How can churches handle the growing needs for counseling? How can a pastor build a vital, interactive community ? How can he or she effectively disciple and equip throughout the church?
James R. Tozer, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, West Lafayette, Indiana, experimented in various ways to answer those questions. He certainly didn’t find instant answers-but with a lot of prayer and patience, he’s developed groups that have become the beating heart of his church.
Obviously, Covenant Presbyterian is not the only model for effective small groups. There are many variations, and we hope to explore some of them in the future. But there are enough common principles and excellent advice here for anyone to give it a thorough reading.
A Quick Lesson
(( S mall groups will produce cliques.” “My religion is private.” “I sure don’t want to sit around listening to people air their emotions.”
These were some of the remarks provoked by my first attempt at initiating the ministry style of small group discipleship in my church. I went ahead anyway.
At one service I issued a call following one of my motivational pep talks, and eighty people responded. I divided them randomly into eight groups of ten and arbitrarily said, “All right, you ten will be a group. Here’s your leader.”
This proved about as effective as pushing a chain. The group members did not feel united and did not develop any real sense of intimacy. Since they derived little benefit, many decided the meetings were not worth the effort, and the groups collapsed.
It was a very quick lesson.
Snapped Muscles and Pieces of a Puzzle
More recently, as the springs of renewal welled up in refreshing, restoring ways within our congregation, I felt a strong push by the Holy Spirit to try again. We had progressed through six years of dynamic new life when I saw the need for the roots of our faith to grow deeper. I felt certain that the way to accomplish this was by building a thorough working model of small-group discipleship principles for congregational life.
This time, however, I resisted all impulses to start big. Christ prayed all night before choosing his disciples, and I recognized that my knees would have to hit the carpet many times before the right people came along to help me channel our congregation into a dynamic ministry of small groups.
So I prayed. Then I shared my vision with several other people. A few of them met and prayed with me for a time; but they soon quit, some out of frustration
over how slowly we were progressing, others out of bitterness over disagreements about how we should approach small-group discipleship. These were trying times, and occasionally my vision seemed as if it were being snatched from me like a kite in strong wind.
I continued to pray. Finally, three individuals approached me with a desire to grow through prayer and fellowship. They came within the same period of time, and I felt their presence was a direct answer to prayer. We began meeting regularly to build patterns of growth into our lives. I modeled, trained, and encouraged the practice of five spiritual disciplines: daily time in the Scripture, daily prayer, regular fellowship, witnessing to others, and helping individuals who were hurting.
One Sunday morning as I was getting ready for the worship services, I bent down and suddenly felt as if every muscle in my back had snapped. I rolled over flat on the floor and could not straighten up. My wife Vivian wasn’t sure whether I needed artificial respiration or a stretcher. She and our teen-agers, Lynn and David, managed to get me to the sacristry in hopes that I would somehow be able to lead the congregation in a celebration of joy; however, during the anthem I lay flat on the sacristy floor and prayed for strength.
I knew what my problem was. Stress. Stress that resulted from actively, faithfully, and zealously practicing the disciplines my four original group members and I had agreed upon. Oh, I had always practiced them in some shape or form, but now I was committed to making them a crucial, daily part of my life, and three other people were holding me accountable for doing so.
Each week I set aside a protected day for study. That day came out of an already overcrowded administrative schedule I kept as pastor of a growing church. I extended this executive privilege to other staff members -which brought about some mild resentment. The secretaries and some members were upset that they weren’t able to reach me at will. But slowly the emotional and intellectual benefits of this decision became evident in my life and this resentment turned into support. I made time for my family. I was determined to model a lifestyle I could encourage my flock to follow, a lifestyle of “priority living.”
Good things were also happening in the lives of my four dedicated group members, and we sensed that we were approaching something essential to Christian living. These were individuals who wanted to be with me, who were committed to me, who were available, and who were teachable. We genuinely looked forward to being with one another. While they respected my authority, they were frank, fair, and friendly in their criticism. We shared a sense of humor. We encouraged each other to experience God’s best in our work, with our families, and in our spiritual growth. We found welcome relief from the dull, gray, tiring press of religionism.
As I drove past the high school one day, I saw one of the members of our small group and stopped. From the way he looked, I knew something was troubling him. He angrily described how his son was in serious trouble. The others in our group backed me as I went to the school and became an advocate for the son even though I was risking my reputation. Through some amazing developments, a beneficial solution was found.
