About

This blog is intended to be a resource for those who want to lead a small group as an experience of church.  More than just providing certain benefits like community, relationships, help, care, etc, small groups can be seen and experienced AS CHURCH. 

Too often people associate church with a rather passive once-a-week event, a building, a set of programs, and a professional staff.  Yet, what we see in the New Testament are organic, Christ-centered, multiplying, small group oriented churches that seek to utilize the gifts of all involved for the growth of the kingdom.  Fortunately, we don’t have to look back 2,000 years for a model of the New Testament Church.  Small groups as churches is a growing movement in the U.S. and worldwide as people seek a closer, more relational, expression of Church.

The real goal, however, is not to create more small groups – or even churches.  That’s not what God measures.  The real goal is to create more disciples who create more disciples. 

As the small groups pastor for DBC, my goal is not to create community (it can’t be “created”) nor is it to control the ministry (control is an illusion.)  A small groups ministry as a “program” is minimally successful at best – even when run like a machine.  Some of the most successful “small group” churches only claim 30 – 35% participation in their groups.  And those are now coming to see that actually only a fraction of those involved are actually being changed by the experience.

My goal then, is to plant seeds and offer invitations.  I want to pass on what has been given to me as a disciple of Jesus.  I want to start conversations about what it means to follow Jesus.  I want to stir up unrest for people to experience spiritual community and invest in the lives of others.  I want to plant seeds that tap the hunger for a relational experience of Christianity.  No longer am I content just to show up to church on Sundays.  I believe community as expressed in the “one anothers” of the NT is part of the DNA of what it means to be church.  All we have to offer people is Jesus and ourselves.  A program is not enough.

This blog will explore these ideas in more detail and seek to support leaders in their efforts to offer people Jesus and community – the only real things the church has to offer.