Thanks for Reminding Me

Rob Bell in his book Velvet Elvis defines Community as "Together, with others, wrestling and searching and engaging the Bible as a group of people hungry to know God in order to follow God".

I had the priveledge of speaking to a group of about fifty men Sunday night at another church. The leadership there feel a need for community, especially for men, in their church and they want to begin a small groups model. They asked me to speak on the need for men to find community in order to engage in a growing relationship with God and become the leaders in their homes, church and communities that God intended for them to be.

Men have a unique set of issues that we deal with just being men. The statistics on struggles such as divorce, anger, drug and alcohol dependency, pornography and sexual addictions within the church are staggering and men tend to try to make the go alone and we end up being miserable posers, really empty inside and distanced from God.

I won't go into all of the details but suffice to say that God was present and I was humbled to see how He worked in hearts that night and brought 15 or so forward that acknowledged the need to address the "junk" in their lives and how they longed to be in the company of other men and fellow believers that could give them the accountability, belonging and care that only genuine authentic community can provide.

We all struggle at times with the implimentation of small groups and the pushback that comes with it. But as I was reminded Sunday night, Small Groups are the hope for healthy spiritual growth and the future of our Christian leadership. Small Groups are THE best environment for sustained life change.

As small group pastors and staff members, we need to continuously encourage those we lead to "Together, with others, wrestle and search and engage the Bible and be hungry to know God in order to follow God" to the best of our abilities. Community is that important. We can't ever give up.