Small Groups Make A Difference

Posted on 12. Feb, 2008 by frank in faith, small groups

My friend Sean has been working with me in ministry a long time. Shortly after attending CCV he started volunteering in ministry with me in our student ministry every week hanging out with teenagers. After we hired Matt Silver, I started working with adults and began an aggressive campaign to connect adults in CCV to small groups. Sean quickly jumped in with me for the challenge. He currently is a coach, leads our longest running men’s group, and has helped start other men’s groups as well.

His group has recently had a moving experience and Sean described it in a blog post on Small Group Help . Here is what he had to say…

Our men’s group meets every week and has for over six years. As the leader, every week I try to plan things that will help move the group members along in
their spiritual journey. (More often than not it ends up being the other way around) Week after week we read, discuss and sometimes argue about the topic of the day. We also hold each other accountable by asking a set of hard questions each week. My life has truly changed because of this group. These guys have fixed up my house and rescued my soul from poor decisions. They’ve baby sat my kids and prayed my family through some tough times. They have given me the opportunity to be a better person than I am by myself. All of the things that make a small group great. There are times though, that I wonder if our group is making an impact in the world. Sometimes when I’m really listening, when I give my heart some quiet time a few questions rise to the surface; are we making the world a better place? Are we living our lives the way Jesus commanded us to? The answers to these never come easy if at all, but sometimes we are graced with a glimpse of how the world perceives us.

Our group got that glimpse a few weeks ago. Our meeting place has always been the local diner. The food is inexpensive, the staff friendly and they’re open 24 hours. And most importantly they tolerate 10 guys sitting around a big table reading the Bible. We’ve become more than just friendly with the diner over the years and some of the long term staff has asked us to pray for their friends and family when the need arises. We’ve become very fond of our regular waitress Patty. Patty is up in years, works nearly every day and has that perfect disposition to keep the guys in line. She refers to the guys as “hon” or “dear” and can be often heard starting a sentence with “look darlin’ I aint as fast as I used to be”. Right before Christmas Patty brought each of us small bag of her home baked cookies. Then out of the blue, two weeks ago she did something that I can only describe as the grace of God. She quietly handed one of the guys an envelope and told him to give it to our church, which of course he did. In the envelope was a hand written note that read as follows:

Dear Pastor and church group,

Patty

Sean’s group was humbled through the experience. I love it when people get to experience God working through them. I wish more Christians did a better job showing people Jesus instead of leaving gospel tracts and crappy tips at diners and restaurants.

Tags: grouplife