But something even greater was accomplished. Using that crisis as a catalyst, we began sharing many personal problems, and this sharing knitted a cherished bond among us that exists until this day. Our faith began to form the dream that each of the two thousand people in our congregation might experience the joy of a similar fellowship in Christ. As we poured our hearts out in prayer, we concluded that it was essential to let everyone share with us in the formation of small groups. So an open invitation was given to all who would like to share with me in a time of teaching.
I remembered that my first attempt at creating small groups had collapsed because there was no generating center from which to equip leaders and encourage groups. The new objective was to gather together a “discipling community,” which would meet periodically as a large teaching fellowship and provide a challenge of priority living to those who attended. This discipling community would in turn provide the matrix for generating a multitude of effective small groups and small-group leaders.
Many in the congregation responded to my new invitation, and with the help of Chuck Miller, a national discipling teacher, I introduced three very general but essential priorities to the community.
First, seek a growing commitment to Jesus Christ (Matthew 22:37). The challenge in the Christian life, I taught, is to grow as a whole person mentally, emotionally, and morally, letting the Lord bring light and health to every dimension of our being.
Second, seek a growing commitment to the body of Christ and to our spiritual fellowship (Ephesians 4:16). I placed high emphasis on our two Sunday morning worship services as occasions for celebration and joy. Our people invited friends, neighbors, and associates to share in an uplifting experience of praise as we attempted to leave an initial impact for Christ on every worshiper. Then in the smaller discipling community, I would seek to lead people more deeply into the Word and into Christian experience. Finally, in the small groups, the personal needs of each member would be ministered to with special care.
Third, seek a growing commitment to the work of Christ in the world (I Peter 3:15). Our objective was that each person would go to work-office, home, classroom, councils of government-sent by the body of believers to minister.
These priorities certainly represented nothing new to the congregation; they seemed like antiquated principles we’d known about since Adam. But I stated them anyway, believing them to be the basis of discipleship. With a portion of the congregation enthusiastically involved in the discipling community, all that was left was the seeding of effective small groups.
But how would the groups form? Would couples, singles, and people of differing ages be combined? How many people would be in a group? When would they meet? What would they do? How rigidly would we guide them? When we thought of all the variables, it was like shaking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in a can, ready to spill them on the floor, hoping they’d somehow fit together.
This initial puzzle, however, started a finely-tuned long-term process for birthing effective small groups. Whenever a qualified leader emerged from the discipling community, we would identify him or her, and a group would form around that person. We spread out a rather extensive net to draw “unfolded” people, those who were not involved in meaningful fellowship, into a small group. Most of our congregation, even those who attended Sunday morning worship, were unfolded; they watched the excitement of the discipling process, but were not yet a part of it.
The primary means for “folding” people, drawing them into the close fellowship of a small group, was what we called “people eyes.” These were individuals with sensitive perception who watched for those with needs and were willing to help them. These people were our congregation’s richest gift. When they entered the discipling community meetings, they did not sit in corners alone or gather with special friends; they looked for new people who sat on the periphery, unable to feel part of the fellowship. These willing-to-care people found the left-out people and introduced them to others who would befriend them for the rest of the evening and get to know them better.
A couple, Ron and Bev, experienced a life-changing encounter with Christ one Sunday morning through a sermon on one of the parables. Ron came to me and said, “I want to come to the banquet of the King, but my priorities are so confused I have nothing to celebrate!”
“Ron, you and Bev come to the discipling community this week and see what’s happening,” I replied.
They came late, sat at the back, and were very unresponsive during my hour of teaching. At the close of the meeting, they headed straight for the door. But Greg and Yvonne Schnepf, a wonderful “people-eyed” couple, reached Ron and Bev before they left.
‘We have to get home,” Ron said. ‘We have a rough day tomorrow.”
Another willing-to-care person alertly came over with two cups of punch and put them in the hands of the reluctant couple. Slowly, before our eyes, we saw two people utterly “folded.” Today they are very involved in an exciting small group fellowship.
Most of our small groups were spawned within the discipling community in much the same way. People met other people, they came together for times of prayer and fellowship, they prayed for others to join them, and so forth. We still use this process today.
A Church-wide Hub-with No Spokes
The discipling community I teach meets eighteen times a year. Three additional discipling communities have formed under the leadership of church staff members, and a network of small groups flows from all four communities. These communities provide a sense of larger involvement, prevent cliques from forming, offer solid biblical teaching, and instill vision. They also provide a safeguard against the development of groups that could become spiritual islands of selfsatisfied people.
