Ok Boys and Girls, the end of the world is at hand. Thought I’d blog about it, or at least summarize in one sentence what every news desk personality is saying each day when the “economy” segment comes up. News anchors have got to be depressed people. Each day they have to look into the camera with a straight face and say “hey America, your country is in the toilet both nationally and here locally…happy Tuesday.” We’ve got a local news anchor here at our church, I will have to ask him about that.

Ok, now that the doom and gloom stage has been set, lets talk hope. This Thursday, The Summit Church will be one of several host sites around the country for an event put on by Dave Ramsey called Town Hall for Hope. If you don’t know Dave, you should. He’s a leading voice in money management and is weekly on all of the major morning shows and a daily nationwide radio show as well.

Town Hall for Hope will be a forum to hear from Dave on the current economic situation and how we interact with it. The financial team at the Summit is pretty pumped about it. They are some smart people so I am taking their word for it that this should be cool.

Details: Thursday, 8pm, Summit Church Brier Creek Campus

For more info: www.townhallforhope.com

Over the past 3-4 weeks the small groups at the Summit have read and discussed The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. Our small groups team provided discussion questions for our groups along with “our thoughts” on each question to help the leader guide the discussion. The discussions were 3 weeks long (2 chapters / week) which was plenty for this short book. We consider this book a valuable resource. Below is the full discussion guide in pdf form. This will also be posted on the sermon discussion guide page.

The Treasure Principle – Small Group Discussion Guide

I should note that the newest release of the treasure principle does include small group discussion questions. We wrote these in an effort to tailor our small group discussions specifically to the present situation at the Summit Church.

Pretty cool time at the Summit right now. Part of the discussion our groups are having each week along with the material from Sunday’s sermon, is a discussion through a couple of chapters of the book Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. Great little book that teaches and challenges you to find great joy in giving the money, time, and talents, God has given you towards his fame as opposed to building up your own pile-o-stuff. While the book is a good and helpful read, it can be quite daunting as a group leader to embark on a discussion about people’s cash. 

Last night my group launched right into the book discussion, bypassing the sermon material, and we had what I thought was a really good discussion. The following is a basic list of things I think made the discussion helpful & encouraging instead of awkward and offensive:

• Leader lays the foundation at the start. Just as our pastor does, I as the group leader spent a couple of seconds reminding our group of the motivation for why we give: We practice radical generosity because we have experienced the radical generosity of God in the salvation given to us through Christ’s death and resurrection. Giving is an act of worship not of guilt-driven obligation.
• Group Members knew this was coming! Dont blindside your group members with a discussion on giving. give them fair warning and give them something to read through together so you have a common ground to start from. 
• We Talked  first about previous experiences giving. I had no idea where my people were coming from. Maybe they have never even given a tithe before. I couldn’t as the leader assume everyone was regularly tithing. So I asked “Tell us about your experiences (not dollar amounts) giving regularly or to missions or to a fundraising effort.” Easy question that kind of broke the ice. Turns out one of our guys (who we are convinced runs the world) has experience helping people set budgets so they can be generous with their money. Another had been through a capital campaign in a previous church setting. Guess what: Some didnt share. AND THAT IS OK! I talked about my experience as well. 
• We talked about obstacles to giving. This is not all bad stuff, its just stuff that will stand between you and giving. Things like budgeting, debt, and “somebody else will do it” were all talked about along with others. 
• We prayed together & left the conversation open. I marked this as the beginning of an ongoing conversation we will be having among one another about how God is convicting us and challenging us to give of our finances. I dont want our conversation on this limited to our discussion time and frankly I dont want it to always dominate our discussion time. So it will likely become a part of our accountability / prayer time.

Hope this helps you group leaders here at the Summit as well as those of you leading groups at other churches and would love to hear your experiences in this area!

Today the pastoral bloggers @ the Summit are collectively posting about our Christmas Missions Offering which we are currently in the midst of collecting. For theological conviction read Pastor J.D.’s blog, For campus specific commentary read one of our campus blogs which you can find linked over on the right. I will be honest, Ive got no clue what Jason Gaston or Danny Franks is gonna say, but im sure it will be useful, sarcastic, and generally entertaining. As for me? Oh Im totally about to tell you why the success of the church in actually BEING generous hinges on the transfer of vision from pastor’s mouth to small group members minds.

Welcome to a peek inside the minds of the pastoral staff at the Summit. Here is what they are thinking about the Christmas Missions Offering, that is, the offering we take up in december that we give 100% of to funding church planting efforts, community ministry, and more. They are all thinking (because I’ve told them to think this way) “If we can get our small groups on board, we are there, no problem.” In fact, any pastor of a small groups church is going to be thinking that way about any major initiative their church is taking. If they aren’t, they should.

Here is why they are thinking that way: Because they fully believe if someone is in a small group, they are getting the vision of our church communicated to them on a weekly basis. They (pastors) believe that person is being challenged spiritually and is involved in challenging others spiritually. They believe that person is coming to understand & live out what it means to be “missional” because they believe their small group leader is challenging them with the implications of the gospel on their lives. They believe, because the scriptures teach it, that discipleship happens in relationships and they believe those relationships are being formed in those small groups.

What you should hear there, is that your pastors firmly believe vision becomes action in and through small groups. Therefore, when we as a church learn from the scriptures that our natural response to the gospel is radical generosity, we actually hold one another accountable to that spirit of generosity through our small groups. Right now the Summit Church has 115 small groups with an average of 10 people per group. roughly 1150 people. Our goal for the Christmas Missions Offering…an offering of radical generosity….is set at $255,000. That means our small groups could account for 45% of our overall goal if they gave $100 per person. I absolutely recognize how much moola that is. I just spent 3 years in seminary living on intern & part-time wages. It might be a radical amount. It WILL mean less under the tree for my wife and I. but our first priority as a family is worshipping God who has been so radically generous to us. what if we gave $200 per? Im not making an idol out of the “goal” but I am definitely asking you to stretch your trust in God and your response to the gospel, if not through giving to this specific offering, it should through something.

Do you see why the success of the church hinges on the small groups? I hope so and I hope it pumps you up. Group Leader, how are you challenging your group? How are you challenging yourself and your family?