ReGroup, part 2

What a time to be alive! There is such great content out there.
Such great resources, great curriculum, great Bible Studies, videos,
books, web sites.

Speaking of which, check out my new site at
www.sundayschool.ning.com

Last week I provided an overview of a great new resource called
Regroup. If you missed that article, see

www.joshunt.com/mail220.htm

Townsend, Cloud and Donahue taught five marks of great groups:

• Care


• Safety


• Authenticity


• Grow


• Help

As important as these are, I don't think they are the complete
picture. Below are five more marks of great groups:

This list assumes these groups are what could be called Basic
Christian Communities. That is, they are microcosms of the church.
They are basic Sunday School classes or home groups. There is
nothing wrong with a group targeted toward some particular purpose
like evangelism. But, all of us need to be in a Basic Christian
Community--a micro-church. In these Basic Christian Communities I
like to see five things, in addition to the five things discussed
last week.

Biblical content

Some where along the line I like to hear someone say, "Let's open
our Bibles and look at. . ." This may be a book study. It may be
video-based. It may have a lot of discussion and opinion sharing,
but somewhere I like for every group to read the Bible and discuss
the Bible.

Literature can be a great help to us, but literature should never
replace the Bible. (And, no, this will not a shock or offense to your
local Lifeway rep; they will agree.) Literature points us to the
Bible, it supplements the Bible, but it does not replace the Bible.

We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12.1 -
2). It is the truth that sets us free.  (John 8.32)

Accountability

I was nurtured spiritually in my early formative years by the
Navigators.
http://www.navigators.org My first son is named Dawson, in part
after the Navigators founder, Dawson Trotman. I am forever in the
debt of the Navigators who taught me to walk with God. They taught
me two important principles.

Navigator principle #1: the importance of the Word.
Every believer should start their day with the Bible on
their lap. We need to spend time on a regular basis in prayer and in
the Word. The quiet time is the basic discipline of the Christian
life. I have no concept of what it means to live the Christian life
if it does not include regular personal time in the Word. Going to
church is good. Attending a group is good. But, the win is creating
people who spend time alone with God.

I guess I differ a bit from my hero Andy Stanley on this. At
Northpoint, they define the win as getting people into groups. This
is a step up from many churches, who have either not defined the win
at all, or defined the win as how many people showed up to hear the
preacher preach. But, getting people into groups is not the end
game. Getting them alone with God is.

Truthfully, there is more to it than the outward activity of the
quiet time. Ultimately this is about creating people who love the
Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. It is
just that that is hard to measure. You could measure whether your
people were spending time alone with God. It is hard to measure
whether or not they love God and love people. Measuring whether they
spend time alone with God is the next best thing. My dad taught me
that you can't measure the most important things. You can measure
how many people came forward. You can't measure how much they meant
it.

Getting people in the Word is central to making disciples.

Navigator Principle #2: Most people need accountability.
Most people need someone to ask, "How are you doing these
days in terms of your time alone with God? What have you read
recently? What has it meant to you? What are you memorizing?" Most
people will never get it without this. We desperately needs groups
that ask the hard questions.

You can do this without running off newcomers. You can do
accountability in an open group. You can't set the bar too high, and
you might have to adjust the plan if you have new comers show up.
You might also encourage people toward other accountability groups
where you can set the bar higher. But, you can do some
accountability in Sunday School.

Outreach

This is a Basic Christian Community. It is a microcosm of the
church. This means, the group should be doing the things the church
does. It should be accomplishing the five basic purposes of the
church. It should be evangelism, discipleship, worship, ministry and
fellowship.

Too many groups are holy huddles--places where we try to get
higher and higher up the mountain of spiritual maturity and closer
and closer to God and farther and farther from people who are far
from God. One problem: when you get to the mountain you will find a
God who is relentless obsessed about people who are far from Him. If
you really are climbing up the mountain toward God your heart is
going to become a little more like the heart of God who is crazy
about people who are far from Him.

You may not be gifted to do classic, in-your-face evangelism, but
you are going to care. You are going to think about people who are
far from God. You are going to be drawn to them. You are going to
pray about them.

I teach full-time on helping groups double every two years or
less and have an aching convictions that the problem is not that we
cannot figure out how to double a class every two years or less. The
problem is, we don't want to. We don't like them. And they can tell.
And, all the while we think we are moving up the mountain of
spiritual maturity. We are not. We are not getting more godly. We
are just getting more churchy.

I have a sermon that I do on this. I preached it one time in
North Carolina. I assume this lady didn't understand what I was
trying to say. Her reactions was, "Your darn right I don't like
being around sinners. They smoke, they drink, they swear; I don't
like being around them." Her tone suggested, "Look at me! Look how
far I am up the mountain of spiritual maturity! I don't like being
around sinners!" God, help us.

Fellowships/ Fun

One of the best ways to do outreach is the Levi way. Have a party
once a month and invite every member and every prospect to every
fellowship every month. It is not only a great way to do outreach.
It is a lot of fun. I have written about this so often I will keep
this brief. If you are new to this concept, see

http://www.joshhunt.com/friday.html

To to this effectively, you need to do evangelism as a team. Have
an inreach leader, outreach leader, fellowship leaders and so forth
in every class. What a wonderful plan: let the teachers teach, the
leaders lead and the party planners plan the parties.

To do this, you need to have a vision day once a quarter. I have
written about these things in other contexts. See

www.joshhunt.com/articles.htm for a backlog of previous
articles.

Worship

The Navigators taught me about discipleship. Jack Taylor taught
me about worship. He was the Interim Pastor at my brother's church
for about a semester. He did a sermon series on praise. It forever
changed my life. It was the single most influential series of
sermons I have ever experienced.

There is something about worship that changes us. There is
something about worship that transforms us. There is just something
about worship.

This is one thing that can be done better in a big group than a
small group. But, you can still do worship in a small group. You may
have someone in your group that plays the guitar or piano that could
help. Have you ever asked? I'd love to play my guitar, and no one
asks. I wonder why.  Hmmm.

Another approach is through videos. It will help if you can get a
projector and some big sound. People don't sing well unless you can
get the volume loud enough that they can't hear themselves.
Projectors are getting cheaper all the time.

There are other ways to worship besides singing. Just watching
this video will help your people worship:

http://www.bluefishtv.com/ProductDetails.aspx?cid=1005&id=1433&f=s1m&cc=&csc=&ldr=&s=amena%20brown

Here is an idea: have a prayer time that is limited to
thanksgiving and worship. Don't ask for anything. Just say thank-you
to God.

Conclusion

Well, there are ten marks of great groups. What ideas do you
have? What makes for a great group? Share your insights at
www.sundayschool.ning.com