We call our small groups “discipling fellowships.” Each is composed of approximately twelve people who meet every other week. Between gatherings, the group members pray daily for each other and remain in touch through letters, phone calls, and shared recreational activities. Groups succeed only as established meeting dates remain a priority, and as the members are free and willing to care for each other. Small-group discipleship is a lifestyle; it must adhere to certain set guidelines, yet it should transcend them as it becomes a part of everyday life.
Our discipling fellowships meet in homes for two hours every other Monday night. The starting time is 7:30, with a time of refreshments from 7:00 to 7:30.
We tried to incorporate a refreshment time into the fellowship around the Word but found it always distracted group members. Surprisingly, most people like the early refreshment period, and now it is another dimension of the meetings, a time for members to catch up on light conversation and prepare for the rest of the evening.
At 7:30 we usually meet around a table in the dining room to study the Word. The table is a fundamental part of the total experience, for it fosters a non-threatening family-type atmosphere. Each person brings a Bible. Although we encourage the use of Bible commentaries for personal study, we’ve found that when the groups are in the rudimentary stage, commentaries stifle personal sharing and application.
Early in our experience the Bible studies became naturally systematized as we discovered what worked and what didn’t. Prayer became the first step. We asked God to clear our minds and meet us through his Word in a meaningful way.
We would then read the passage and simply ask, “What does it say?” in terms of words, places, people, and events.
Implication became the next step as members were encouraged to seek the force, consequences, and significance of each verse that challenged their lives, and then share those implications.
Finally, application was encouraged as we urged each one to put whatever was learned into practice. We have stuck to this system for personal and group study over the years; it enables us to be personally grasped by Scripture, it builds relationships, it initiates spiritual growth, and it develops biblically articulate leadership.
We’ve found that the Bible studies have also become a time when intellectually-minded people are challenged by the integrity of the Christian faith. Such was the case of Fred, a science professor at Purdue University. He and his wife Paula were affiliated with our church mainly as a matter of family habit-not belief.
Fred was an especially lonely person, plagued with doubts, and he was shattered when Paula admitted to seeing another man on an intimate basis. Simmering in his agony, he came to church one Sunday where his keen mind was challenged by the sermon. He saw that Christ could be a center of certitude, holding the pieces of life together in a meaningful way. Sometime later, he began meeting for fellowship with a small group, where his intellect was further challenged and satisfied by fellowshiping in the Word. His life shed its veil of uncertainty. He was reunited with Paula, and together they became strong leaders of a discipling fellowship.
At 8:30 we wrap up the Bible study and relocate to the living area where we share our needs. This is an especially important session for individuals who are hurting. O. Hobart Mowrer, a well-known clinical psychologist, has stated that self-disclosure in a group of trusted individuals is an essential step toward restoring the inner lives of hurting people. He describes how, in his research, an individual would unburden himself to a trusted group, and the group would respond with encouragement. As the person followed this guidance, he recovered self-respect, his fear diminished, he experienced forgiveness, and he was internally restored. This process, coupled with the guidance of the Word of God, produces noticeable healing.
A woman named Anita came to one of our small groups shortly after her daughter was killed in a traffic accident. Her son was permanently injured in the same wreck. This mother, who had been driving the car at the time of the accident, died a thousand deaths of guilt and terror; but by reaching down deep and unfolding her catalog of anguish to supportive group members, Anita found her life gradually restored by encouragement from the Word of God and a few caring individuals.
Over the past five years, the trial-and-error process in our self-disclosure sessions has produced guidelines that help our present groups function with increasing vitality. For instance, we try to see that most of the personal sharing leads from weaknesses rather than from strengths. In the early years, we discovered that too much recounting of our spiritual and moral successes, whether they are trivial or serious, tend to intimidate group members who are hurting. The hurting people either clam up completely or share insignificant surface problems just to pass the buck.
A case in point exists in the last issue (Summer, 1980) of this joumal. In the excerpt of the book Hurting Parents, a deeply troubled father attended a sharing session in which “one rather pious old lady stood up and told a trivial tale about misplacing some important book, and how she prayed and the Lord directed her right to the spot where it was. As I listened, I had to ask myself, ‘What kind of a God cares about lost books and won’t answer my prayers for the lost son I haven’t heard of for months?’ “
We also urge group members to balance their “I think” statements with “I feel” statements when they disclose themselves. Since we draw from a university community, we have many individuals who express themselves rationally and never really get in touch with their emotions. I’ve seen these people padlock their feelings and take all sorts of “head” trips, theological and philosophical excursions to keep from dealing with the real problems of personal adjustment. The need for rationality comes after the personal disclosure has been made. The group seeks to develop rational thought concerning biblical teachings as they deal with each felt need.
