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When John Wesley looked across Great Britain's Anglican Church in the 1700s , he saw a dead formalism. Pastors had about as much zeal as a dead 'possum. Why?

Wesley's genius was realizing that when people came to Christ, they needed to change and grow, not merely stand on the terms of a contract. In other words, they may have been converted, but their lives were not transformed. They were baptized, confirmed, and churched on Sunday. Yet they lived like hellions the rest of the time. Wesley concluded that the people of the church needed to be regularly confronted and challenged to confess their sins and repent.

Wesley realized that the Great Commission is not to make converts; it's to make disciples. As he preached, people gave their lives to Christ in droves. And then Wesley did something we often do today—he put them into small groups.

The purpose of Wesley's small groups was not simply encouragement and Bible study, but to provide a safe place for confession and accountability, an intimate environment for transformation into Christlikeness.

In 1995, God brought revival to Wheaton College. It broke out in a student-led Sunday night service. Confession and repentance continued Sunday night and every night through Thursday. Eight or nine hundred students got right with God that week.

During one of those evenings, a student stood and confessed that she'd lost her virginity the summer before. She was carrying terrible guilt, and she just wanted to confess her sin. The man sitting next to me elbowed me and said, "Prof, get this thing shut down. This is terrible. She didn't sin publicly. She shouldn't be confessing publicly. If that was my daughter, I'd feel terrible."

I said, "You're right. She didn't sin publicly. But she's having to confess here because … ." I paused, "because I've preached in your church, and it's not a safe place to confess sin or to be held in loving accountability."

That night's events and conversations were the seeds that inspired my wife and me and some friends to plant a church. And every Sunday after the service we provide trained prayer and communion ministers, so people have a safe place to confess sin.

We don't forgive their sins, but we tell them, "Jesus Christ forgives your sins and cleanses you from all unrighteousness." And then we try to follow up with them next week. "How are you doing on this? Staying clean on this thing?"

Despite the flood of conversions under his preaching, Dwight L. Moody kept his focus on the individual. At the end of the service he would say, "If anyone here has questions or they would like prayer, I'll be in another room and we can pray for you."

Moody would go to that other room where he had trained workers waiting. He told those workers, "When someone comes up, I want you to look at her. I want you to listen her. I want you to pray, listen to the Holy Spirit, and ask him to help you listen to her. As you're working with her, another person might come up, too, and be looking at her watch. But don't worry about her. Take the first person seriously and keep working with her."

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