Earlier this week I shared with you that God is at work in our small groups. Below is the text of an email I received from a woman in one of our groups. I share it with you with her permission. Hope you will praise God with me. Also, the  tag cloud over on the right has been updated to hopefully make this site of more use to you. Every post I’ve put up over the past 16 months is tagged under one or more of those tags listed in the cloud.

A letter from a group member:

Spence-
I just wanted to take a moment to let you know how grateful I am for summit life groups.  Last week JD’s sermon on addictions kind of rocked my world.  God put His finger right on the sin of gluttony in my life, and it was not fun.  Tuesday before small group I was tempted to not go to small group because I knew it was going to be rough.  I went anyway though because deep down I wanted it to be rough.  Well, I was right… it was rough.  We talked through the discussion guide, and I was more quiet than normal, just thinking about things.  When it came time for the question about a real way that our group could hold us accountable this week, My Leader decided to turn that into our prayer time (such good wisdom on his part).  My goodness… the moment I started to talk, the flood gates came down.  The more I tried to talk, the more I cried… good thing my small group loves me and didn’t seem to care.  It was so good to not hear (as I have so many times) that this isn’t that big of a sin, that I just need to be more disciplined, or that someone knew a great weight loss plan I should try.  Nope.  My small group prayed.  For the first time, I feel like there are people in my life who see this struggle for the sin that it is, and they’re fighting this fight with me.  One of the women in the group even came up with the idea of only bringing healthy snacks to small group.  She said, “if someone in our group struggled with alcoholism, we wouldn’t meet in a bar!”  I know that my summit life group is praying for me, and that in itself is freeing!  I don’t know what I would do without them.  JD’s sermon was great, but if it hadn’t been for that night of really digging into the Word, and praying for each other, I don’t know that JD’s sermon would have “stuck.”  I don’t say that to diminish the power of the Word in a sermon, or the crazy gift that God has given JD to preach… I just really believe that it was in my summit life group that God truly broke me.  It’s like He knew that was a better place because I’d be surrounded with people who love me and could pray for me and walk through this stuggle with me.  I guess I’m just rambling now, but I just wanted you to know that I am thankful for the ministry you do.  I pray that you hear many more stories of Gospel-centered, life-changing moments in summit life groups!!

Life change happens.

Books and the internet are awesome. If you are a small group leader you likely have a dilemma: you want to be a better small group leader, but probably dont have the time to do anything but google “small group leader tips” and click on something that ends up educating you on how to facilitate a focus group in your new product line. Or, you wind up on amazon needing to buy a book to find out the answers.  Well, your small groups guy is here to help. I hope. What I am going to try and do today (and maybe every monday) is give you some targeted, always free, materials to help you grow as a follower of Jesus. Some of these will be specific to the small group world and some will be more general discipleship oriented. Sermons, interviews, book reviews, articles, blogs, and videos are all in play.

To remind you, the better version of Monday on the links is my partner in small group ministry: The Small Group Exchange, linked over on the right. Likely some of the links I give you each week will direct you to a resource on their site.

Here we go. Today I want to deal with developing an effective, gospel-centered version of your encounter with Jesus. So many people in our small groups likely have never shared their story with anyone before, and others in there may not be Christians. What I hope the resources below do is help equip a small group to train one another and encourage one another with your individual encounters with Jesus. Our small groups at the Summit are doing this exercise this week. If you lead at the Summit, let me know how it is going!

• Developing your story (resource by Summit Small groups Staff): a guide to writing a 3-5 minute version of your story.

• Experience AND Evidence (blog by Summit Pastor Danny Franks): reflection on sermon from 04.05.09 which discussed how you balance your personal story and the truth claims of christianity. His sermon is linked on that blog.
• Sharing your Life Story (article by SGX contributor Scott Vosburgh)
• Share your Journey (video by Author & Small groups pastor Bill Self): Broadens out to your life story, and gives a great challenge to small group leaders.
  

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.

This is a classic “seminary/pastor boy” post but bear with me. One way you could characterize my role at the Summit is to ensure our people are well equipped with the best tools available to grow towards mature followers of Christ. Of course this is every pastor’s role (Ephesians 4:12) but I find it amplified as a small groups pastor.

The latest resource I have come across that I am finding very valuable and very simple to use, is the ESV study bible recently published by Crossway Books. Now, every bible is great and I am not going to diatribe here about how scripture alone is sufficient for you and that you do not NEED uninspired study notes to grow in your faith. That said, study notes help. just like sermons help and commentaries help and fellow believers help.

Why is this thing so Good I would promote it on the blog?

