The mission statement of Northeast Christian Church is "to team with God in turning unchurched people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ." Many of the small groups at the church, however, could be described as "perpetual 'holding tanks' where Christians [had] become increasingly comfortable with each other and themselves, and increasingly disconnected from the world." In his May 2003 article, "The Us Four and No More Syndrome," Dan Lentz uses the preceding quote to describe the drift our small groups – and, I suspect, many more in American churches – have undergone over the years. They have drifted toward "ingrowth" instead of outreach. They have drifted toward a "toxic self-absorption" where "us" became all that mattered, and where "spiritual impact is rarely contemplated beyond the borders of the group." They have drifted away from the mission.
In Building a Contagious Church, Mark Mittelberg calls this drift "the second law of spiritual dynamics," which "warns us that all of us in the Christian community, left to ourselves, move toward spiritual self-centeredness. The evangelism value we are trying to reinforce must constantly compete with this gravitational pull inward." (p. 106).
My guess is that our small groups are not the only ones that have experienced this drift. But what can we do to stop the drift? Mittelberg says that overcoming this inward drift is possible, "but it takes unrelenting effort and cooperation with the work of the Holy Spirit within us. We must make the full effort, doing everything possible to expand our hearts for lost people and to own and live out our evangelistic mission, values, and strategy."
At Northeast, we have taken at least three steps to stop the drift inward and intentionally move our groups toward living out the mission. We have:
- instilled Biblical values,
- inspired and celebrated outward successes,
- and implemented a practical strategy to help groups move and stay outwardly focused.
Instill Biblical Values
Our mission statement is based, of course, on Jesus' Great Commission. Within that mission, we found five Biblical values supported throughout the New Testament.
First, our mission starts with God. The church and every small group within it is His enterprise. It will only be by His presence and power that His church will be built so that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. His promise of His presence "where two or three gather together" is only true when they meet together in His name. Small groups will never bear fruit without getting this value right first. They must be connected to the Vine to bear much fruit. Apart from Jesus, they will do nothing! Our first value, therefore, is Upward: Connect with God.
Second, accomplishing our mission requires teamwork. God intends for His church to be built in and through community. He intends for His church to function as we do life together, as all the "one another" passages in the New Testament illustrate. This provides our second value: Inward: Connect with One Another in Community. Note that our first two values come straight from Jesus' Great Commandment: to love the Lord, our God with all we have and to love others as ourselves.
Third, our mission is to make disciples, to reach out to what we lovingly call "unchurched people." People matter to God, and they should matter to us too. God desires for His children to have His heart for people who are still far from Him. So, our third value is Outward: Make Disciples.
Fourth, our mission continues as we turn these people into fully devoted followers of Jesus – we teach them to obey everything Jesus has taught us. God desires for every Christian to grow, and keep growing. Spiritual growth must not be just incidental in a small group; we must have a real strategy for making it happen. Bible study for the sake of knowledge is not enough. Transformation, not just information, is the goal. As people grow to become more like Christ, they will naturally take on His mission to "seek and save the lost." Our fourth value, therefore, is Forward: Mature Disciples.
Fifth, we realize that none of this happens magically – it takes leadership to accomplish the mission, so we must discover, develop, and deploy leaders constantly. The eleven men that Jesus gave His commission to directly could not have carried it out by themselves. They had to deploy others to make disciples of all nations. And we must continue to develop and deploy leaders today until we have finally carried out Jesus' mission completely. Our fifth value, then, is Onward: Mobilize Disciples. Note that the last three values come straight from the Great Commission.
These five values provide the foundation on which our small group ministry is built. Living out these values in balance assures health and fruitfulness.
We have implemented these values in a variety of ways. I have taught them to every emerging and new leader in our Basic Training course. I speak about them at other Coach and Leader training events. I put them on the signature line of my email. I put together a curriculum for new groups based on them. We have built everything we do as a ministry around them. They have become more than just five values. They have become a strategy for our groups. They provide the buoys that mark the course for our small groups to follow to remain on course.
Inspire and Celebrate Outward Successes
All of our five values are equally important, but we realized we needed to recognize and reward groups even more when they succeed at the two O's: Outward and Onward, because these two seem to be where most of the drifting occurs. They have been the values that most groups struggle with the most.
