05.12.10
Experiential Discipleship and Small Groups
Experiential discipleship cannot be overlooked if you are longing to see your small group members become fully devoted followers of Jesus. Beginning in the late fourth century churches constructed buildings, burned incense, and composed church music to be used in large gatherings. The buildings for worship gatherings were constructed to help attendees understand their relationship with Christ. The church recognized fine art including architecture, sculpture and painting. The church calendar was implemented. In fact, the community structured her entire life around the persona and work of Jesus.
What does this have to do with your small group? Your small group may be lacking the symbolism, beauty, and experiences that will take them places they’ve never gone before. A few suggestions:
· When diving into a biblical story go to google.com then to “images.” Do a search for the story you’re studying. You can almost always find a piece of artwork that depicts the biblical, historical event you’re discussing. Enlarge the image and bring it to your small group meeting. Ask the group to speak of the emotions the characters are emoting. Ask them if they think that’s what it was really like, what would their faces and/or body language have been depicting if they were a particular character in the story, etc…
· When possible, take your group into the space that is most reminiscent of the biblical account that is foremost on your minds. For instance, if you are wanting your group to embrace helping the poor, take them to a location where homeless people gather. Prepare sack lunches for the homeless people you meet. Join them for lunch, conversation, and connection.
· Throughout one year your group is meeting utilize the church calendar and guide your group to experience this together. You’ll be surprised at the way this affects the way they view the rhythm of life and how much it helps them make Christ the centerpiece of the human experience. Not only that, you may find out that football, basketball, and baseball seasons are not the most important.
· Sing to God together when your group meets. If no one plays piano or guitar, pick up a worship CD and sing along with it.
· Hymns are overflowing with great doctrine. In fact, the Wesley’s wrote hymnody so that believers would learn and remember right doctrine. When a hymn specifically relates to a passage of Scripture you are studying bring a copy of the hymns lyrics and discuss those thoughts and ideas, maybe even try to climb into the mind of the author of those astounding lyrics.
· Retreat. Get away with your group for a few days for a spiritual retreat. Be sure to include time for personal meditation and journaling, group Bible study/conversations, time together around a campfire (campfires tend to bring out special and open conversations), meals together, and free time. A long hike together will also greatly enhance your relationships with one another.
· Watch a movie together and discuss the spiritual implications. Serendipity by LifeWay has an entire series of studies that create biblical conversations around film scenes. You will want to consider a study from the God + the Arts series.
The list of experiential discipling ideas is as vast as your imagination. Continue to utilize experiences to disciples your group members. Jesus did.
P.S. Please let me know things you have done to use experience to disciple. We’re all in need of new ideas.
An idea that I received from a previous small group is occassionally we do a night of worship stations. We start out by just engaging in prayer and each person is in charge of coming up with the idea for a station. After starting in prayer it is a self guided time where each person is free to spend as much or as little time in any given station as desired. Ideas we have done before for stations:
Worship Music CD/DVD where people can listen or sing out to God
Built a small cross and had scraps of paper where people could confess there sins and pin them to the cross
Readings of Psalms - Bible open to the Psalms where people can praise/lament there heart to God
Etc...
It has always been a very intimate time with the Lord when we have done this.