In an effort to better lead Ironworks, Sarah and I decided to attend “Turbo-Training” at the Village Church. The training class is focused on helping small-group leaders sharpen their existing skills and acquire new ones in leading prayer & sharing, Bible study, and worship. Although the training is focused on helping leaders of TVC home fellowship groups, we thought it would be a great fit for helping us learn to lead our New Jersey small group.
Today was the introductory class which offered a fascinating perspective on the Village Church’s philosophy on small groups. Scott Greider–one of the “coaches” for small group ministry–noted that because our church doesn’t own a building in the city, they tend to view small groups as absolutely critical to the health of the church. This struck me as profoundly Biblical. Shortly after the disciples receive the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, the early church was suffering from persecution, making it practically impossible to meet together in a central location. It’s also largely believed that Timothy pastored a few dozen home churches (as opposed to one, monolithic congregation) in Ephesus.
The identity of a church around 50 or 100 AD had to be found in its people, not its stuff.
For whatever reason, the 21st century American church has lost touch with this idea. “Come to our services,” we say. “Play basketball in our gymnasium! Ride in our elevators! Observe our monumental cathedral and participate in our nationally-competing choir! Eat in our Saddleback ShallowCreek®-branded Taco Bell and Pizza Hut! Shop in our three-story bookstore (complete with gourmet coffee shop)! Our 7,500-member congregation is the largest bastion of Christian culture this side of Heaven–surely God is pleased with our elephantine worship services!”
We raise funds for building additions to accommodate ever-greater entertainments. We tear up the ground to lay foundations for Christian mini-malls. We throw concerts to raise awareness for our products.
“Come for the singing; stay for the low, low discount prices!”
But Peter’s church and Timothy’s church had no choice but to be defined by the individual relationships among the Christians. They simply had nothing else to demonstrate before the world–no building funds, no marketing campaigns, no t-shirts.
Just relationships. And having people over a lot.
But the power that was displayed by this unbranded, dedicated group of people! Lives were being changed. Families were reconciling. People were rejecting their stubborn selfishness and replacing it with a concern for the broken-hearted. No one in those budding churches had anything else to occupy their time but caring about and investing their lives in other people.
And, that’s just it, isn’t it? If we’re not taking care of the deep, unspoken needs of people, what’s the point? We’re just another competitor in the marketplace, peddling our wares in the hopes of turning a buck. “To the praise and glory of God!”–yeah, sure.
Sarah and I are so thankful to be attending a church that approaches this truth with integrity. We’re looking forward to see what these next weeks in training have in store for us.
“I was young and I needed the money”
“I had money, and I needed more money”
“I was filthy rich–all I wanted was love. And a little more money…”–Steve Taylor, Cash Cow (A Rock Opera In Three Small Acts)
Ken,
Well said. Another interesting part of the equation is that (sometimes) when churches do exactly what you write about, they can’t help but grow, which then forces them to decide what to do. A good case in point is Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis. What do you do when this happens? They decided they would plant churches, and quickly learned that church-planting congregations don’t stop growing, and yet developing sufficient leadership to plant churches is a significant time investment, no matter the maturity. Anyhow, the Pastor preached this message: http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/03/060803.html which seems intended to lead the congregation in struggling over their size and the biblical madate to “give an account for the souls entrusted to you”.
Good point. Though I don’t think elevators (in fact, this can be a good and loving technology to implement, if the church has the means, towards *accessability*) and gymnasiums are necessarily a bad thing for churches to have in and of themselves, if they are the “main attraction” then something is certainly horrifically wrong. I can understand that when a church over expands its cpacity and numbers get big, people get less attention to the big things- like discipleship. And small groups are an ideal answer to that. Jesus didn’t get 500 disciples to follow him around and confide everything in- there were only 12! Then, as you read Acts and the epistles, you see those 11 (+ Paul = 12) discipling small churches, who then have members who disciple more small groups (well, you don’t actually read about all of the 12 [in great detail], but their small group ministry is certainly implied). It’s time tested, and Jesus Christ was The Great Small Group Leader! I think you can bank on that being a pretty good indicator that small groups are important- rather vital- to the health of churchs (regardless of the “conglomorate” church size).
Good reduction to absurdity.
Grass roots or tree trunks?
Trees fall hard and grass lives on, but trees are nice-old people like them.
Congratulations on undertaking leadership training-a heavy responsibility. Your dedication to doing the right thing is where I see your uniqueness.