Understanding SHAPE

OK, it’s time for another confession. I often watch movies that would not be on the Christian Approved list. Last weekend was one of those times. You see, I had been intrigued by the dating rituals of a certain young man I was counseling. Frankly, it was very foreign to me. I’m pretty old school. If I want to communicate something, I just say it. But not so with this young guy, and apparently not so with his generation. How do I know? Well, the culture produced the movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

Please don’t think I’m recommending this movie. I’m not. But it was about the culture and about how relationships form, and those types of movies draw my attention. And of course I found lots of poor communication and over-reliance upon nonverbal communication in this story. But the plot of the movie was built around our basic need to connect to others in meaningful community. And what was painfully obvious to me was the pervasive spirit of discontentment running through most of the characters.

My fear is that our study of SHAPE will result in the same spirit of discontent. Frankly, that is one reason that we are asking all of our CONNECT groups to go through both the SHAPE study and the Serving Together study. Together they form a full picture of how God intends to use serving to develop you while bringing glory to Himself. For those who are not serving anywhere, the solution is simple: take an educated guess at your SHAPE, pick a place to serve, and take a ministry on a test drive. But for those who are already serving somewhere at Grace Church and have done the SHAPE study and felt that maybe they are plugged in at a place where they don’t fit well, those are the people who concern me most.

It’s like in the movie, when the young husband, Ben is struggling to figure out who he is as a newly-married man. Along comes the flirtatious, knock-out, single gal, Anna. Although he knows that he has committed himself to his wife, Janine, he deceives himself into thinking that he’s really meant for Anna.

Some people might have the idea that God doesn’t want them serving in the ministry they are in. That is unlikely. The Serving Together study helps you understand how God uses whatever your present circumstances in order to work in and through your life. If you have a heart for Missions, you don’t have to start by making travel arrangement to the CAR. Rather, look around you for ways to use your SHAPE to reach people, especially those very different than you. If you’re in Children’s Ministry and feel that God really SHAPE’d you more for Adult Ministry, ask your ministry supervisor if help is needed in building up the volunteers in Children & Youth, training and encouraging them, or connecting with the parents who are entrusting their precious treasures to the ministry.

I guess the point I’m trying to get across is that SHAPE is a tool to help you figure out how God wants to use you exactly where He has planted you. Yes, sometimes that will lead to a radical change. But, more times than not, it starts with small changes right where you are. Remember, we are all on a journey as we learn to walk faithfully with our God. Resist the American cultural leanings toward instant gratification, easy, quick solutions, and discontentment. It’s a process. Enjoy the ride. He prepared it for you before you drew your first breath.

He’s really just that into His people!

Control

We sat as a family in the Youth Room and listened intently as Pastor Doug told us all that he doesn’t like the ocean. He explained that he had been forced into a bad experience with “Jell-o fish.” I thought, “He must have been stung thousands of times by the jellyfish to cause this kind of long-term damage!” :o)

Then, Doug told all of the parents that we need to listen to our youth, to hear what they have to say and start the process of moving them to adulthood. What a frightening concept to the father of two teenage daughters! So, we asked our girls what we could do to validate their maturity. One said, “Stop treating us like 5-year-olds!”

OK, I’ll confess that I didn’t respond well to her use of hyperbole (that word is for you, Jeff!). She had exaggerated to make a point, that she felt like we were controlling them too much, not allowing them more freedom.

Lately, I have heard some in the CONNECT Ministry object to Leadership requiring certain studies. Let me explain what’s happening here. We are a developing ministry which is slowing transforming the culture of Grace Church. In order to develop CONNECT and disciple our members, we have determined key steps toward our goals. Therefore, twice a year we require specific content for our entire ministry.

Having everyone on the same page is very important to maintaining the unity of our church. Groups ministries have a tendency to produce churches with Multiple Personality Disorder. But all of our groups are part of CONNECT and Grace Church, and we are all intended to pull together in the same direction, albeit in different ways according to our SHAPE.

Also, most of these studies run 6 weeks. If CONNECT controls your content for 23% of the year, that leaves tremendous freedom and time for each group to pursue studies and activities which are meaningful to their unique discipleship needs.

Finally, and I say this at risk of hurled stones, one of the greatest discipleship needs in this area of the country is toward submission to authority. Now, no one likes godless leadership, but we are striving as Leaders of the CONNECT Ministry to model Christ-like headship. Partly, this is to maintain order and intentionality. But it’s also because this is crucial to your holiness.

Let us know if you feel like you’re being treated like 5-year-olds…..

