Vineyard Church North Phoenix | Don't Believe the Lie!

Small groups can potentially turn God's people into an army rather than an audience. But to achieve explosive growth in small groups, a powerful lie must be exposed.

"What do you mean split?" they asked with a disconcerted tone in their unified voice. You asked us to become extended family. How can you now ask us to split up? Sound familiar?

Asking a small group to divide can be like asking a happily married couple to get a legal separation. No one likes to give up on or change what they believe is good. Neither the leaders nor members of groups really want to let go of what they have. But groups can be nurtured into dividing themselves.

For this to happen though, a major lie of the enemy must be exposed: When small groups divide, relationships are severed.

As I've worked with small group ministries, this pervasive and persuasive lie comes up repeatedly. In truth, dividing is a natural, healthy process for the group and for the kingdom of God. Church leaders must break the power of this lie to have a successful small group ministry. At Vineyard Fort Collins we are breaking its power by attacking it on several fronts. We are:

-Making language changes
-Giving groups a vision beyond themselves
-Giving reasons to divide based on a sound Biblical philosophy
-And leading them through the process

NEW VOCABULARYA local church is healthiest when its cell groups are dividing, just as our natural bodies exist and develop because of mitosis (cell division). But "split" and "divide" conjure up negative feelings. A split is a painful event where relationships are broken like a family going through a divorce. You divide people with barriers like the Berlin Wall or Iron Curtain. Because of the lie and the negative connotations, we exchanged these words for more life-giving words or phrases like releasing a new leader, multiplication, and birthing.

A twist on the lie says there aren't enough relationships in the body of Christ to go around. We would never say that, but some of us live under a spirit of relational poverty. We hold on to our personal relationships. We don't trust God to provide for us even though he provided what we are currently hanging on to!

One of the most insightful texts concerning this desire to cling to our relationships is found in an exchange between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in John chapter 20. Jesus tells Mary, "Don't cling to me." Why not? Because Jesus was not there to stay. He was to return to the Father. Then he would send the Holy Spirit to multiply his life and ministry. One of the major hindrances to multiplying groups is this "mourning Mary" syndrome. Like Mary, we want to hang onto our relationships in the flesh. It is difficult to let go of people once we have grown close to them within a small group.

But Mary gets this message from Jesus: Let go of me in the flesh so many more can have relationship with me. Any intentional small group in Christ's earthly Body, the church, is limited in the number of relationships it can sustain. If those of us in small groups hang on to each other rather than releasing certain individuals to form other small groups, we hinder the work he wants to do through his body in this age.

Contrary to the lie of severed relationships, small group multiplication is a unifying force in our fellowship. If there is a continual growth and birthing process you will find a networking of relationships taking place, and community is developed in a larger fellowship. On the other hand, if a fellowship has small groups without releasing new leaders from the existing groups, you end up with cliques and closed doors.

My wife Joy and I have been involved in numerous small groups over the years. Through those small groups we have come into relationship with dozens of people in our fellowship. Just because we are involved with another small group now doesn't mean we are out of relationship with the others. We frequently call friends from previous small groups.

OUTWARD FOCUSWe believe starting new small groups is the best way to assimilate newcomers into the life of our fellowship. If we were to add the newcomers to existing groups, we would no longer have small groups but large groups. Almost every time we start a new group it immediately fills up with those who have been waiting for a new group to start. They had decided to attend a small group, but then waited for a new one to start. That way they don't feel as if they're intruding on existing relationships. We also start specific small groups for new believers to assimilate and teach them the basics they need. We are also developing more support and recovery groups to actually draw people in from, and serve, our community.

For the last several years we have worked hard at instilling an outward focus in our small groups. Our pastoral team has always believed small groups need to focus beyond themselves, yet we were seeing no fruit of that belief. In analyzing our situation, we realized that our statements - both written and verbal - had not communicated our true intentions.

We were using words like nurture, relationship, family, kinship, fellowship. We did not talk, in the small group context, of outreach, evangelism, training, equipping, and army. Without realizing it we were enabling a "take care of me" attitude in our groups - "inreach" without outreach.

We reworked our small group philosophy to include outreach, using statements like,„« One of the major avenues for reaching our city is through small groups.ˇ¨„« §Imagine our city saturated with hundreds of small groups.„« Relationships and nurture cannot be separated from the mission of the local church.„« The small group is the launching place for all ministry involvement.

We verbally challenged our groups to do some things beyond themselves and at the same time provided some practical training. We hosted a Servant Evangelism seminar and asked our small groups to do an outreach every six to eight weeks. We now have small groups serving as teams in food kitchens, having barbecues for the poor at city parks, delivering food baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas, cleaning dorm rooms at the university, befriending international students, giving away free pop, coffee, and hot chocolate. The groups are getting beyond themselves and having fun serving the community. These outreaches have also given us incredible testimonies of God's provision.

One small group was feeding the poor and ran low on food. They began asking God to multiply the little that remained. A restaurant manager walked across the street and asked if they wanted 100 sandwiches left over from a conference he had catered. The homeless folk ate all they wanted, and there were still sandwiches left over!

