From Small Ministry to Small Groups (Part 1)

The church is called to make disciples. We aren’t told exactly how to do that in Scripture. We know that we are to teach others to obey all that Jesus has commanded (Matt. 28:20), but there’s no specific pedagogy mandated by God. But experience has taught me that healthy discipleship involves more than just the dissemination of information. In the last five years I have come to see the real value in small groups. Small Groups provide a greater impact in the process of making disciples.

When I first started in ministry I was convinced that if you just gave people right doctrine then transformation would follow. So I focused solely on instruction. I though discipleship consisted of offering countless classes, preaching good sermons, and providing people with lots of books on whatever subject they were struggling with. Fighting lust? Here’s a book on that. Worry a lot? I’ll preach on that next week. Doubting your salvation? Take this class we’re offering. The problem I was noticing, however, was that for all the education I was seeing doled out there wasn’t much transformation happening. People who struggled with sin continued to struggle with it, some even left the church because of it. People who doubted their salvation continued to doubt. And worse than that, the more people learned the more arrogant and condescending they became towards others. It was no small issue for me. As a pastor of discipleship I think a lot about these matters, sometimes they would keep me up at night. What was I doing wrong? What was wrong with our church? I knew it wasn’t the instruction that was the problem.

Instruction is a key, even vital part, of healthy discipleship. After all how can anyone obey all that Jesus commanded if they don’t know what Jesus has commanded? How can someone learn to rely on the Holy Spirit if they don’t know anything about Him? So instruction is key to healthy discipleship. I don’t want to stop offering classes, giving out books, preaching good sermons, etc. The failure of the model I was using is found in the single word “solely.” If I am relying on real change to happen from reading a book, hearing a 30 minute sermon, or taking a hour-long class I am most likely just being naïve. That’s not how change happens, not in me and not in those I serve. You can’t simply educate problems away. Change is a heart issue, so healthy discipleship must engage the heart. It may start in the brain, but there has to be something more than just information involved in my discipleship efforts.

So I have changed my tactic a bit. I continue to utilize the great resources in educating people on the Word of God. While Associate Pastor at Revolution I was thrilled to be a part of the Free Seminary project. Free Seminary was an effort to bring seminary level education to our church and community at no expense to the participants. It was a joy last year to teach the final course in a two-year-long project of working with 12 students through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. Those students, as a result of their hard work and study, know a lot of theology and a lot of Scripture to support it. But I am also convinced that if theology is not practical it’s not really theology. Our God is a God who interacts with his people, engages them, and calls them to action. To study God in some sterile, hands-off, purely academic kind of way is not to do theology! There must be a practicality involved in my theologizing.

I love how Dr. John Frame has defined theology: the application of the Word of God to the world. That roots my theology in the ultimate standard, Scripture, and yet reminds me that I haven’t done anything until I can apply what I learn to my world. So at Revolution that was one of my goals, to help our folks apply God’s Word to their world. That meant helping someone struggling with sin develop a plan of action based on Scripture for fighting sin. That also meant helping our East End missionaries think practically about what it meant to communicate the gospel, love their neighbors, counseling the addict. So there is a great deal of action involved in healthy discipleship. It’s about moving beyond the classroom, or beyond the Sunday sermon, and doing something. Discipleship is about following Jesus. But it’s important to remember that healthy discipleship is two-pronged.

There are some who by-pass the whole doctrinal element. They are so convinced of the importance of action, and so frustrated with the arrogance of some theologians, that they have seen fit to ignore the instruction piece of the discipleship process. This has not, however, made their model or their disciples healthier. A lack of theological foundations often leads people into error, heresy, and frustrated action ministry. It reminds me of hearing Dr. John Perkins talk about the mistakes so many churches make in serving the poor. He reminds us that we perpetuate the problems of a community with simple charity. There has to be a plan to work against the systemic problems that create the poverty as well as the charitable offerings. When it comes to discipleship based “solely” on activity we can end up frustrating our people. Counseling not rooted in dealing with the heart may help some rearrange the mental furniture in their heard, but it won’t ultimately overcome the matters of the heart bringing about their real problem. And giving young guys computer software to block pornography on their computer may limit their exposure to it, but it won’t ultimately change their desire to lust. Real transformation has to involve more than just action, in the same way that it must involve more than just information. Both pieces are vital to healthy discipleship.

Transactional and transformational discipleship both belong together. Real change, real growth as a believer, requires both the activity of the disciples and the information necessary to act Biblically. This is really where, in my opinion, Small Groups can play a vital role. Until I began to see the value of small groups I think my ministry was small. I was having very little impact as an individual disciple-maker. I was frustrated, the people I was discipling were frustrated, and in some ways I was creating an unhealthy atmosphere for our church. But small groups provided me an opportunity to broaden the disciple-making efforts of our church, and combine both instruction and activity. Next week I will discuss how that happened and how it can be transplanted in other contexts.