Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Small Groups

  • The Importance of Studying Together

    The Importance of Studying Together

    Church and Sunday School are two different activities. Both can be valuable in one’s Christian life, but they do not substitute for one another.

    Sunday School has generally been in decline over the last few years, but I think there’s something even more important. Sunday School has too often been a light review of scriptures, taught in a general way and not an education that helps people grow in both faith and action.

    I looked at some statistics for Sunday School attendance, but didn’t find anything that addresses this specific problem. There’s a general decline in Sunday School attendance as opposed to church attendance, but there are many variables.

    My primary question is this: What is Sunday School attendance doing to make you a better disciple and to help you fulfill the Gospel Commission?

    Here are some questions:

    1. How long has it been since you learned something new in Sunday School?
    2. How long has it been since your Sunday School lesson led you to further Bible or other study during the week?
    3. Have you been encouraged to learn something about your neighbors, especially those not like you?
    4. Have you been encouraged to take positive action by something you studied?
    5. Have your beliefs been connected to a way of living in the world?

    These are not difficult questions. But sometimes making your Sunday School and church programs help people accomplish these things might be quite difficult.

    I have frequently encountered someone in Sunday School who has heard the preacher say something about witnessing, or helping those in need, or building up and serving in the church and community. They almost always have the question: How do I do it?

    And that’s where Sunday School should shine. This is a time for people to learn how to put things into action.

    I’m not one who thinks this has to happen on Sunday. Small groups that meet at other times are also good. The problem is to get people involved in such groups and to keep the groups from becoming another “check the box” activity. Small groups of any kind are not to make God like you more. God already loves you. These are to help you thrive in the life you now live by faith.

    Is this your experience? If not, why not? How do we grow more?

  • Underlying Principles for Christian Education and Discipleship

    Underlying Principles for Christian Education and Discipleship

    Chalk rubbed out on blackboard

    … and with that pretentious title.

    Actually, last night I talked on the Energion Tuesday Night Hangout (I’ll embed the video at the end as well) about Christian education and how one might go about choosing curriculum.

    My sister, Betty Rae, asked me a question via e-mail this morning, and I thought it was so on point that I would post her comments and my response here. What am I actually up to at Energion Publications? For those who wonder, yes, my sister and I communicate like this quite a bit.

    From her comments:

    I have been trying to understand what is the purpose or goal you have in what you are doing.  I think I may have glimpsed something tonight.  Please tell me if I am right.

    The early NT church consisted of home gatherings.  They had no center of worship, like the Jerusalem Temple.  So All that was Christian centered in these small groups.  Luther calls them “small companies;”  Ellen White, “little companies.”  So if there is a difficulty with the church at large, the church may be preserved in the “small study groups,” as you are calling them.  I saw in your presentation that you are encouraging the preservation of the individuality of individuals and groups.  Your presentation tonight holds great significance as I see it.  By leaving the groups free, even to making them free not to use your materials, room is left for the working of the Holy Spirit.  Hopefully, the small groups will follow that example, and also leave the individuals in their groups free.

    The time will come, however, if there is religious oppression, that small groups will be suppressed; as an example, “The Conventicle Act” in England, for disobeying of which John Bunyan spent 12 years in prison.  During times of religious revival and opposition, believers were forced to meet in small groups, even outdoors in forests and mountains, for which they were severely punished if they were caught. John Wesley was forced, even to preach out of doors, when denied access to the churches.  The Advent Movement believers met in small groups after they were thrown out of the churches, coming together in camp meetings.

    On an individual basis, churches in this country have already persecuted and tried to suppress small groups, calling them “cults.” (The devil will always mix his counterfeit in with the true.  Fear of being called a “cult” has discouraged the “small group.”)  One thing that drew disapproval was the groups’ using of materials “unauthorized” by the denomination, which you addressed tonight in your presentation.  Your work may be small, but who hath despised the day of small things!

    Here’s my response:

    One of my fundamental beliefs is that spiritual choices made through duress, emotional manipulation, or spinning data are of no positive benefit and are indeed destructive. Thomas Aquinas and I are not even playing on the same ball field on this one!

