Why Small Group Bible Studies? Part II

Small groups are also the place where people grow in their faith through Bible study and prayer. Most proponents of small groups from Wesley on have made this their primary emphasis. Our groups are, after all, Bible studies. As we gather together around the Word of God we can share our insights and understanding and challenge each other to live out the things that we study--and to hold them accountable for doing so. We receive insights and ideas from our fellow group members that we might never come to on our own. The Lord has made a special promise to his followers that "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am among them." It is the Holy Spirit who opens the Scriptures to explain them to us, who opens our minds to understand the Word of God and our hearts to receive its life changing message. The Lord uses the working of the Holy Spirit working in one person to bless and challenge another. While it is important to have our own personal Bible study time daily, we are especially challenged to expand our understanding and interpretation of Scripture when we hear how our brothers and sisters in Christ have understood a given passage.

Small group Bible study is also an excellent means of evangelism. It is very threatening for people who don't go to church to attend a worship service. It is much less threatening to come into someone's living room to meet with a small group of friends and neighbors to study the Bible. Since the goal of small group Bible study is to interact with the Bible together, everyone in attendance is learning from the Bible and from one another. People can read and discuss the message of Scripture and come to terms with, "Thus saith the Lord..." Small groups are the milieu where unbelievers can see how Christians actually understand and apply the Word of God and how they share their burdens with one another, uphold one another in prayer and generally are real with one another. In short, here they see the gospel lived out in flesh and blood. In my years as a missionary working among students, au pair girls, resident artists and others in Florence, Italy, the focal point of this ministry was a weekly Bible study. The fellowship was warm and rich and the studies of Scripture challenging. Years after people left Florence, they would tell me things like, "Where can I find the same depth of fellowship that we had in our Bible study group?" or "I had never been to a Bible study until I came to the one at your place, and now I'm leading one in my own home." The people in that group who came to faith in Christ came through the study of Scripture, of the claims of Jesus Christ written down in the passages that we studied. "So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." (Rom. 10:17)

An answer to prayer

Each Friday during lunch hour a group of us gather to pray, interceding for people that we would like to see come into the Kingdom of God. We call it the "evangelism prayer meeting". We have been doing this for some 9 years or so, and we know that God has answered many of our prayers. Occasionally someone for whom we have been praying lets us know how our prayers have been answered.

Last week we prayed for Mike Erickson's speaking engagment with CBMC on April 20. Today I received this message:

Dear Cora and Prayer Partners, I wanted to write a quick note to everyone that prayed for the CBMC outreach/speaking engagement on last Wednesday. First ,Thank you for praying for me and the event. Fifty + people attended and the fellows that run the program estimated that about 30% or 15-20 people were not Christians. They reported that three people prayed for salvation and several others asked for additional information and follow up! Praise Him ! I don't know many of you but I felt your prayers. Please pray for the fellow up team , for the new believers assurance and for these dear souls that this would be the beginning of a deep and lasting relationship to the Lord.To God be the glory. Sincerely Mike Erickson

Why Small Group BIble Studies?

The other day a pastor, recently hired to oversee the development of a network of small groups in his church, called to discuss how to do this job. Since he called basically to pick my brains, he asked, "Why should we have small groups anyway?" I'm glad he asked.

First of all, for fellowship and ministry to one another. In a large congregation it is very difficult to get to know everyone. As our membership now exceeds 1700, it's quite impossible even to say "Good morning" to everyone. If people are going to develop meaningful relationshps with one another they have to be in smaller groups so that they can get to know at least a small number of people in greater depth.

The Psalmist said, "He sets the lonely in families." Sometimes a family actually adopts a lonely person and lets him or her be part of their family activities. Most often, the church becomes the lonely person's family. We can practice being the Lord's family best in family-sized groups. Here at Tenth Church over the years, members of small groups have ministered to one another in great depth, particularly as various members experienced trials, sickness, hardship even the prospect of death. At least two of our groups have ministered to their members right up until their dying moments.

Although not everyone's needs are life and death matters, the Scripture tells us to "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." It is generally in small groups that people feel freest to share their burdens and to ask for prayer and support and encouragement. Generally it is the people in one's small group that pray for a person in difficulty and ask for updates each time that they meet. They keep the person accountable for following through with his or her responsibility for their well being and their spiritual development, and in times of difficulty are there for their member who may be hurting. This is, after all, the place where the "Body Life" of the church takes place.

Small groups exist for more than just the care and nurture of members. We'll consider more aspects of small group ministry in another edition. Stay tuned!

John Stott in New York

John Stott, who will be 85 this week, I believe, made what will be his last trip to New York earlier this month. On April 12 he spoke on "Toward Christian Maturiity" at a meeting sponsored by the New York Women's Bible Society. Far more people wanted to attend this meeting than the NY Fire Department allow in the allotted space. For me it was thrilling to see so many people interested in Christian Maturity.

According to his figures, some 30,000 people per day make professions of faith in Christ on the African continent and 18,000 per day on the Indian subcontinent, but few of these people actually go on to Christian maturity. Accordingly, John Stott and colleagues have founded "John Stott Minstries Internationl" to train pastors and Bible teachers in the developing world to teach the Bible in greater depth.

Why don't we have more Christian maturity? Because we have an indadequate vision of who Jesus Christ is. He is not Jesus Christ Superstar or the clown of Godspell. Where do we get an adequate vision of Christ? In the Bible. Colossians chapter one tells us

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things
were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
powers or rulers or authorities: all things were created by him and for him. He is before
all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head f the body, the church; he
is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have
the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him, and through him
to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making
peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

How then do we grow to Christian maturity? By reading the Bible and praying to our incomprable Savior.