I'm going to attempt to paraphrase a story I heard at a small-groups conference a little over a year ago, so please bear with me. The speaker was Randy Frazee. The story centered on Frazee's first attempt at small-group ministry as the senior pastor of a large church in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas.

Being the senior pastor, Frazee wanted to make sure that his small group was an example of excellence for the rest of the church to follow. So after much prayer and deliberation, he and his wife invited the most spiritual couple in the church to serve as co-leaders, and then the most athletic, most attractive, most intelligent, and most wealthy couples to round out the group. They called it their "Super Small Group."

The only problem was that the couples' homes were spread out, which meant that Frazee and his wife had to travel between 25 and 40 minutes each way to get to their group meeting every week. About this time, however, Frazee's new next-door neighbor - a real whiz at hospitality ...