Ep. 501 Eight Essentials For an Exceptional Small Group Experience

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Shows Main Idea – Small group life can be an amazing experience, or it could be the most frustrating part of your week. Knowing how to lead a group well while envisioning the members as active participants does not happen without a game plan that includes understanding, intentionality, and equipping. Here are eight essentials that every leader needs to know to make the most of their small group experience. After you have read the essential and provided a brief explanation, will you answer the question for each essential? Perhaps sharing your conclusions and solutions with a friend would further instill these truths into your life and small group experience.

Show Notes

You may want to read:

• Ten Vital Keys for Small Group Leaders
• How To Have a Dynamic Small Group Experience
• How to Build and Enjoy a Dynamic Community Life

Eight Essentials

1: What are you doing? Determine the point of your group. Is it a Bible study? If so, study the Bible. If its purpose is to transform lives, make sure everyone knows it’s a “sanctification group.” For this podcast, I’m working under the assumption that the purpose of your small group is the biblical transformation of the members in the group.

Question: Does everyone know the purpose of your group? Three ways to measure this are:

• They come prepared to change themselves.
• The conversation is about how each person can change.
• The follow-up from the meeting continues the process of change that began during the meeting.

2: Learn to share incrementally. A “sanctification group” is not safe in the sense that people are afraid to share the details of their lives. Openly sharing is not a call to blurt out the worst facts about yourself the first night you’re in the group, but if you want to transform, you must be willing to reveal more and more of yourself to the other members.

Question: Are you holding back from sharing the story God is writing in your life? If you are, why are you?

3: You need the Bible, plus. Don’t fall into the trap that says the Bible is all you need to change. If the Bible were all you needed, the Ethiopian would not have been perplexed in Acts 8 as he was reading the Bible. If the Bible is all you need, there would be no need for teachers of the Bible. If the Bible were all you needed, there would not be all the “One Anothers” in the New Testament. The issue here is not minimizing God’s Word but maximizing the community of faith that is called to come alongside each other to help work the Word of God deep into their souls.

Question: Do you know how to bring the Bible to bear on your most recurring sin problem? Do you know how to walk a member of your small group through their most recurring struggle?

4: Application of the gospel requires effort. We tend to be lazy when it comes to messy, hardcore sanctification problems. It’s easier to read the Bible in a silo than work it out in a community, i.e., marriage and family, specifically. Burden bearing is not a job for the lazy person.

Question: Are you genuinely interested in the plight of those in your small group?

5: Sanctification is dangerous. Once you open the “sanctification can of worms” in an individual’s life, all bets are off. It can go to some weird places, which is why people are tempted to bury their noses in the Bible while feeling good about themselves because they were in a Bible study. It’s less dangerous than opening the heart of a struggling soul. It is even possible to use the Bible (or any other book) to hide in plain sight of your small group.

Question: What do you use as a shield to keep from revealing your true self to others? The Bible? Other books? Too much talking? A quietness that dares others to approach you? Are you keeping the conversation shallow?

6: Don’t fall into the “nugget-ology trap.” We can feel spiritual when we talk about “what God taught me today.” But it can also be deceptive. We can hide our “sanctification garbage” under the nugget of the day from the meme you read on Facebook, Instagram, or Sunday’s sermon.

Question: Is the motive of what you share in the group designed to reveal more and more of yourself because you want others to know you so they can help you transform?

7: Ignorance may play a role. Stated simply, we don’t know any better. “This is how we’ve always done it.” That’s knowledge gone bad. It doesn’t keep up with a person’s progressive sanctification or other changes in the group’s lives. The gospel never changes, but we must always change, or our religion will go stale. Christ wants us to learn the Bible facts and then learn how to apply them to our lives practically, which means as we grow, we will change our understanding and practice. We cannot become stale like the Pharisees, who disdained change. If you want to be in a safe place, you must die to man-centered ways of being safe. You will find true refuge (safety) in Christ and His body, where we’re all knitted together, nourished by Him, and nourishing one another for His fame and our benefit.

Question: How is the practical gospel transforming you and your relationships? The gospelized person has nothing to protect, nothing to hide, and nothing to fear. For freedom, He has set us free (Galatians 5:1).

8: Refrain from the “magic approach” to the Bible. If you “just read it,” you will change. While that is true—to a degree—it is not true if you want sustained and comprehensive change. Yes, there is passive obedience (sit and soak), but there is active obedience: be doers of the Word or work out what God is working in you. The “mystical approach” may make you feel better because you shared some Bible facts, but that does not change you.

Question: What does active obedience look like in your small group, particularly how you are actively engaging your friends at the core of their souls?

Call to Action

1. Regardless of your role in a small group, will you answer the eight questions presented, one under each of the essentials?
2. If you are a small group leader, will you share this content with the leader over you, discuss the state of your small group, what needs to change, and implement a measurable plan to change?
3. If you are a small group member, will you share this content with your small group leader, discuss the state of your small group, what needs to change, and implement a measurable plan to change?
4. If you are a small group leader, consider sharing this content with your group and having as many discussions as necessary to instill these practices in the group’s life.
5. Also, read or listen to the “you may want to read” section at the top of these Show Notes to gain a fuller perspective on how to lead and participate in a robust, transformative small group.

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Rick Thomas

Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.

In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).