From Kathy…

When churches choose to grow, they offer opportunities for their members to wrestle intentionally with the questions of faith:  why do I go to church?  Why am I a Christian?  What does God have to do with my daily life and choices?  John Wesley, founder of Methodism, believed that when people held themselves accountable for developing their relationship with God within the safety of a small group of people, two things happened.  People experienced a growing closeness to God and they felt supported and cared for by someone else from their church. 

Now that same model for small groups is used in non-Methodist churches as a way for helping churches deepen the spiritual life and care for their members AND as a tool for reaching out to new people. People hunger for God’s touch in their lives when they attend church.  We long for community with one another in deeper ways beyond the questions of what do you do, where do you live, how many children do you have.  Small groups help us take the next step to begin to share more deeply with one another about the how God is helping us grow.  While many of us feel quite connected to others in our church, new people still struggle with finding a place to connect within our mid-size congregation.  People leave our church because they haven’t found a way to connect easily.  Small groups can help everyone find a place to be and people who care—creating that closeness that we long to experience.  For mid-size congregations like us, there is no other way to create that close sense of community without small groups. 

Small group conversation is focused on your relationship with God—where God is present in your life, what God may be asking you to do, how God is changing you.  Wesley’s three simple rules--do no harm, do all the good you can, and stay in love with God-- provide a framework for conversation too.  Scripture provides focus as well but small group ministry is not Bible study.  It includes interaction with the Bible but is not focused on the study of Scripture in its historicity or interpretation.  Small group content focuses on your experience of God, your experience of Scripture in your everyday life, your willingness to open up to a new person, to create community with others and to be God’s word of hope and care to someone else.

Small groups meet at least twice a month.  Many meet weekly but not less than twice a month to create the context for deep conversation.  It is recommended that small groups not be fewer than 4 people but no larger than 8 people in one group.  For a group of 8, meeting time together ranges from 75-90 minutes.  Less time for fewer people.  I also hope that each group will consider doing some kind of mission project together—working the Saturday Breakfast or Sunday lunch, Loaves and Fishes, Kits for UMCOR, helping a community group, cleaning up someone’s yard, a food drive, driving someone to the doctor, etc.  The possibilities are endless.

I recommend small groups begin with studying the book, Blueprint for Discipleship by Keith Watson.  (I have several copies you can borrow and even if you have read it I find it’s worth several re-readings).  Following the book, you can use the questions I create each Sunday that are not dependent on people being present for the sermon and that do incorporate Wesley’s three simple rules and a reading of Scripture.  The questions focus on your experience of God.

Small groups do need a facilitator to get started but then the hope is that each person will learn those facilitation skills so that we all learn how to start new small groups.

If you are interested in being a small group facilitator, Beth Hedlund and I will hold training on Thursday, January 5 at 7:30 PM—please RSVP your attendance to me by January 1.

Following the training, we will advertise the times and locations of small groups and encourage folks to sign-up for one. Small groups will meet for one year and then will re-form with the goal of each small group producing two small groups. Small groups will form in late January, April//May and August/September so that persons new to the church will have the opportunity to join without waiting a whole year.

Grace & Peace, Kathy