Life Change

I was reading an article in Christian Standard a friend of mine wrote about Small Groups. Read it here.

In it Brian Jones talks about the effectiveness of small groups. I agree with the point he was making because small groups for the sake of church growth is a bunch of hoo-hoo. The tension we have at Northwest is trying to create Life Groups where life change happens and having a home Bible Study.

I am all for studying the Bible but if it is not making a difference in your life then all you have obtained is Bible knowledge. I heard Mike Breaux say one time, "There are a lot of people who have marked up their Bibles but have never let their Bibles mark up them." What he is saying is that there are many people who can tell you what the Bible says but do not live what the Bible says.

There were a lot of responses to Brian's article (you can read those at the link above also) because he challenged people to rethink the value of small groups. He wrote a response himself and this quote from his response nailed it:

"Small groups began (and I’m dating myself here) as a church growth tool. They are awesome at making people feel connected. But feeling connected isn’t the point. I’m sick of people who are super-connected in the church having affairs, watching porn, stealing money from work, and treating their kids like they are orphans. No doubt small groups help people feel connected. But do people emerged changed after spending a year or two spending 1.5 hours a week, every other week (excluding holidays and summertime) with other people in these groups?"

Life Change should be the end result of Worship, Sunday School, small groups and any other program in the church designed to get people connected. Being connected does not mean you have a bunch of friends you hang out with occasionally. We can do that at any of the many local clubs in town.

Jesus called it making disciples. In Matthew 28:19-20 we are always quick to say this means we are to evangelize the world. But that is not the whole truth. Jesus said to go make disciples who observe what he taught.

The word "observe" (tereo) in the Greek means, "to attend to carefully." We are to make disciples who carefully follow the ways of Jesus.

A changed life that resembles the life of Jesus is what the church was created to accomplish. It is not a place to gather people, whether in large groups or small groups, who call themselves Christians. It was created to make authentic followers of Jesus.