    I carry this so far as to say that if I were helping to bring a Jew into Christian fellowship (no human “converts” anyone), I would want to make sure that person understood Judaism as well as Christianity to be sure he or she is making a choice that is as informed and as free as possible. Similarly, if a person is kept in the church because he or she was prevented from getting outside information, that brings no glory to God. While it may build up the church organization, the Kingdom of God is not built.

    I could summarize this by saying that God’s kingdom cannot be built by deception, and trying to deny people information from another perspective is deception. That’s the reason leaders do it. The leadership is afraid that if we, the followers, have information other than what they approve, we might decide differently than we have.

    This is often done for the best of motives. In the church, the idea is to prevent people who are less informed from being led astray. So information is restricted in pursuit of truth. But just because an approach is intended to accomplish something does not mean it will accomplish that. We often give credit to people for being well-intentioned, but the universe does not. The laws of physics don’t care about your intention. You may intend to fly when you jump off the cliff, but gravity (and the rocks below) does not say, “I’ll give him/her credit for having good intentions.” It’s just plain splat!

    Similarly in politics we have a desire to limit information to what is accurate and unbiased. I agree that the internet provides a huge reservoir of material that ranges from misleading in presentation to flat out wrong. But those who would like to clean that up somehow, other than by countering false with true, are playing with fire. Whether it’s by controlling political spending or trying to narrowly define a “real” journalist, it’s going to head toward control, and control will lead to mass falsehood and delusion. The universe will not regard the supposedly truth-loving intentions of the censors.

    So I do advocate freedom in ideas, and I follow that belief in the small (very small) world of my publishing business. I restrict what I publish not because I think the other stuff is bad, but simply to define a reasonable audience for me to try to address.

    At the same time I personally advocate a program of education in churches, however carried out, that makes sure people are aware of the full range of ideas that are out there. Carrying this out will involve reading books that are written by people who disagree with and disapprove the church’s views as well as hopefully hearing directly from them. There’s nothing like hearing an idea from an advocate. I may be ever so careful to present my adversaries position, but hearing me is not as good as hearing them.

    Those are the beliefs that underlie what I said about curriculum last night.

    And for those who might need context, the actual presentation:

  • Of United Methodists and Beth Moore

    From time to time various Methodists get very worked up about the idea that members of United Methodist congregations are using Beth Moore studies in their study groups and Sunday School classes. Via Facebook I encountered an older post regarding Methodists and Beth Moore. That article is actually quite restrained and gentle by comparison to some of the discussion I’ve heard. The author makes some good points, but I think, perhaps, not enough good points.

    My first thought is that if you are a United Methodist pastor or church leader and your worst problem is that your members are spending too much time listening to Beth Moore, you should spend some serious time thanking the Lord for your blessings.

    It’s not that I agree with everything Beth Moore says. In fact, I likely disagree with a good percentage. I really haven’t bothered to make a list. She’s probably more literal than I am, and we doubtless disagree on matters of biblical criticism. Besides, I don’t particularly like watching videos in a study group or class. I’d rather get together to actually study or listen to someone who is present. So my point is not to be an apologist or a critic — of Beth Moore, that is.

    What I’m wondering is why so many people in the church, and particularly the United Methodist Church (since I’m a member), think they can or should control what people hear.

    Oh, I know the arguments. We have a responsibility to teach good theology. We have a duty to teach sound biblical knowledge. We are Methodists (or whatever), after all, and that should mean something!

    Should it really? I find denominations useful, sort of. They could be a great means of getting us to work together for missions that are bigger than local church congregations. Ideally, they can provide some sort of accountability. I happen to like the United Methodist doctrinal distinctives, which is why I joined a Methodist congregation.

    Trouble is, I found out rather quickly that very few Methodists were aware of their doctrinal positions, if it’s proper to call these positions “theirs” if they don’t know what they are. Before I joined my first United Methodist congregation I asked for something that would tell me what Methodists believed, officially and clearly. The pastor gave me a copy of the United Methodist Discipline, clearly with serious misgivings. I loved it. Well, the first 100 pages or so. The rest is well nigh useless, and I’m convinced that most gospel work done by Methodists results from someone ignoring the rules.

    After reading that first part of the Discipline, I decided I could get on board with this new church, and so I joined. Then I discovered that Methodists weren’t really acquainted with their own history. The orientation to the church, in which one speaker explained that John Wesley had been influenced by Karl Marx (perhaps with the intervention of Dr. Who, though he made no mention of it), was biblically, doctrinally, and historically ignorant.