When people make themselves honest and vulnerable and begin to share felt needs, an overwhelming tendency exists for listeners to offer quick, shallow advice. In the past, we smothered a lot of important feelings that surfaced from the lives of vulnerable individuals. It took us a long time to learn how to simply say, “Tell us about it.” By exercising patience in this manner, we’ve often helped people not only to uncover their surface problems, but to dig deeper to the roots of their conflict.
“That crazy car of mine gives me trouble at the worst times.”
“Tell us about it.”
“A fear has been plaguing me for months.”
“I’ve had the same experience. How does it affect you?”
“Well, I come home after work . . . and you know, I’m really having problems at home.”
“What’s bothering you at home?”
“Well, the kids just don’t seem to want to respond to my authority anymore, and I don’t know what to do.”
It’s seldom as easy as this to get people to open up, but the point is that the listeners’ primary role is to help individuals get in touch with their feelings and needs, and to provide proper guidance by which they can deal with their problems in a biblical manner. Even if a person asks for specific counsel, we have found it best to withhold advice; yet we try to help him find the biblical truth for sound decision making.
Of course, an absolute principle in all of this is complete confidentiality about whatever is shared in the groups.
The fellowship grows in strength as it grows in trust. Deep relationships are built on spontaneous, uncalculating, unconditional love that says, “There is nothing you have done or will do that will make me stop loving you.” Anytime you deal with the disclosure of intimate, personal needs and struggles, you have the potential for explosions that can embarrass and devastate people. Fortunately, God has spared our groups from serious damage. The victories far outweigh the defeats.
I remember how Carl, an executive in a company he had expected to be with all his life, had been fired without notice from his job. A haunting fear of failure followed him as he looked for new employment in our community. Just staying in the community, where he was known by many, was an admission of failure to those who knew his situation. Finally, out of desperation, he shared his story with me and a small group. Getting in touch with his feelings and dealing with his inner conflict was tremendously painful, but the group’s encouragement, prayer, and sharing from the Word provided strength for Carl’s renewal. The miracle of this story continued as Carl and his wife Norma became leaders of their own small group within eighteen months. This “failure” disclosed his needs; he became vulnerable, and later emerged as one of the most capable leaders ever to inspire our congregation.
At approximately 9:15 the group leader closes the discipling fellowship by encouraging spontaneous prayers from each person. These prayers arise from what has been discovered in the Bible study and what has been shared by members. This is also the best time
of the evening for sharing which leads from strengths -the strengths of answered prayer.
What is the leader’s role? In the Bible study and personal sharing times he is a catalyst, encouraging participation from all members. But he is not to dominate, preach, give answers, share a body of truth, or lend advice. What he must do is help his people discover what the Bible says to them personally; he must help them get in touch with their feelings, communicate their feelings, and do something about their feelings in the light of biblical discoveries.
During the sharing time, three critical questions guide the leader in ministering to the group members and enabling them to minister to each other. The questions are:
How am I now?
What is my schedule during the next two weeks?
Who will I be with during that time?
Members are not absolutely obligated to answer these questions, but this is an effective way to learn how to pray for those who need help. Turning to my wife one night I began the sharing time with a lot of gusto saying, “Well, Vivian, how are you right now?”
“Frankly, I’m not doing very well,” she said. “You haven’t taken me out to dinner for months; I doubt if I could get an appointment with you at the office; and you still haven’t fixed the kitchen cabinet you promised to fix six months ago.”
I was speechless.
But the group prayed for us and held me accountable for following through on the promises I had made to Vivian. The following Saturday, one of the members came over and helped me fix the kitchen cabinet.
The leader is also responsible for seeing that a transition is made from the biweekly meeting to the lifestyle of discipleship in each member’s life. He’ll take members of his group with him when he shares the gospel with someone, when he ministers to a family in need, when his family plays puttputt golf. By phone and note, the leader also lets his people know he is with them in prayer about the major issues in their lives, and that he is available to them when they need him.
Typically in most churches, the pastor is seen as a hub from which many spokes originate and reach out to the congregation. If something doesn’t happen at the hub, it doesn’t happen. This desperately frustrates capable lay people, stifles leadership development, and burdens the pastor with a leadership burden no one individual can bear. In a discipling church, a network of intertwined relationships exists; the pastor is not the hub, rather he’s an enabler through whom relationships are formed and people are equipped, encouraged, and released for ministry.
