I've Been Thinking About This…

My small group buddy Mike ‘Roots’ has been writing on his blog about his church, and something he said about removing partitions struck a chord.

Mike 'Roots' Killiany

For the past week I’ve been thinking along the lines of what he calls removing ‘partitions’ as well – I’ve been calling them ‘white elephants’ – I think every church has these. They are things that meant a great deal at some point in the church’s history, but now it’s time to review their worth. The elephant can be rules and regulations, traditions, memorials, plans laid down in the past by someone revered and now gone – there’s no limit to the invasion of the white elephant.

(The term comes from a gift that was given long ago in the Far East. An albino elephant was extremely rare and thus considered holy and in turn had to be treated with extreme care. A ruler would give one to another ruler or one of his wealthy subjects, ostensibly as a generous gift, but in reality as a means of imposing a penalty. The recipient would have to spend large sums of money to house, feed and generally care for this huge beast – which, because it was holy, made no contribution to the recipient whatsoever.)

The leaders of a church are called to a ministry that will forever change. Their church’s congregation, its interests, its giving and above all the culture that surrounds it… everything is guaranteed to change. Leaders must constantly re-evaluate the choices made in previous years – do those choices still apply, or should they be adjusted or even completely removed? If they really ARE white elephants, then they need to be disposed of. They have become resource drains or ministry blockers – we do not have the luxury of wasting the resources Christ gives us for His tasks.

Removing the elephant can be rough – some toes are going to be stepped on (which, for a large elephant, can hurt!) – but then the church is free to clean out the stall, reassign the elephant keepers and get on with the job at hand.

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My pastor has started to read through the Gospel of Mark for the rest of the month – you can follow him here: Saving Pastor Ryan. So a few of our small group members are joining him – thought I would too, even though I’m a few days behind here. As others join the blogfest, I’ll post their links.

Of all the things I think of when I read chapter 1 of Mark’s Gospel, I think that the idea of timing hits me most solidly.

First the promise of 2,000 years has suddenly come to pass, and who was ready for it? As a nation it had looked forward to this time since its infancy in Goshen, Egypt – as the patriarchs did before that – but it has been so long that expectancy had become the habit and realization just couldn’t take hold.

Then comes John the Baptist to ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’ – but very few are awake to hear his song in the Jordan Valley. He must have had some impact though: God never sends someone to do pointless things.

But most of all, he is there for the Christ – to make sure that the prophecies are completed:

• Mark 1:4 “John appeared…” (to fulfill Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3-4)
• Mark 1:9 “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee” (a prophecy referenced in Matt 2:23 that seems to refer back to something Isaiah references in Isaiah 11:1)
• Mark 1:15 “and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’

Secondly I’m struck by the immediacy of response throughout the chapter. Look at all these verses:

For all that few are awake to respond to the Christ, He Himself is in the center of a whirlpool of activity. Every few minutes some new event seems to be triggered; there is a sense of intense and irresistible urgency; once the Christ has appeared, there is no stopping the forward momentum.

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Just finished reading Sticky Church (Leadership Network Innovation Series) by Larry Osborne (@LarryOsborne). When I started I was very resistant to his idea of small groups following the sermon each week. It seemed to be very limiting; if you were into something else (a book-by-book Bible study, for instance, or following a great speaker’s videos and discussing them (my small group has  just finished Mark Batterson’s Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God and is now on his In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars)), then you were in the position where the church was pretty much dictating what your group should study.

As I continued reading, however, I have to say that the points he made resonated:

• Page 91 – the need for the church to take real life into account – people are busy; today’s world demands it; the new (& reversed) Christian pop analysis along the lines of ‘Busy hands are the devil’s playthings’ is not universally true;
• Page 94 – the need to control how much ’stuff’ the church makes available for people to do. When the opportunities for events are moved onto the calendar, is the church leadership protecting its highest priority – or is it the church’s highest priority to be the busiest place in town?;
• Page 110 – small groups don’t run continually – they last for 10 weeks – and they have an easy exit strategy. However, once you have the relationships built, you may be with those people for many years (he calls this Mayberry, USA);
• Page 111 – small group leaders act as pastors to the group – when life throws a crisis, they’re in there for their small group members who need them.

Somewhere between chapters 5 and 12 I came to realize that he was talking about a rather different type of small group to the ones most churches have – these are mini-churches, people deeply committed to looking after one another, to the point that they do their own baptisms, even the hospital visitations. I also came to recognise the rationale behind the approach. Would it work across the board? Of course not, any more than the Chu method would (and indeed, Osborne is quick to point this out himself – every church is made up of a unique blend of people, cultures, economies, ages, and so on). But it has clearly worked for his church, and I’d love the opportunity to spend a few weeks there.

One thing I would have a real problem with, if I were at this church – the idea of  deliberately ‘hamstringing’ personal growth opportunities in the event that they get in the way of the small groups. The North Coast U. is crippled down to courses that consist of a maximum of 4 evenings.  The author makes the point that the average person can’t afford more than two meetings for church per week, therefore the church intentionally puts North Coast U on as a third meeting in the week! That’s just wrong. Now based on what I’ve read in the book, there are three alternatives they could use to support those people who wanted to know more – (1) they could run the school during the summer; (2) they could divert a group that was interested into the school for a 10-week session – this would also give the leader and the host an apparently much-needed break – or (3) the small groups are running for 10 weeks at a time – there would certainly be room to fit the course in between them. (Clearly this hit a chord in me!) This deeper education is something I think should be available in a church, and I think is denied to its members’ detriment. Too many of us do not know the Bible on anything but a superficial level. We therefore remain ill-equiped for either personal understanding or apologetics – and we’re missing a vital pillar of support during times of crisis, where we’re questioning rather than moving forward. However, the school is not the point of the book; I expect they redeemed it somewhere along the line.

I have to say I’m glad the author spent some time debunking some myths, including ‘divide to multiply’ – tried it and seen it fail – and challenged the standard views in a few other areas.

All in all, a great book with a great message. Interestingly enough I moved straight on to Mark Waltz’s book Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging, which notes that Granger Community Church takes almost the exact opposite view of small groups. The mindset is the same however, and as noted above, Osborne makes the point that no one way is correct for every church.

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It can be so difficult when you move into a new neighborhood. How do you find just the right small group? It can be a real challenge…[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eurATNkJBvQ[/youtube]
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