    The pastor invited me to teach a series on Sunday nights about the doctrine of Christian Perfection. I was interested to note that there are two full statements of this doctrine in the Discipline, and chose to start from that point. As I flashed up my overhead transparencies, I was disappointed to discover that nobody was interested in the fact that there were two statements (really a bit more complicated than that), because they hadn’t been aware that there was even one. I found that growing up Seventh-day Adventist, I had learned more about John Wesley and Wesleyan theology than I would find around the Methodist church.

    This was not a matter of personal pride. I had these things drilled into me as a child. I really couldn’t have avoided knowing them if I wanted to. Further, I’d be unlikely to complain about the problem, except for a related tendency I found as time went on.

    That related tendency was the idea that we needed to make sure to teach Methodists only Methodist doctrine, thus protecting them from all that other stuff that was flooding the world. If we could just keep them listening to only Methodist teachers, everything would be OK. Unfortunately, I suspect that most crazy ideas have a Methodist champion somewhere.

    Now there are a number of non-Methodist doctrines I would love to protect Methodists from. I wouldn’t mind protecting everyone else as well. The whole Left Behind series and related “prophecy” material would be a start. I don’t like it and I don’t even like to have to take the time to respond to it. It’s that bad. In my opinion, of course.

    But people are going to hear that point of view of the book of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature, and I’m going to have to respond. And despite any tendency to wish it would go away, I know I’m wrong to do so. The right response is to do better teaching on other views. If we get people studying for themselves and help them to learn to study well, they will find the flaws in these various trends on their own.

    Or they might come up with the arguments that would make me realize I’ve been wrong. Regarding the whole futurist/dispensational view of prophecy, I doubt they will, but they could. The point is that they should have the opportunity to do so.

    What’s more, with modern media and the internet, it’s ridiculous to think that you will protect your congregation from hearing things you’d rather they not hear. Telling people they can’t study certain things or hear certain speakers is likely to have the opposite effect.

    And then there’s the question of whether you really have anything better to teach at all. I’ve heard this type of complaint from people who couldn’t construct a sound biblical argument in a room full of commentaries (even if they ignored the commentaries!). They simply wouldn’t know. But they can tell whether a teacher’s denominational credentials are in order.

    I recall one church that had a young adult class that was growing and getting popular. There were young adults who didn’t even attend church who were coming to the class and enjoying the discussions. The church leadership, clearly dismayed at the success of this class, decided they needed to bring it under control. They were reading and discussing unapproved books. So they found a teacher who would follow the party line, and thus managed to reduce the membership of the class to zero in a mere four weeks.

    Another Methodist church wanted Methodist materials, but in their absence was prepared to gut some Southern Baptist materials, removing reference to such dangerous doctrines as salvation, so people would, at least, not hear the gospel message from a Baptist perspective, even if no Methodist perspective was to be offered instead.

    I’ve mentioned growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In the church I encountered censorship rather regularly. In order to keep apart from the world it was important to read SDA materials and to stick with the SDA agenda. I was watched when teaching to make sure I wasn’t leading people astray. I kind of expected that kind of censorship due to the nature of the denomination. Since other churches were leading people straight to the Mark of the Beast, we obviously shouldn’t be listening to anything they said, lest we too go whoring after the beast and his image.

    I’ve heard both liberals and conservatives claim that all censorship is done by the other camp, but my observation is that both have a tendency to decide that they’re correct. That’s actually not a bad thing. Surely if one thinks one is wrong one will change one’s view. The problem is that certain people decide that they have to impose their rightness on others. Not persuade, impose. And that’s going to fail.

    So my suggestion to a pastor who hears that a group in his church is using Beth Moore studies is to first rejoice that they care enough to study. Then if you object to some of the content you should first make sure you know what it is and what is being taught, and then teach what you believe is right. Do it vigorously, make it relevant, and show your love of scripture as you do so. One thing that came out clearly in the post I linked and in the comments is that people appreciate Beth Moore’s love of scripture. I know from experience that if you are teaching from your heart and you have paid the price in study and prayer time, people are going to listen when you teach.