For many years I had been swamped by a load of counseling and administration. As an enabler, I began to train people to help each other and to gradually assume leadership. People who had been spectators became enthusiastic participants; they became free to exercise their gifts in building the lives of other people. Group leaders constantly enable members to assume new roles, so there is a constant progression of new leadership in the congregation.
In the matter of pastoral counseling, I have a deep conviction: in most cases, problems have little chance for resolution if the person being counseled refuses to enter some form of fellowship with other Christians.
Here comes someone for the fifth time with the same problem. What do I tell him that I have not already said? What new things can he say? I’m deeply concerned about him, but do I take on his problems myself and thus limit my ability to help others?
John had just graduated from Purdue. He lacked self-confidence and was obsessed with his failure to make friends. His despondency was so serious that he was authentically suicidal. I reassured him over and over in our counseling sessions that he had a pleasant personality and would not find it difficult to make friends if he would involve himself in some group activities. He expressed numerous reasons why this would not work. He kept requesting counseling and started to become dependent on me. When I realized I wasn’t helping him, I told him that if I were to counsel him further, he would have to join one of our discipling fellowships where he would become acquainted with other people.
John agreed reluctantly and worked hard at isolating himself. He panicked when he had to carry on conversations. Eventually, though, some dedicated group members surrounded him with a web of low-keyed acceptance and much prayer. This group possessed a lot of patience and practiced all kinds of “holy sneakiness.” John began to work out deep emotional hurts that he would never have been able to deal with honestly and constructively in another context. The individual counseling sessions with me served only as an intersection to redirect him to some solid, caring fellowship.
Many of our members have built lifestyles of mutual encouragement by asking one another to hold them accountable for practicing disciplines of daily prayer, study of Scripture, sharing faith with non-believers, and helping those in need. The groups do not make rigid rules, nor do they pronounce judgment on members who fail to accomplish what they are being held accountable for. Each person selects his own course of action and is held accountable to accomplish it only if he so desires. Some of the richest times of fellowship have been at meetings when group members recount both their successes and failure of resolve. One may share that his plan to pray every morning at 6:15 for fifteen minutes did not work because he kept falling asleep. He may conclude, or someone may suggest, that he set a new time, perhaps in the middle of the day or right after work. Many will revise plans or find new areas to emphasize in the coming weeks. As people become more aware of their specific needs for growth and strength, they discover, with help from the group, the spiritual disciplines that help meet those needs.
In no way do I want to leave the impression that small groups are a panacea for every problem and nuance that arise in our congregation. They are spiritual fellowships that grow best when they feed off the teaching and preaching ministry of the church.
Furthermore, though our groups are invaluable for healing, support, and encouragement, they seldom function without tensions and motivation struggles. Often a group will have one member who attends regularly, but fails to commit himself to the dynamics of the group activities. We’ve found that such a group will frequently settle to a level of its weakest spiritual commitment.
For example, one group received a man who had suffered devastating loss of his job and had experienced overwhelming difficulty. Before I discovered what was going on, he had dominated the sharing time for fifteen weeks, paralyzed the spiritual growth of each person, and driven one man away who was just beginning to open up to the group.
Since some people are intimidated by group expansion, we constantly face the tension of asking committed members to leave their group so a new one can be formed. This is necessary, though, because new people need the leadership of stronger, more experienced members. Tensions, hassles, pressures-we always struggle. But our struggles are dwarfed by the redemptive healing and growth we’ve experienced.
Our groups are not homogeneous units. We encourage diversity of age, sex, marital status, and growth; and we’ve found this diversity essential to dynamic renewal. I vividly remember a young doctor’s wife named Mary who came to me for counseling. She was in desperate conflict with her husband whom she felt was seeing another woman. Feeling trapped in uncertainty, and unable to communicate with her husband, she desperately wanted to rebuild her shattered inner life. After praying with Mary and explaining the necessity of a Christ-centered commitment, I told her that the resolution of her problems was something I could do nothing about. This would occur only through regular involvement in a supportive fellowship. But which group should I send her to? The one with divorcees in it? She wasn’t divorced. The one with happily married couples in it? She certainly wasn’t happily married. I put her in touch with the leader of one of our crisis support teams-a group of dedicated church members committed to helping individuals of all ages in crisis situations. Mary became deeply involved in the group and eventually grew in her commitment to Christ. When her husband finally left home to live with another woman, Mary was shocked but not devastated. She hung on as she continued to receive the supportive fellowship of her group. None of the group members had experienced the kind of situation Mary was going through, but they cared for her with genuine love and concern. Mary’s strength, renewal, and devotion to Jesus Christ was deeply rooted in the soil of God’s Word and small-group discipleship.
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