The Real Purpose of Small Groups

Full disclosure: I love my small group.

We have fun together, we pray, we share concerns, we talk about issues, we have moments of great transparency. We care for each other. This is what the church is supposed to be.

And if you’re interested in being a true, New Testament church, then your small group ministry should be a priority (and maybe the greatest priority of your church).

A church should have a well-defined purpose for all its ministries.  This is important because times, circumstances, and even culture can impact how believers think about the church.  When it comes to small groups it is no different.  A church needs to be able to articulate its purpose for small groups based on their understanding of Scripture. Brad House in ‘Taking Your Small Group Off Life Support’ mentions how a church needs to have a specific vision for their small group that is proactive and not reactive.

A Proactive Philisophy

A church needs to have a singular, philosophical focus when it comes to their small group purpose: to develop disciples of Jesus.  This is the heartbeat of the commands of Christ and the New Testament church.  Helping Christians better understand Who Jesus is and how to better live like Him should be the proactive purpose.  The church is not trying to create cliques or social clubs, it is organizing its efforts to build community that makes an eternal difference.

A Reactive Philosophy

As House indicates, when a church adopts small groups to retain its numbers, it communicates that the church is looking to grow its numbers, not make disciples.  When fellowship or care becomes the need and groups are primarily built around those concepts, then people can begin to believe that the group’s purpose is to meet their needs.

However, the small group is Biblically hot-wired to be the hotbed of discipleship within the church.  Think about it: every small group is a microcosm of ‘big church’.  The small group meets regularly, worships, shares, feeds on the Word and reaches outside their walls into the community.  The small group is a powerful, self-sustained cell that is a part of the bigger body.  But what the small ‘cell’ has that the bigger body does not is the ability to know people intimately, aid in the discovery and cultivation of spiritual giftedness, prioritize individual maturity and ensure the believer is developing a Christ-focused worldview.  All this happens within the context of a small group of adults who are pursuing Jesus together.  There will be fellowship, met needs, care and studies, but the primary purpose of the group must be a pursuit of Christlikeness.  This is not Christianized semantics; it literally will determine what a group is supposed to be doing from the moment people arrive.  As House indicates, these should not be things that our small group does, but rather, should become natural expressions of our new natures in Christ.  Small groups should be the methodology of churches to incubate spiritual maturity.

Healthy Groups, Healthy Church

Consider the following: a church is struggling with finding and recruiting people to help with their multiplicity of ministries.  Likewise, this same church recognizes it is not reaching into its communities. Additionally, they are struggling to identify men and women of who are qualified and prepared to lead their ministries and have no identifiable plan to develop their young men into the future Elders of the church.  The way to mitigate these common problems?  A vision-driven, Biblically minded and discipleship-focused small group ministry.  The healthy small group is cultivating spiritual maturity among its attendees, which incorporates cultivating giftedness, missional-living, service to Christ, and an outward, clique-free philosophy.  A healthy small group ministry is the single greatest contributor to a healthy, corporate body, where there is no shortage of volunteer help, givers, evangelism, and future Elders.

The corporate and cell-based impact of the gospel was a documented part of the early church.  Acts 2:46 indicates that the early Christians met together in the temple and used their homes as a basis for fellowship and growth.  They were praising God and enjoying their new commonality as brothers and sisters.  The result?  “The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).  This two-fold geographical approach had a significant impact on Jerusalem.

The small group is a little church, a part of the body of Christ that is to operate in the same way these early Christians did.  Our small groups need to come together regularly to affirm the truths of Scripture and worship, but their real impact is felt in their communities through the ministry of their homes.  When a Christ-centered home becomes a beacon of hope in their neighborhood, some very interesting things can begin to happen.  People who would never come to a church are willing to engage with someone over a grill.  Others who have never met a true believer are suddenly engaging at a level never possible within a traditional church.  And without ever setting foot in a service, seekers are seeing Christ-followers in real life in real-time.  When a group becomes intentional about proclaiming Jesus, communities will take notice and gospel opportunities begin to take shape.

Imagine a coordinated group ministry where all the groups are not in-focused but missional, where there is planning, strategy, and resources put into using groups as a means of pre-evangelism within neighborhoods.  The results could be astonishing.

Conclusion

A church with a small group ministry has the framework in place to make a significant impact for Christ in their community, provided they are discipleship-focused, they have established geographical and missional goals, and group leaders are personally committed to leading by example.

Scott Foreman is the Executive Pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Sewell, New Jersey. He and his wife Rachel are thankful to be a part of a church that takes their small group ministry seriously.