In training, we give practical methods and resources for each value. For instance, for the Outward value, we know how important it is for individual group members and entire groups to pray for unsaved friends. Prayer is powerful and effective, but it also inspires group members to become more intentional in building redeeming relationships with people who matter to God. We provide every new leader with "The Blessing List" a great tool from TOUCH Outreach Ministries to help groups pray intentionally for their circles of influence. We also provide several other practical ideas, methods, and resources to help groups live out these two values every time they meet.
Another way we cast the vision for these two values is to give every leader a baton – like those used by relay race teams – with a label reading "NECC Life Group Leader – Pass It On!" This blue baton is not for them to keep, but to pass on to their leader in training when he or she is sent out to start a new group. When that happens, the sending leader receives another blue baton to pass on to someone else and a silver baton engraved with his or her name and the sending date; this one they get to keep and show off! We do the same for our coaches, who get green and then gold batons for developing and deploying new coaches for new huddles. We celebrate when the baton is passed because that is the real mark of success. More than anything, we want to see freshly redeemed people get into a Life Group where they will grow in the midst of community, get involved in the life of the group, begin to take on more active roles in the leading of the group, become a leader in training, be developed as a future leader, and finally be deployed as a new leader.
Last month we had our first annual Life Group Celebration Banquet, a fun evening where we appreciate and celebrate and honor all our small group leaders, leaders in training, and coaches. We give fun and often funny awards to group leaders for all kinds of things, but we are most serious and do the most celebrating over those who have born fruit in the Outward and Onward values. This year our plan is to celebrate these successes throughout the year as well in our quarterly Life Groups newsletter and in any other way we can.
Implement a Practical Strategy
It's not enough just to instill values and inspire leaders, although these are necessary, we must also implement a real, practical strategy that will help leaders accomplish the mission.
One of our "problems" in our small groups ministry was assimilating new people into groups. One of the struggles, we found, was that it is very difficult for people to connect into a group that is in the middle of a study. We've also observed that new people to our church didn't just want to be in a group of strangers studying a topic unrelated to everything else going on in the church. They want something that connects what they hear in our weekend services to real life in a group of people just like them, going in the same direction as them. Especially the under-30 crowd does not simply want to hear a message, they want to discuss it with others, apply it to real life, and live it!
Out of all these issues, we developed and implemented what we simply call Message Groups – groups that meet to discuss, apply, and seek to live out the sermon message from our weekend services. Each week we supply a Message Application Page (or "MAP" for short) that people can use for personal or group study. The MAP is heavy on application and action steps, with some opportunity for accountability (as little or much as they are ready for).
We are finding that it is not only easier to get into a Message Group than the typical curriculum-driven groups, but that spiritual growth is much more available as well. Here are a few more reasons, straight off our church web page, why Message Groups are working for us:
Everyone can participate equally. Every person who attends a weekend service knows what topic to expect and can ask questions or express thoughts which the sermon may have prompted
Real friendships can develop. In Message Groups, the ground for discussion is laid during the Weekend Services. This leaves more time for voicing our experiences, investigating issues, and getting to know one another better through shared learning and laughter.
Spiritual Growth. One of our small group leaders said, "Our Life Group discussed how good it would be if small groups could follow the weekend sermons with a small group study that coincides with the church's annual direction. … Do you know how powerful and life changing that could be?" Now we do!
Openness. It is often difficult to join a group that uses a printed curriculum guide for their study, because once they start a new study, new people can feel like they are "behind." In Message Groups, however, you can connect in a group anytime if you have heard the sermon that week
Low-cost. Groups never have to pay for curriculum! It will be provided free at each weekend service
Focus. Maybe the BEST reason is what you might call the Law of Concentration. That is, when you study one thing in more depth, it is a lot more likely to stick. Many of us hear one message in our weekend services, get another on a radio program we listen to, get another in our own personal study time, and yet another in small group! We can be a mile wide and an inch deep! We don't want that to be the case. Message Groups will allow you to focus on one thing in a given week and really apply what you are learning to your life.
Are all of our small groups at Northeast completely open to new people, reaching out to lost people, and developing and deploying new leaders? No, not yet anyway! We are still learning. We are still trying to find new entryways into small groups. We are still encouraging groups to be open and growing. We know that stopping the drift inward so that our groups can truly be on mission will be a constant challenge. That's my mission!
