Small Group World

02.17.10

Barriers to Small Groups as Missional Communities

Ben Reed is a guest blogger here at the Lifeway Small Groups blog. He regularly blogs for Life and Theology. You can also find him on Twitter HERE.

How you define a small group must include some ideas around the idea of being missional.

It's true that nothing unites a group like a common enemy. Rallying around a common eneymy, and the growth that happens because of it, helps the group to come together. - Eddie Mosley

Carl George helped to bring the discussion to a point with this statement

Those who won't grow deeper are allergic to evangelism. Are we content to meet only our own needs? We have got to pick up a bowl and start washing some feet.

So, why are groups not more missional?

Because friends tell friends to come to a big event on Sumnday morning on "bring-a-friend Sunday, instead of hte one-on-one discipleship and responsibility. - Randall Neighbour
The church has programmed people to think that the first step in a person's spiritual life has to be Sunday morning, instead of your life, or instead of introducing a person to your group. - Randall Neighbour
We need to find out where God's already working (with respect to evangelism) in a local church, and elnarge those gates! In other words, what is God doing here that is already evidencing the work we're after? Any effect that you can identify as a desirable effect can be enhanced and enlarged. - Carl George
We make it seem as if evangelism/missions is about building relationships with people who are not like us. But do I have to go out and build a relationship with someone in order to be missional? No! Look at the places you already visit, the hardware store, the supermarket, your neighborhood, etc. - Steve Gladen
The continuum of missional is "I have to do this..." and "I long to do this because I'm redeemed...", thus driving the question that Rick proposed: The problem may be not so much a question of methodology (how-to), but rather a question of "Why?", thus aiming for the heart. - Rick Howerton
The level of evangelism that your groups take on is a reflection of the level of evangelism of the leader. - Steve Gladen
It's not the newest converts who are the most evangelistic. It's the ones who are closest to christ. - Greg Bowman

So, if spiritual growth is involved in people becoming "missional," is the institutional church getting in the way of people's spiritual development?

The church tends to present spiritual growth as a linear process, but in reality, it's not.
When you go from "institutional church" into the "desert" (spiritually, metaphorically speaking), your faith gets pushed. Until then, you're just a "good church member." - Greg Bowman
The house church movement is flourishing in certain areas because, in many instances, the institutional church is getting in the way of people's spiritual development, and it's when they get outside of the walls of the church building that they find themselves rapidly growing in their faith. - Rick Howerton

Two quetsions for you, and your leadership team, to think through:

Why do you think small groups aren't more missional?

Do you think that the institutional church is helping, or hurting, people's spiritual development, including their development to being increasingly missional?