Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in group ministry on
Oct 26, 2009
At the Group Life Conference this year Andy Stanley shared five reasons that he will be in a small group for life. Here they are:
1. It’s the easiest place to invite un-churched people to, especially if they are not ready for the whole Sunday morning experience.
2. It’s often one of the only contexts for pastors or church staff to engage in ministry with their spouse.
3. It’s the only environment where you get to engage others on their spiritual journey, where they are at. You are often forced to connect with people that you would not normally connect with. We often are exposed to the grace of God in a new way when this happens.
4. Your kids get to see a commitment to Christ and community in the in the context of your family and the church.
5. Life change happens in the context of structured relationships – something happens when we sit in circles and don’t sit in rows.
His last line of the talk, "Thank you for leading a group, it is difficult, but it is worth it."
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in Untagged on
Oct 24, 2009
Small groups are great until the people show up! Community is messy
Messes of Biblical proportions
- God creates
- Adam and eve mess things up
- Cain and Abel kill and mess
- Noah drunk and naked mess
- Isaac and Jacob
- Jacob and Joseph and Brothers
- Moses
- David
- The list goes on and on
- The church at Corinth
- o Egos
- o Law suits
- o Incest
- o Drunkenness
Despite all the mess, the gospel is a gospel of hope and redemption for the messy community we create in our churches.
Pig Farms STINK
- How do you stop pig farms from stinking?
- Efficientlly design the transformation in the lagoon
- o You can't tell the stink to STOP
- o You can't ignore the stink in the lagoon either
- Don't we want to do that in the church with our mess?
- We have to be environmental engineers in the church and turn the mess into something usefull.
Sometimes MESS can be a byproduct of growth
Sometimes MESS can be a catalyst for growth and transformation
Types of Messes:
- 1. Sin mess - when people are living in sin in the group
- 2. Relational mess - when there is conflict in the group, when life touches life
- 3. Life mess - stuff that happens because we're people: job loss, divorce, health challenges
There is no formula or easy answers for dealing with mess in our groups.
Best Practices For Dealing With Mess
- 1. Acknowledge the mess
- 2. Identify the kind of mess (sin messes require grace and repentance, while life messes require care)
- 3. Have the right perspective - mess can be the byproduct or catalyst for growth
- 4. Ask good questions
- 5. Talk to the right people - there is a big difference between gossip and getting help
- 6. Give God the glory
- 7. Commit to the process - you have to fight through dealing with tough messes.
The Uptight Church Requirements
- You have to be spiritual
- If you show your flaws you've lost your walk
- In this group you look good but your get worse over time
Recovery Group Requirements
- You have to be screwed up
- If you show your flaws you're in denial
- In this group you look a mess but heal over time
Ways people grow in small groups
- 1. By suffering
- a. 1Peter 4 protect yourself by suffering
- b. A safe group is not a comfortable group.
- 2. By getting to the drivers underneath our life issues and problems
- a. Knowing how bad something is does not help us change
- b. Where is the brokenness that drives this behavior?
- 3. By learning new skills
- a. Everyone comes from a dysfunctional family and has needs due to their background. These needs will often be met in the group environment.
What produces safety in a group?
1. People feel safe when they know the rules.
2. A structured path and direction through curriculum or a knowledgeable leader.
3. Give a language. Two or three sayings that are insider language for things that are hard to communicate. It takes the sting out of difficult topics
4. Helping each other.
5. Establish group norms - a group will enforce its norms. If your group decides they are going to be sacrificial for one another then they will enforce it when members are in need.
6. Talking about where safety comes from.
Matthew 16:24-26 - one of Jesus' provocative questions, What good would it be to gain the whole world but lose your own soul?
The most critical quality of a group leader - leading from a healthy soul.
Symptoms of a diminishing soul:
Isolation
Apathy
Insomnia
Selfishness
Anger/bitterness
Being busy
Secret sins
Critical attitude
Fear
A healthy soul displays:
Joy
Confidence
Safety
Purpose
Energy
Attentive and Aware
Only you can put yourself in a place where you receive from God and if your soul is driving everything that happens in our life, leadership is inevitable and leadership is dangerous.
There is a relationship between pace of life and the health of our soul.
How does the soul interface with our pace of life?
Critical Question: How do I keep my pace of life in alignment with the current state of my soul?
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in Untagged on
Oct 23, 2009
Environments of Grace = Life Transformation
This is HUGE for our churches. Especially for churches that want to reach people that are far from god. We will often use this phrase in our church: NO PERFECT PEOPLE ALLOWED.
We even had it on a sign at the front door for a couple of years. When people know they are accepted for who they are right now, they are much more likely to open up to us and to Jesus.
I love how Dave Johnson put it in his talk today, "If there isn't an environment of grace in our churches and our small groups people will never find the courage to be authentic." The equation at the top is so true in our small groups and our churches. When people feel safe, they can share the dark corners of their life with us and God can use those moments to allow us to participate in the healing process with someone that desperatly needs it.
I'll end with this line from Dave that sums it up, "Grace is the only thing I know that gives me the courage to bring things to light that I would tend to hide in the dark."
What a great way to start the conference today!