    Do you, as a pastor, exhibit that same love? Can your congregation tell that you’re seriously studying, doing your best to understand, and sharing what you have learned? Do they detect that you have spent time on your knees when your preach or teach? Or is your only real response to point them to a list of Methodist (or other denominational) doctrines?

    There is a group in the Methodist church, as there was in the Adventist church in my youth (and friends tell me still is), and I suspect in every church, who consider “but it’s not Methodist!” a good argument. But there are less and less of these people. You need a better argument.

    I believe that there are plenty of people in the United Methodist Church (I wonder why I keep typing “untied” for “united” and having to correct myself) who love scripture and love to learn more. There are plenty more who are hungry to hear and want to learn how to study. You’re not going to draw them away from one source without providing another.

    But even more importantly, if they hear the scriptures taught in different ways, from different perspectives, by people who truly love to study God’s word, they’re going to be enriched by it. Even if they come to the conclusion that some of it is wrong.

    Especially if they come to the conclusion that some of it is wrong.

  • Review – Life Application Bible Studies: Acts

    I’ve had this booklet for some time and have been intending to review it.  Procrastination works, however, so it hasn’t risen to the top of the pile of things to write about until now.  That’s not because it isn’t interesting or useful–not at all!

    In fact, this book falls right into the center of my work–getting the folks in the pews to study the Bible more.  My short summary:  This is a valuable addition to the arsenal, and I hope the remainder of the Life Application Bible Studies are done in much the same mold.

    I always approach books with certain expectations.  It may be the person who recommended them, the author, the publisher, the series, or some other hint along the way.  In this case, I had high expectations because the study is based on the New Living Translation (NLT), and the Life Application Study Bible.  Now that combination is not exactly five star material for my personal study, as it is too direct in application, and too light on the detailed exegesis and theology for my personal taste.  But to judge it in that fashion would be wrong, as it does what it intends to do rather well, both in the translation and in the notes.

    The study guide includes all of the relevant material for the book of Acts.  While I like this material, I suspect this may actually be the least useful part of the study guide.  How can I say that after what I’ve just said?  Well, in my experience most class members have their own Bibles and they generally tend to want to use them.  This can be a bad thing, when the study group gets too scattered because of different notes used, or a very good thing as people get exposed to different ideas.  How valuable the included translation and notes are will depend on your particular group.

    The actual lessons and notes, however, are simply outstanding for a fairly average church group.  They tend to start simple and factual, and grow to more thoughtful and direct questions.  For example, in Acts 4 we go from asking what opposition the people of the early church experienced, to opposition that people you know have experienced, to the much more personal question 11 (p. 97) “When were you afraid to speak up for Christ?”  In the “MORE” section we get down to church unity with questions like how unified your church is, and what you can do.

    Because many of the questions can overwhelm the small group leader and the time for a small group, you will need to go through them and decide what you will emphasize.  There are suggestions for this in the introduction.

    Speaking as a person who has written Bible study guides, even though mine are aimed at a more theologically oriented study, I could easily see myself choosing this as a guide for a group that I would teach.  I recommend it highly.

  • If You Are Having Trouble Accessing God, Read This

    When I’m teaching church members, I like to emphasize service in one’s choice of a church congregation.  The best congregation for you is the one where you can best fulfill your call to minister to others.  I believe everyone has such a call.  That’s a generalization that often doesn’t answer that many questions, but it often does help.

    Thus I don’t like to talk much in terms of whether a church “fulfills my needs” or “feeds me” or whether I enjoy the worship services, and whether the services are up to standards.  That seems like selling church as a commodity, and whether you’re looking for child care or entertainment, it’s likely that your church isn’t going to compete well according to secular standards in any case.

    That’s not to say that all these things are not important.  The servant who is not fed, clothed, and housed is unlikely to be able to serve well.  That principle applies spiritually as well as physically.  So the search for a church in which I can best carry out my call to ministry may well come back to the question of where I will be fed, all other things being generally equal.

    I must confess that I’ve been having trouble with “church” for some time.  I’ve struggled with everything from attendance to writing the tithe check.  It’s not because I don’t like to get up that early in the morning.  I have normally had hours with the books before I ever get to church.  It’s not the financial scare of writing the tithe check either.  I’ve been in much more difficult financial circumstances.  The temptation is to right the tithe check to some other organization to accomplish some task that I choose, rather than to my local church, which is where I’m convicted it should go.