Fireside Chat

What had discipleship looked like for thousands of years leading up to the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason? Let’s face it: the world we are familiar with is the post-Enlightenment era. Do you want to know about something? Buy a book and read it! (OK, I’m showing my age. “Read a blog or listen to a podcast!”) And personal discipleship in the church today is driven by the call to “quiet time.” But for thousands of years leading up to the invention of the printing press, very few people could actually read. Were they weak in their faith? Were they deficient in some way because they weren’t daily reading their Bible and journaling their thoughts?

Well, I certainly hope that you didn’t answer “Yes” to those rhetorical questions. Frankly, this was a time when individualism was less popular, even seen as dangerous. Community played a huge part in discipleship. Whether it was the family, the church, or the village, folks got together and interacted with one another around God’s Word and life. People spent time together, sharing food, insights, and struggles. They learned and practiced, sometimes all in the same gathering. And their faith was extremely practical, impacting their lives and casting their culture.

Last Saturday, 23 Leaders from our CONNECT Small Groups Ministry got together at the home of Denny and Gini Hummer for our first Quarterly CONNECT Leadership Fireside Chat. It was an opportunity to come together as the leaders of Grace Church. Does that sound strange to you? “Aren’t the leaders of Grace Church the pastors and elders?” Certainly. But biblical leadership is primarily about influence. And who is more influential in the lives of the members of a small group than the one who pours himself or herself out for them, their group leader. And your pastor and Coach want to do the same for your group, namely to make ourselves very accessible to the people in our ministry.

We had a great night of sharing about what God is doing in our groups and about how we are struggling. Yes, I “taught” more than I wanted to. I felt it was needed at a couple points, and it led to great dialog. Afterward, one Leader told me that he was encouraged most to know that the difficulties he was facing did not indicate that he was failing as a Leader, but that he was truly engaging in real discipleship. He clearly heard that there were other groups struggling through the very same issues. Another Leader told me that for the first time she was beginning to understand that group was not the place people go to grow but actually how people grow. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Can We Use the Bible?

When I arrived here at Grace in September 2008, I had a month to organize and launch a Small Groups ministry. That wasn’t a lot of time, even if I had been in this culture for my entire life. As you can imagine, I had to learn about the culture and the church very quickly. And, the church had been warned by Pastor Scott for about 2 months that I was coming from Saddleback Church. Now, nearly everyone has heard of Saddleback or Rick Warren. And everyone seems to have a strong opinion regarding Rick. Some absolutely love him while some loath him. There doesn’t seem to be too many in the middle! As you can imagine, most of the people I would work with at Grace had ideas about me before I arrived.

I have to tell you about one gal in particular. She and her husband had agreed to lead one of our beta groups in October. I was explaining to her the options available to their group for study materials. I had a nice selection of study guides to choose from. As I explained, she was very quiet. I thought she was considering which one to select. When I was finished, she looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “Do you have any problem with us using the Bible?”

OK. Before I get on with the point of this post, let me tell you that I now have a great relationship with this gal and her husband. We just had to spend a little time together, sharing our hearts for God and His church, to realize we are likeminded. Now, back to the point…

The Bible should be at the core of what we do in group and in life. Does that mean that we can only study the Bible? No. Does it mean that we should study the Bible? Absolutely! Here are some of the things I would want you to know about Bible study in CONNECT group:

• Don’t do consecutive Bible studies. We want you to mix things up a bit in your group time. After you work through a passage or book of the Bible, do something different. You might decide to do a topical survey of the Bible, like parenting or stewardship or anxiety. Maybe you want to use a study guide or DVD. Perhaps it’s time for a service project or party or movie. Maybe you want to take a couple sessions and just discuss life and what God is asking of each of you. Mix it up or else your group will become too scholastic and one dimensional and ineffective.


• Use a good Bible. CONNECT Ministry has offered every continuing group leader the Serendipity Small Groups Study Bible. This is a very helpful tool for groups wanting to spend more time in the Word together. For each section of Scripture, it provides sample ice breaker, study, and application questions. You can either use it as provided or as a guide for developing your own questions. The key is that it helps you structure a transformational group interaction while also keeping you honest to the intended purpose of the passage.


• Ask the question, “So what?” While I touched on this above, I can’t over-emphasize the importance of this point. You have to bring the Bible “home” in your study. You can’t leave your group in Babylonian captivity. There has to be a takeaway. And be cautious of intangible applications. The sovereignty of God is a wonderful point to a passage, but how does His sovereignty impact your daily life? How does that information help you deal with a wayward son or diagnosis of cancer? The application portion of your time together is the part where you acknowledge receiving God’s truth and commit to a plan of implementation.