• It’s like somebody stuffed a bunch of good commentaries into a bible. There are serious scholarly well written notes all throughout this thing. Unlike most of the study bibles I have used, you dont finish reading the notes of the bottom of the page and then say “I still dont know what is going on there.”
• Not just strange pretty maps, but useful charts also!
  I think its a requirement to have those full color maps of palestine & paul’s journeys in every bible. But, this one also has useful charts and illustrations that organize certain types of material in the scriptures like “Dated events from Exodus 40 to Leviticus 10″ so you can get the big picture easier.
• Scholarly articles on theology & other stuff
  This thing is almost a text book in basic christianity in this regard. You know how there are “calendar plans” to read the bible in a year? You will need a calendar plan to read all of the articles in this thing. But totally worth it and I plan on pulling some of them to use in our discipleship here at the Summit. Would be great to read through along with scripture with another person or a group of people.
• THE WHOLE THING IS ONLINE!!!
  Im not kidding. When you buy the bible you get an access code to log into your virtual ESV study bible. And in it you can listen to audio of the scriptures, highlight text and add your own notes (which will of course be saved for you),  and use a very effective search tool. This alone is worth the $40 or whatever it is now.

I can probably think of more, but suffice it to say, you should get you one of these. or buy it for a friend.
ESV STUDY BIBLE WEBSITE

At the Summit we are currently in the middle of our training course for new small group leaders. last night we finished up part 2 of our 4 part course and really had a great time. We worked through what prayer is and what it looks like in a small group setting. The group going through the course this time around is really engaged with the material and it is making for a great time of discussion when we gather.

Recently I have been thinking about how as a small group leader I tend to assume that my “new leader” training will be enough to take me through the rest of my small group leader career. Of course this isn’t the truth, yet I’ve found it to be the case that many group leaders never seek out or receive any training past that initial course (if that!).

If we were to approach our jobs that way we probably wouldn’t last very long would we? The Summit is located in the middle of the Research Triangle Park, one of the tech-savviest places on earth. Can you imagine if a software programmer never once received any training after he initially joined IBM? Never once read a manual about the specs on new technology coming out, never sat down and “played with” new software that IBM wants to use? He would be completely out of touch in 6 months. He would be the type-writer in the mac store.

That is just one example of course. All careers require training for advancements in their fields, for advancements up the corporate ladder, or even just to refresh ourselves of things we’ve filed away under the “I already heard that once” file. Shockingly I know, a small group leader is no different. We need training to keep our listening skills, bible study skills, etc sharpened. After all, the small group leader is the most important position in a church of small groups. So the question to you small group leader is this: what are you doing to improve your small group leader skills?

At the Summit we are presently working through creating training modules that each leader will go through at various points during their time as a leader. Nothing overwhelming of course, but something that will keep challenging them and help them avoid the dangerous land of complacency.

Below are a couple of resources I think are great helps in sharpening your skills as a group leader:

• Leading Life-Changing Small Groups by Bill Donahue
• smallgroups.com – good website with good tools for leaders and leaders of leaders.

I also have several things on file I’d be happy to share with you, just let me know.

missional is a buzz-word. I recently took a crack at what it means to be missional from a small group perspective. Because if the small group isn’t missional, the church isn’t. Instead of re-posting it here, I will link you out to a couple of posts I polished up and turned into articles which sgx (small group exchange) recently put up on their site. they are over on the left in the “top 10″ list. The first one is on missionality and the second is a little more lighthearted as it talks about an icebreaker idea.

Which brings me to the comment section: I want to hear your best small group ice-breaker. Dont hold back! Comment below so all can see. I am compiling a list to hopefully put up here soon.

As I mentioned in a previous post I recently joined up with some other small group pastors and leaders as a contributor to what I think is going to be a very good online resource. The site is called the Small Group Exchange (SGX) and I am becoming a bigger fan of it because they are connecting pastors and group leaders in small group settings across the country. These are not all top-teir published authors (although bigs like piper are also contributing) but they are mainly men and women in the trenches of small group ministry. Take for example this article. Its by a young guy who is a small groups director at a church in SC. The article is a little lengthy, but towards the end he hits home some really good points on what “success” is for small group leaders. Like me, this guy eats sleeps and breaths small groups so though his writing and experience are still raw, his passion for making disciples is infectious. Just one example of several pretty good articles Ive read on there. Always like to pass along good stuff so consider this my official endorsement of SGX. Their main page is linked over on the right.

Recently I read a couple of books that have been quite challenging to me. One is Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. In this book she unpacks how deep darwinian thought (evolutionary theory) has permeated the church. She traces back the current “truth is relative” mindset back to this along with so many other systems of thought currently popular in our society. Most importantly the book gave a fairly good ground for what it looks like to be able to defend the claims of christianity with one’s brain. It made me think in a major way about how we spend our time in our small group gatherings. Do we encourage one another to adapt the gospel to EVERY area of our lives? Do we dig for the truths of scripture and then are we bold enough to actually apply those truths in our context or do we leave them as a nice idea? Ive been kinda shaken out of my complacency a little I think and it feels good. I want to, and I want you to, be able to accurately explain the Christian message at any time in any context (1 Peter 3:15).

