Why You Need a Small Group

Theresa and I were in a big, big transition in our life. We had, moved to Texas. We had two little boys. I was just starting seminary and we found a, a local church there in the Dallas area. And this church had a couple thousand people. We came from West Virginia where a mega church was 250 or 300 people. It was very warm. The preaching was excellent. The worship was excellent. We would drop off our kids and it was just exciting and they loved to go to church. And the first time we were there, people invited us over to their home. We had a meal. We ate ice cream. I mean, if you were trying to create an experience, where you'd say that's what a church ought to do, it would be that.

And I'll never forget, maybe it was six weeks or eight weeks in of these wonderful after wonderful, after wonderful, after wonderful experiences at church. We were opening the door and I had my hand on, one of the handles, and Theresa did on the other. And our eyes met and I turned to her and I said, "Do you wanna go to church today?" And she said, "No." I said, "You know, neither do I." And there was a Wendy's, across the street and said, “Let's go get a cup of coffee.” And we sat down and we tried to figure out this is probably one of the best churches, best services, most friendly, very biblical, that we'd ever been to. So what's wrong? Why do I not want to go to church? We were being taught, we learned a lot, but we were ministering to no one. Nobody knows us. We don't know anybody else. There was no intimacy. No one in the church really felt close. Nothing more than casual hellos and passing concerns. We were relationally high and dry.

And I remember praying and I got up one morning and I thought to myself, I knew that leaders whether it's a pastor or business owner, we're looking for people that wanted to make a difference, that were willing to step in and serve. And so I got a three by five card out and I wrote, my name and some contact information, and then very brief bullet points of, I've led a college ministry and I've done this and I was involved in this, involved in that. And, then I, went to the church office during the week and I said, could I have an appointment with the pastor you know, big church and I'll never get there.

And, she smiled and, and looked on some calendars and then she gave me a date. And he had me meet at a restaurant. It was just like a diner, nothing fancy. And so we both sat down. And part of what I wanted to do was talk about where we might fit in the church. And, we had lunch and we talked and he asked me a few questions about my three by five card and this and that. Two days later I got a call from the church and they said, Hey, we have a large, high school ministry. And would you and your wife be willing to kind of help team up with the group that's there? There's a couple couples that are working there and figure out maybe what role you could have. And, yes, absolutely. And I taught here and there and, we connected with the church, we connected with those kids.

It was like two months later, he said, “Hey, we have a big vacancy. We don't really have much of a college ministry. Would you be willing to kind of step in and lead that? And my wife and I said yes, and we had the time of our life, going to seminary, leading this ministry. And as we would meet together, I would, disciple them and Theresa, the girls, and we would spend some time eating and sharing, worshiping with the guitar. And help the young guys learn how to communicate their faith and build bridges and love people.

And I look back and all of a sudden our world completely changed. I had all this pressure I was working full time, going to seminary full time. And the highlight of my week was, these 10 or 12 college students who really loved God, who were hungry and we were a part of their life. And you know, we had a baby during that time and they just all gathered around us and the group grew like crazy. And, yes, it was a lot of hours, but I don't know if I could have made it through seminary apart from that group.

And, and someone asked me, how do you do so much? And I thought, I'm learning so much, Greek and Hebrew and theology and every book of the Bible. The joy of teaching every week, that college group and if you don't give it out somewhere, you go crazy. And two things happened, we were using our gifts. We were building deep, authentic relationships and we got to be a part of people's lives changing. I had been a basketball coach and led a college ministry on the side as a lay person, and I knew about developing small groups and, discipling men, and I praised God for the bricklayer who discipled me. but I had never done it when there was that much pressure. I'd never done it when it was my lifeline, and it gave me a completely different view of The Church.

