Jesus was in a small group, wasn’t he? It was basically him and 12 other dudes that wondered the towns together, studied together, and partied together. He shared life and relationship intimately with these other guys as they traveled from place to place.
But they didn’t stay together forever. In fact, they all scattered into the lands and the world to share the Gospel with the nations. They were fulfilling Jesus command to “Go and make disciples of the nations…” so staying together wasn’t even an option.
I have the privilege of working with numerous churches and we often discuss this exact topic. The question that often comes up is: Do we encourage our small groups to stay together or do we encourage them to multiply or split to make room for others? Isn’t this a bit tricky? Everything in us wants to simply build strong friendships and community so that we can grow closer together and closer toward God. But then there’s that thing that Jesus said that we should be fishers of people and make disciples. Should all groups be missional?
So if you’re in a life group, community group, neighborhood group, affinity group, small group, or simply around a group of other Christian believers, maybe the question should be, “Why do we get together?” or more bluntly stated, “What is the main objective of our group?”
Is it for community and relationship and connection with God?
or…
Is it for making disciples and proclaiming God’s good news to those that are far from him?
What do you think? Is it time to rethink small groups?
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