The second book is called Truth in Love by Brian Follis. It is an overview of the work of a guy named Francis Schaeffer. If you are over say..35… you probably know the name. Schaeffer was one of the most brilliant christian minds in the 20th century. Here was his whole philosophy on life: love people as Christ would love them. Christ never loved people apart from truth. Always speak truth in love. It was Schaeffer who coined the phrase “love is the final apologetic.” Either of these reads would be well worth your time.

So small group leader, are you convinced of the Truth of Christianity? Are you fighting to know and apply that truth in your life? In the lives of your group members? When you speak about Christ, are your words laden with sincere love, or are you trying to win a debate, or are you trying not to say anything that may be offensive?

Also, I am headed to my first ever Small Groups Conference this week. Hope to bring you some good insights from it while I am there, and tons of ideas for you when I get back.

Short & Sweet…ish: Some quality resources for small group leaders (all of these are recommended secondarily to the Bible, God’s word. Read it.)

Making your small group meeting better than it is right now
· Leading Life-Changing Small Groups – Bill Donahue
* Reads like a cross between book & training manual. Great help for every area of your group life. Based on the widely successful Willow Creek small group model.

· 101 Best Small-Group Ideas – Discipleship Journal
* 1 idea per page on everything from ice-breakers to prayer to building relationships. If I had the cash, every SummitLIFE leader would have one.

· Creating Community – Andy Stanley
* From a church-wide angle, a look at what could and should characterize authentic biblical community. Influential in the Summit’s small group philosophy.

· Serendipity New Testament for Groups – Serendipity House Publishing
* New Testament with wide margins containing a basic small group study for every passage of the New Testament. Struggling what to do with a passage? This may help kick-start your preparation.

· Why Small Groups? – C.J. Mahaney & the Sovereign Grace Ministries team
* Excellent look at the small group discipleship model and what it takes to create a successful small group community. We use this right now for our new groups.

Equipping your people to read their bibles

· How to read the Bible for all its worth – Gordon Fee.
* Teaches a basic bible study method for your group to employ both in personal study and in group study.

· Living By the Book – Howard Hendricks
* Just as Fee’s book does, it teaches a clear, sound method for studying the scriptures. Its long but so worth it

· Scripture – Robert Saucy
* Treatment of what the scriptures are, everything from the idea of divine revelation, to the process of making the “canon” of scripture. Great read & resource.

Helping your people understand GOD [theo (God) – ology (knowledge of)]

· Knowing God – J.I. Packer
* Great read on how we relate to the creator of the universe. 253 pages, and one of those that regularly go back to for insight.

· The Knowledge of the Holy – A.W. Tozer
* Only about 100 pages, but incredibly packed with eye – opening insight. Warning: read slowly and with a pen.

Explaining what Christians believe to your group members

· Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis
* One of the best books ever written. Great argument for Christ.

· Christian Beliefs – Wayne Grudem
* This is the extremely condensed version of his systematic theology work. Good resource to put in your group members hands.

· The Reason for God – Tim Keller
* Recommending this sight-unseen to you because my pastor says it’s awesome.

Helping them grasp what living as a Christian looks like

· Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life – Donald Whitney
* Best book I’ve seen on the different aspects of the Christian life (bible study, prayer, worship, giving, etc). So useful in fact that im just not going to recommend another book here. Ask me when you get done with that one.

Ok, those are a some that I’ve read which I’ve found helpful. Now its your turn. What resources would you recommend in any of these areas?

**See The Small Groups Guy post for an introduction to this blog**
Some of our small groups at the Summit (called SummitLIFE Groups) are going through a great study right now called Why Small Groups. The study was created by C.J. Mahaney and the small group gurus at Sovereign Grace Ministries. These guys are way ahead of the curve on small group ministry and I often consult their resources. They are linked over on the right. If you are looking for a good small groups conference, their annual fall conference is the one.

This particular study is an excellent first study for a new group as it packs biblical warrant for gospel-centered community into each session. It is one of those that if you are in a small group that hasn’t been through this yet, you should. The reason a study like this is so valuable early on in the life of a small group is because we all want to experience biblical community, but the truth is we don’t know how. This kind of study serves as a bridge to get from surface level friendships to biblical community.

So…Why Small Groups?
We believe at our church, and we say it often, that discipleship happens in relationships. Small groups are the best environment we have found so far for those relationships to form. The model comes from the early church account in the book of Acts. Acts 2 talks about the believers gathering and eating together in their homes, sharing life together. That’s what we want to see our small groups doing: building community, sharing life. (Here is a great message on this.) Oh, and the best part we think about modeling our small groups after the early church is that it pushes us to be missional. The church in Acts was all about spreading gospel-centered love to everyone they came in contact with. They didn’t exist just for one another, but to encourage one another in their ministry to the world.

How does your small group experience measure up against the Acts account? What stands out most to you about the early church? Feel free to reply using the comment feature below.