PRUNING & FRUITFULNESSAt Vineyard Fort Collins, our philosophy of small group multiplication comes from Jesus' expectations of the small group he had gathered. In John chapter 20, Jesus stands among his disciples and says, "As the Father sent me, I am sending you." And with that He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (vv. 20b-21). He then expected these Spirit-filled disciples to reproduce his ministry in others (Matthew 28:19, 20)-just as he had done in them. It did not matter how small the group was to begin with, as long as they reproduced and taught their disciples to reproduce. This was God's strategy - to reach the world through relational multiplication. We agree with Robert Coleman: "He had no other plan." Only a few years later the Christians had a reputation for turning the world "upside down" (Acts 17:6 KJV). His plan works!

In John 15, Jesus tells us that reproducing - bearing fruit - is the purpose of both the vine (himself) and the branches (believers). Any branch that does not bear fruit is to be cut off - it was worthless. Any branch that lived on the vine had to grow and produce for that was its intended purpose. Except for specific covenant groups, small groups that do not grow and reproduce seem at odds with this analogy of a branch bearing fruit.

Jesus went on to say that those branches that do produce fruit are to be pruned that they may yield even more fruit. In the context of small groups, we equate pruning with the multiplication process. The small group is pruned by releasing a new leader with a supporting core group. Close relationships that develop within the group are encouraged to stay together by forming leadership cores for new groups. This leadership team consists of the leader, worship leader, a host, and an intern along with spouses. In reality we don't split, divide or multiply small groups. We birth a new group. This pruning allows both the existing group and new core group to include newcomers and thus bear more fruit. The key to this birthing process is leadership. Without new leaders we cannot birth new groups. We call this strategy of developing new leaders the "Timothy Project" from 2 Timothy 2:1-2:You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

We assume a leader has followers so it is necessary for the new leader to gather this core team before we will release him. A subtle language change we made at this time was to call the up-and-coming leaders "interns" instead of "assistant leaders". We realized that one could be an assistant leader for the rest of his or her life, but the word "intern" implies one is in the process of becoming something more. When a person takes on that role, they know there's an expectation for them to lead when the internship is over. Since these interns are the key to birthing new groups, the pastors are beginning to see themselves differently. We see the importance of being nurturing trainers and equippers rather than just caregivers. It's been a struggle to make a shift from being a caregiver to one who raises up caregivers, but we are moving in that direction.

Ephesians chapter four has become a guiding light to us. It is our God-breathed job description as church leaders to serve the body of Christ, helping the members do what God has called and gifted them to do "so that the body of Christ may be built up." Strong leadership is vital in the birthing process; the leaders act as midwives. The midwife keeps the birth mother focused outward. At the birth of our son Tucker, my wife entered the period of labor called "transition." The pain became so great that Joy wanted to just call the whole thing off and send everybody home! Our midwife reminded Joy the baby needed to be born. For her survival and Tucker's she needed to push through the pain. As Tucker's head appeared in the birth canal, the midwife had Joy reach down and touch it - the fruit of her labor. That was all the inspiration Joy needed. The pain did not matter any more. Tucker was born amidst shrieks and tears of delight.

In the same way leaders must keep the small group focused outward. It is much too easy for the group to get overly comfortable in their relationships and in what God is doing in their midst. They turn inward; they begin listening to the lie. For their survival, the leader must help push them through the transition. A group that doesn't give birth within nine to eighteen months probably will never give birth; it turns stale, stagnates and dies. We have experienced this too many times to doubt it. Multiplying, releasing a leader, birthing a new group, pruning, whatever you choose to call it, it's not just healthy for the group - it is survival!

Our pastoral team sympathizes with the pain of giving birth because we've experienced it. We have released several of our best friends to plant churches or to go on staff at other churches. There are tears, pain, transition, but we believe in giving our best away. We know firsthand the sense of loss, and even feeling left behind. Yet, in the end, there is satisfaction of releasing others to fulfill their calling; the excitement of seeing God's kingdom expand; and the expectation of God's faithfulness in filling the gap. Relationships do change in the midst of the birthing process, but they are not severed. Like childbirth classes, the group has been preparing for it since its inception. These are not unplanned or unwanted pregnancies! The birthing process is painful, but the pain - as any mother will tell you - is well worth it once you see the new life that comes through it. The pain is soon forgotten or at least minimized by the resulting joy.

UNLEASHEDUltimately, we must realize that small groups are not about us - they are about Jesus. The goal is not only to have nurturing, caring groups but to expand the Kingdom of God. Jesus built into his disciples the structure of a church that would triumph over the kingdom of darkness - relational multiplication is a powerful force.

We have seen incredible benefits of birthing new groups: Newcomers being assimilated; more people ministering to more people; face to face fellowship; healing; equipping; more places for people to serve; leaders and workers being raised up... the church unleashed! It is in the small group that we love, care and serve each other. It is in the small group that people are listened to, appreciated for who they are, and through accountability grow personally and mature in Christ. Don't believe the lie.