Today like never before, more people are not going to a local church. A lot of people have kinda left the church after COVID and for some very good reasons and for some not so good reasons. A lot of people are just online. Others you know, you go to church, and you hear someone speak and there's singing and there's some worship, and then you get up and make some small talk and you leave. And these ideas of life change and joy and peace and feeling connected and they just are not a part of a lot of very genuine, sincere Christians' lives. See the church isn't that building and the church isn't what I'm getting out of it as a consumer.

The church is the living supernatural body of Jesus. That's vital and it's organic and it's about people and it's about being connected. It's not going and listening to a message and evaluating that and maybe even putting it into practice. That's a very important part of it. I mean, I hope it's an important part of it because I've spent, decades of my life studying hard, praying hard, preparing messages to feed God's people. But what the Bible teaches is that we can't put it into practice alone. To be loved, and to belong and to change and to feel God's love and and to be used by Him and to discover spiritual gifts that can't happen by watching online. This is not a guilt trip, this is you're missing out. That can't happen by simply going to church. And I don't mean this as a bad word, but by being just a consumer, you have to move to being a participant.

I'm reading a book on, um, on emotions. It's by a theologian and he's a counselor and has lots of degrees. But he talks about the deepest longings, desires inside every human heart is number one, to be connected relationally with other people. And number two, your life making a difference. When you go to work, when you go to church, when you wake up, it's that idea of having purpose and meaning that what you actually do is making a difference. Apart from that, we lose hope, we lose meaning. We see it happening in young people in the next generation because once you lose absolute truth and once you have no spiritual religious orientation, well that means there's no 'Why I am here.’

And so often, they don't experience that when they visit a church, if they ever do visit a church. And the great majority of young people that have left the church is because they haven't been connected. And that longing and that belonging has not happened.

What I really wanna say is, Jesus really cares about you. He loves you. I mean, He really loves you and He's for you.

And we all have some common needs, and those common needs, they can't ever be satisfied by what can come across a screen that can't be satisfied by, even doing a good job or having a great, career or even marrying the right person? Loneliness and depression, the number one health issues in our world can only be solved by deep, enriching, honest, authentic relationships. And all of us are so insecure and all of us have so many defense mechanisms, and all of us are so afraid that people will get to know who we really are. We spend so much time posing in relationships. And Jesus so longs for us to come in honesty and authenticity and transparency. And that can't happen in a large group whether it's a hundred or 500 or 5,000 worshiping together. That large group worship service has a very, very vital and important place. But our personal relationships require the container of a small group.

Psychologists tell us, the only way to overcome the stress and pressure of life is some sort of small, supportive group. We kinda laugh sometimes you get a little bit older and if you look at teens in a high school and you got the sports group and they dress this way and sort of the music type group and they look this way and the more-nerdy people look this way and you know, sometimes we can laugh and say, that's what kids do. But, we want to belong. I mean it's inherent in every single human being.

And whether you're, 60 years old and on big Harley Davidson motorcycles with long hair, or whether you're preppy looking, or whether you're a software developer or whether you play softball on the weekends with this group, we all are looking for groups and belongings. And then we dress in ways and we speak in ways that we are desperate for people to say, I want to be in this group because I'm desperate for someone to know me and I can know others in a meaningful way. Our greatest desires is to be known and to discover who we are and that our life has meaning and value and that we're to have that and love and acceptance with other people. Where and how do you get that? What I know is that there's a small percentage of followers of Christ and there's a small percentage of people who go to church regularly, that are in what I would call an authentic, deep relational small group.

This fall, we're gonna really cast a vision to say you need to be in a small group. we're gonna talk about all of our small group resources that we make some things that every believer needs to study. We have it on video and we have it in different formats. And you can tell me, well, my, my church really doesn't provide that. I'm gonna say fine, you start one. I will tell you this, instead of just giving you some great content and having you watch a video or study something on your own, I will lead the small group. You put the video on teaching's only about 25 minutes. I'll lead the first few minutes of that group you don't have to be alone.

