afterglow. Monday morning had arrived too early, I arrived at my office late, and only completed a few routine items before lunch. 

I walked a couple of blocks to the salad bar restaurant with the twenty foot long buffet. Grabbing a tray, plate, and soup bowl, I fell in line behind two well-dressed men having a rather animated conversation. They were obviously Christians and were joyfully praising God and sharing.  As they found a table in a corner, I was drawn to them and selected a nearby table.

After the two men sat down and blessed their food, their conversation suddenly changed. The joyful praise turned into an intense, serious discussion. Not wanting to hear their conversation I tried to ignore them and focused on eating, but something strange happened.

It had to be a God thing. What followed was not possible in the natural. My chair was about ten feet away from their table - behind and slightly to to my right. One man was facing toward me, while the other had his back to me. I could not hear any of what the man facing me was saying, but I heard very clearly the words of the man with his back to me. This is not natural.

It became clear that these men were both pastors, and the one whose back was to me was seeking advice from the man facing me. Hearing only one side of the conversation was strange but revealing. To this day, I remember the exact words spoken by the man with his back to me. 

The first thing I heard was, “The problem with my church is that the members do not submit to me as their pastor.”

Later I heard, “The trouble with my family is that my wife does not submit to me as her husband.”

Almost immediately, I sensed a different voice speaking to me - It was the Holy Spirit, “This man is not submitted to Me.”

Basically, I am a shy person. Confrontation is not my bag, but on this day, I was ready to go over and tell this man, “You are having these problems because you are not submitted to God.” 

Fresh from a weekend of fellow-shipping with Jesus and other spirit filled believers, I could be bold. But, the Lord saved me from total embarrassment with His next words, “Sit still, this is a lesson for you.”

That incident was not the end of the lesson. It was the beginning of six months of testing that began that very evening. After gaining a new insight, I wanted to give it away. At a home group meeting that night, a lady began to complain about her financial problems. This was not the first time. She had been having financial issues for years. Armed with my noon time revelation, I told her, “You are having financial problems because you have not submitted your finances to God.”

The woman’s face turned purple with anger and my wife gave me a look that indicated I had committed the unpardonable sin. My statement may have been accurate but that was not the way or place to say it. The meeting ended abruptly. It was a tense and quiet ride home that night – the lady was our neighbor and riding with us.

 There were several more opportunities to give away my new insight and each time it failed to receive its intended respect. Then one day, it hit me. Slamming the car dashboard with my right hand, I shouted, “I get it!”  The lesson God had been trying to teach me was now clear. The enemy of our soul is able to attack us in the areas of our lives that we have not totally submitted to God. It is as if we are under God’s umbrella of protection as long as He has control of our lives. But when we tell God that we would rather be in charge, He may back away and say, “Okay, go for it.”  That is where we get in trouble. 

Submission is a difficult concept for most people in our society today. The word itself evokes images

of abuse and the sense of becoming a doormat. Yet both the Old and New Testaments tell us there will be great benefits when we submit to God. The word translated in the New Testament as “submission” means to place or arrange under. It is like products that are arranged on a display table or an army deployed to go into battle. It is also used to accept someone’s admonition or advice. In our lives we often submit to our boss, the government, our spouse, pastor, or spiritual authority. We may also submit to our possessions, pride, and sin.

But the Bible instructs us to submit to God. Jesus Himself submitted to the Father. He did not do it from weakness but from strength. Our submission must be as Jesus modeled.  

Submission is not becoming a doormat. Submission is more like an elevator. An elevator lifts things up. As we submit to God, we elevate Him. When we submit to our spouse we elevate him or her to a higher position. The purpose of submission is elevation or exaltation. As we submit to God, we exalt Him.

We can be obedient in giving our time, presence, and resources to the church without being in submission. Scripture calls us to give to the work of the Lord. Therefore giving is obedience, but joyful giving and giving cheerfully is submission.