One word: Fellowship

At Fellowship church, each small group will create its own expression of comitment and devotion to themselves, each other, the church (and most importantly) God.   The categories that they will explore are the values that we place at the heart of our small groups: Authenticity, Transformation, Outward Reaching, and Multiplication.

To this end, this document expresses parameters within which we expect the groups to operate.  While we clearly don’t want a cookie cutter approach, we also want to have some level of uniformity.  If people wanted to get together every week and do nothing but read scripture, that would be an awesome thing to do.  However, it wouldn’t be a small group.  On the other hand, if a group hung out at a bar weekly to play poker, this wouldn’t be a small group either.  (Again, it’s not that I have anything against drinking or poker in moderation.)

With no further ado, here is the framework for Fellowship Church’s flexible covenants.

Value:Authenticity:

 Definition:We are engaged in transparent, supportive, and loving relationships with other members of the group and the church.  Our interactions during group meetings will be confidential.

Question to be answered on the covenant: What should we commit to in order to grow these relationships?

Specific areas that the covenant might express this value:

A) Regular attendance  (examples: we commit to X% attendance; we commit to doing Y whenever we don’t attend)

B) Respectful actions (example: we will give others our full attention during the study time; we will refrain from drinking or watching ‘R’ rated movies as a group because these might be a stumbling block to others…)

C) Accountabality  (example: we invite others into our lives and will intervene in others lives in such-and-such a manner if we see…)

Value:Transformation:

 Definition: We are commited to seeking out Christ and conforming ourselves to His image. 

Question: What should we commit to in order to maximize our growth in Christ?

A) Regular prayer for each other.  (examples: we will pray for each other X times per week.)

B) Submission to the needs of the group.  (We will prioritize needs of individuals or activites of the group in such-and-such a way.)

C) Learning and Application of Biblical principles. (examples: we will comitt to __ hours per week of prayer, study, homework, etc. on a regular/semiregular/occasional basis.)

Value:Outward Reaching:

Definition:We will work to bring about the Kingdom of God.

Question: What should we do?  How much should we do it?

A) Social justice (Example: Over the course of the small group we will engage in projects to benefit cause X; we will purchase/not purchase product Y;  We will pray for…)

B) Evangelism (Example:  we will aim to invite X# of people to church/small group; we will seek opportunities to witness to those around us with words and actions; we will be particularly focused on the environments of work/neighborhoods/schools…)

C) Formal service projects  (Example: we will commit to ___ # of service projects; we will commit to ___ hours on service projects…)

D) Informal, spontaneous help

Value: Multiplication

Definition: We are committed to growing small groups through out New England.

Question: What steps can we take toward multiplying?

A) Shared leadership to develop gifts (We will each/many of us will lead a discussion, plan a service project, take on individualized tasks for the life of the group.

B) Apprentice others in things we do within the group (Person A will develop the gift/talent/knowledge about ___ to ____ people.)

C) Seek out to be apprenticed by someone else.  (___# of people will develop the gift/talent/knowledge of ______ )

D) Participate in multiplying groups.  (Specific timeline: by Jan. X will have occurred; by April Y will have occurred, etc.)

Consider the following:

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.