What Is Wrong With Small Groups?

Has this verse been mentioned already?

"Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the Good News that Jesus is the Christ." Acts 5:42

 

Small groups CAN be good, but problem is a concept called the CELL GROUP which is infiltrating churches, is something totally different!

One thing to watch out for is if they send the folks off on "retreats" to learn how to be leaders of others.

I am a supporter of house churches and good small bible studies.

Google cell groups and churches, youll see what I mean.

Some are following things like the G-12 movement and other seeker sensitive falsehoods.

 

There is a difference in seeker sensitive and seeker friendly. Seeker sensitive takes away all the stumbling blocks for the unsaved without changing the Gospel, seeker friendly changes the Gospel to suit the seeker.

 

I don't see an issue as long as the Pastor can feed all of the small groups. He is responsible for the feeding of God's people. Im not saying that a Pastor cannot have a guest speaker or something like that but he is still responsible for what the sheep are eating. Many old church started with circuit riding preachers or pastors.

 

I have an issue with small groups because they are so clique-oriented. If you happen to fit in with the others that happen to fit in, they seem great. Otherwise...




The social butterflies in the "in-crowd" will never understand this point of view so there's no point in arguing about it.

 

The Bible sets forth who has leadership over another.

Ok lets look at a women's group.

Husbands are supposed to be the spiritual leaders of their wives in the home.

Why is another woman {one who got the training} and could even be YOUNGER then the other women, being given a false place of having LEADERSHIP over other women in the church?

This is totally unbiblical.

 

I don't know what kind of small groups you've been to or NOT been to, but our small groups aren't church. They are just a place to get together and talk about spiritual stuff and pray together and have dinner and socialize outside of the church enviroment. (Acts 2: 42-47). BTW, we rotate every couple of months to keep down the "cliques". All of our groups have men, women and children and all have spiritual leaders from the Church.

 

This is the key point--managed by the church leadership.
The persons who led me to Christ were involved with an interdenominational movement that actually worked against the local church. They taught the right things as far as practical Christian living: devotions, fellowship, Bible Study, witnessing, etc. I became well grounded in the Word as a new Christian, but never baptized, never a member of a local church until two years later when I left that group.
Small study groups are dangerous when they do not fall under the leadership of the local church. They need to have someone who is appointed by the Pastor to oversee what is going on. I have seen some Bible Studies that are nothing more than "pooled ignorance." "I think this, and I think that." It is the local church that God has ordained as his institution that He has chosen to work through in this day and age.

 

If they are "clique oriented", they are not what true small groups should be. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

This is one of those religious things. People who are young are assumed to be impetuous and unwise by most. But I have met young people(not saying myself), who had more biblical wisdom and fervent zeal then a lot of the old 'upstanding' members of the church.

BUT, with each year I live I gain more wisdom. So I hope that old people are much more a long in their faith then us young people. But sometimes old people can become complacent, like any of us, and their spiritual growth stagnates.

EDIT: If we used the Acts model for small groups, what verse would we draw on to have laypeople teaching themselves in small groups?

 

Allow me not only to echo this but to do so through A BLARING sound system. Excellent post.

 

Larry,

I completely agree. But the manner in which small groups are carried out is the issue. Small groups should always be temporal. They shoud change every 3-6 months. The leader (facilitator) must be trained to keep the group focused and to stem the tide of false abstract thought--keeping the focus of the group grounded in concrete biblical principles. The idea of small groups is blending biblical training with edification and fellowship. Some Sunday School teachers are very good at this. In my SS class, I have to find a balance. I lecture over material which I feel MUST be taught in the overall focus of the passage/lesson/quarterly theme, but I include discussion time in an effort to apply the truths and contextualize the main points. (Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I have more fun than a barrel of monkeys teaching!)

Small Groups v. SS Model does not have to be an either/or, but rather SHOULD be a both/and. We cannot force member to be apart of such things, but we promote the Spiritual discipline of bible intake in all forms biblical.

K