If you just open your home, invite some friends. And you would be shocked if you said to a group of people, my house, we're gonna do this it's eight weeks or whatever, and why don't you come. Ask one person, Hey, would you mind maybe bringing some drinks a few snacks? And you just do that together and yeah, it's awkward the first week or two, but, in all of our small group resources that we make in the back of them, we give you, hey, here's, how to set up, here's how to kind of lead and facilitate things. Here's a few things not to do. And I just can't tell you how critical and important this is. We've just launched hundreds of thousands of groups all across America and places around the world, and we help people get connected. We help people belong. We help people discover that God will show up in it.

And I told you, you know, we've been doing lots and lots of teaching and we just taught through the entire book of Philippians. And what I wanna encourage you is, is hearing about that is good, but getting that kind of information and then a discussion where you share and where, yes, the truth of that becomes at the core of meeting, but then you begin to share your life and your struggles and your ups and your downs, and you begin to really authentically and openly pray for one another. And as you begin to go on that journey, God will show up.

I remember, I was, coming off of one of my many back surgeries, and I realized that, my attempts getting back with it were not doing well, and I'm kind of cheap, so I didn't want to pay a personal trainer, but I realized, I've gotta get strong again and I'm not doing well on my own. And so there was a place I didn't know anybody there, and I pulled in and, said hi to the guy and told him what I needed to do. And he said, well, this last person's done let me do a little interview. And he got a clipboard out and asked me a bunch of questions. And we got through, I don't know, maybe 10, 12 questions, 15 minutes.

And he looked at me and said, you sound very familiar. I said, well, what do you mean I sound familiar? He goes, well, I've heard your voice. And then he kinda looked down at the clipboard. He goes, are you Chip Ingram like the guy that's on the radio. I said, well, yeah. And he, he broke out in this big smile and I said, you gotta be kidding me. And he then began to tell me his story. It's one of the most powerful stories, I've ever heard, and we have now been friends well over 10 years since. And he told me the story of being involved in full-time Christian work and having a, huge moral failure, lost his family. Later married the woman that he was having the affair with, had a couple kids with her.

And he lived in that life for well over a decade. And then God got a hold of his heart. And I had met him shortly after he had really come back to the Lord, a really deep repentance. He had gone back and rebuilt bridges and apologies, was making amends, was living in a very, very difficult situation. You can imagine the struggles, the guilt, the shame, the issues he had to overcome. In the midst of all this, we would work out three times a week and he was a great trainer and I was making progress and we shared a lot. And as we talked, month after month after month, I realized that there was something missing. And I said, do you know why you can't get over the hump? You need a group, man. No one can do this alone.

You're the most disciplined person I know. You're in the Scriptures. You're praying, you're making every effort. you can't do this alone. You need a small group. And he goes, oh, my, my schedule. I can't do this. I can't do that. I'm working multiple times and doing this and doing that. And I had a buddy at a church who's doing a real early morning, small group at 6:15 three, 400, guys were coming to it. And then they would break into groups. I said, you need to go to that. He's a good friend, he's a great teacher. You'll meet great men there. The guy rearranges his schedule, and that was the beginning of life, of the Spirit of God, using other men, of being understood, of being loved, of realizing he wasn't alone. And that was for two years or so.

And then pretty soon, they were taking a big, big break for like months and his group didn't want to take a break. And so he kept going and he led it and, and then after that, there was another guy that had a friend and so he starts another group. And all these years later, he leads about four different groups. He has led more people to Christ, his 88-year-old father and like 90-year-old mother. And if you really think about it, any group of people have found the secret of life change, they realize, you gotta do it in a group.

You gotta have real people that get to know you and you know them. And so here's my plea. You need a small group. And if you don't have one launch, one, you don't know how we'll help you. But Christians need to live like Christians for their good and for the glory of God, and Christians cannot live like Christians apart from authentic community. And authentic community, happens in the context or the container of a small group. And that's my prayer, that's my longing for you.