    It’s that conviction that keeps me going and keeps me doing these things.  But what if one is a church leader who needs to work with the folks who are a bit less convicted?  I belong to a United Methodist congregation, and 50% attendance on a given Sunday is considered very good.  Some churches run more like 30%.  Part of that is a paperwork problem, in that it is very difficult to remove members from the church rolls when they disappear, and people are not that keen on membership paperwork these days.  It’s one way in which the United Methodist Church is perhaps a bit out of touch–a bureaucratic church in an age when people want to escape that style, at least on Sunday morning.

    But that’s not the whole story.  Somewhere in that 50-70% who are missing on Sunday morning there are a lot of people who simply aren’t convicted enough or motivated enough to show up at church.  So my message to church leaders (including myself), is that we do have to be concerned with feeding the people and motivating them.  It’s all well and good to say they ought to attend church services, and they ought to be looking for a place to serve.  When I’m teaching them, I’ll tell them that.  But we as leaders need to help make them welcome.

    Making people welcome, involving phrases like “seeker sensitive” and even “user friendly” have gotten a bad reputation in some circles, and I think that in many ways they should have.  They can easily lend themselves to marketing a service or advertising entertainment, which is always going to be a losing proposition, unless our churches also fulfill spiritual needs, and fulfilling spiritual needs always leads to both the motivation for, and practice of, action and service.

    I discovered a blog through the Christian Carnival this week, Boston Bible Geeks.  They have a post titled The Necessity of the Church for a Persevering Faith, in which they say:

    But God has not left us alone to fight against sin and temptation.  He has given us each other.  He tells us to assemble together, not to meet a requirement or get a star on our Sunday School attendance chart.  He tells us to meet together so we can build each other up and keep each other from sinning.  We are given the responsibility to restore each other when we do sin (Gal 6:1, I deal with that verse here).

    Now you need to go read the entire post to get the context of that, but the point here is that the congregation–not just the pastor or the Sunday School teacher–is charged to encourage one another in their Christian walk, and the major purpose, according to Hebrews, is to keep us from falling into sin, and to help restore us if we do.

    That reminded me of something that has happened each time I signed onto my web hosting account this week.  There’s a message that appears right after I sign on that says, “If you are having trouble accessing your account, read this.”  It has made me laugh each time.  I even went to check whether it can be accessed without logging in.  It can, but it doesn’t appear conveniently on the login page.  The encouragement, you see, comes only after you’re “in.”

    That’s the problem with church, and even with small groups.  What reaches out and encourages our Bible study each week?  I’ve been disturbed by the number of times I’ve taught a series of Sunday School lessons, and entire Sunday School classes will confess that they didn’t read or study anything that I provided on a topic during the week.  That means that they absorb (too often) or even reject what I say without giving it more thought than occurs in a Sunday School hour.

    It’s as though we have a sign on the inside of our church sanctuary and on the inside of our Sunday School classrooms that says, “If you are having trouble accessing God, read this.”  The church needs to create connections that go beyond the church setting, beyond the Sunday morning hour, and provide a “spurring to good works” (Hebrews 10:24) that lasts through the week.

    There are many means of doing this.  My home church’s new ICON service even has a Facebook page and Twitter account, so that they can send out messages.  But these are only part of the means, not the content.  I’m not a good person to go into all the means of reaching people socially.  I do know it needs to be done in order to build a complete Christian life.  Whether the means are high tech or low tech the question is whether the Christian activity of “spurring” continues all week.

    It’s that spurring, that building of a complete Christian life that will make church worthwhile, and if it’s really worth it, people will be there.

  • ChristianBibleStudies.com: How to Lead a Good Discussion

    I’m adding a couple of links from Christianity Today to this site, and I want to call particular attention to them. I try to keep the links, especially those near the top, as useful as possible. One of my key suggestions for Bible study is to look at different views in order to fill out your understanding of a passage. You don’t have to agree with all those views, but you will be better off for testing your own view against those other views.

    There is an excellent artile on ChristianBibleStudies.com, that can help a small group with this approach. How do you generate discussion and get the members of your group profitably (to them and to all) involved in discussion? How can each individual grow. JoHannah Reardon makes some excellent suggestions in an article titled How To Lead a Good Discussion. I recommend it to all small group discussion leaders.