Do I have any problems with groups using the Bible? If they do it rightly, of course not! I encourage it! Let me leave you with James’ description of your how you should implement Bible study:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-- he will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25

More on Studies - Using a Study Guide

Yesterday, I discussed some of the merits of DVD-based small group studies. Now there’s a similar method for doing guided study time which is more common than DVD, namely a Study Guide. To say that study guides are “more common” is a huge understatement. In fact, they are ubiquitous! (Sorry Andy, but I know that Jeff tunes out when he doesn’t find at least one $5 word in my blog. For the rest of us common folk, “they are everywhere!”)

Again, the value of the study guide approach to group study time is that the guide has hopefully been crafted in a way that will facilitate discussion, learning, and life transformation. I say “hopefully” because that is not true of all studies. Some are Sunday School repackaged as group discussion guides. How can you tell the difference? The questions are fact-based and generally have right and wrong answers. Here’s an overly-simplistic comparison:

Read 2 Peter 1:5-7:

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. (2 Peter 1:5-7)

Sunday School question: Name the 7 characteristics which you should diligently seek to add to your faith.

Small Group discussion questions: From the list of the 7 characteristics Peter instructs us to add to our faith, which one is the most difficult for you? Why do you think you struggle with that characteristic? What might you intentionally do differently tomorrow to overcome that difficulty? Who can help you grow in this area? OR

More than a list, this is a sequence or progression representing spiritual development. How might it help you to grow in your walk with Christ if you use this passage as a guide to help you aim for the right goal? If knowledge is the first step in your growth as a Christian and love is the ultimate goal, how will you restructure your life so that you continue to grow toward love?

One difficulty some groups run into with study guides is that they are generally geared to hit a broad spectrum of users. They will have some questions which are incredibly basic, even obvious and others which can be very difficult, even painful to answer. This is where a little skill on the part of the group leader comes in very handy. Here are a few tips:

• First. read the entire study before your group meets. Pray and reflect upon what the passage or passages are really about, not what you want to make of them.


• Pray and reflect upon the spiritual health and maturity of your group members, especially yourself. Is the group composed of new believers, or have they been in solid studies for 50 years? Are they exhibiting a healthy, vibrant relationship with the Lord, pouring into the lives of others, or are they dealing with an exceptionally difficult season of life?


• Then, in light of your meditations, modify the study guide. This may mean skipping certain questions because they are too difficult, too simple, or too painful. It may mean adding a real-life example to a question, either hypothetical or from your own life. Depending on the persons in the group, it may mean steering into or away from a specific example. If someone has an abortion in her past, you may want your group discussion to center upon regret, shame, forgiveness, or decisions based upon fear or selfishness. If someone is struggling through a terminal illness, you probably want to deal with that issue straight up. You may even find that you don’t use the guide as written at all. Instead, use it for guidance and ideas and then create something specific for your group.

When used in this way, study guides become powerful tools to impact lives across the broadest of spectrums without demanding that the leader be a biblical scholar.

Next, the Bible…

The Question of Studies - DVD Curricula

What does your group do about your study time together? A DVD curriculum? Study Guide? The Bible? A Christian book? Something else? Nothing? Maybe you have a preference. I want to take a couple blog posts and explain how to use the first few of these options.

Right now, our groups are involved in one of two DVD curricula on Serving. We are getting mixed feedback on DVD studies so I want to explain two strengths of them.

DVD studies are perfect for the leader who isn’t, or doesn’t feel, “qualified” to lead a discussion. The “teaching” is all delivered by the expert in the video. So, leading a group is simple: you open your home to a bunch of people, serve them some goodies and coffee, and pop in the DVD. Especially for exposing potential new leaders to the role, DVD curricula cannot be beat!

As many of our groups have discovered, other items can be packaged with the study. In the current materials, there are worship songs and biblical commentaries on the passages being discussed. I have heard very positive feedback from two of our groups who tried out the worship tracks. While they admitted that they were cautious going into that endeavor, they both said that it was a great experience to worship together as a small group.

For those of you who don’t care for the DVD approach, the current Serving studies can be done without the video. So, tailor the DVD approach to your group’s needs and preferences! The point of your time together is to engage in discussion around the biblical content and to commit to appropriate responses which demonstrate faithfulness to God.

Next, Study Guides……

Confess Your Sins

OK, let's be honest about this one. One of the most difficult things to do in a group context is the very thing we are instructed to do in James 5:16:

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

Yeah, we might be good with confessing our sins to God (maybe), but how about to one another? Here is a video a ran across which is related to this subject.

Now, I believe that this guys is on the right track. If we can't confess to one another, what do our confessions to God really mean?

But here's another thing to think about: What does unconfessed sin do to community? Now our American culture which says, "To each his own" and "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" would insist that a person's private life is exactly that, private.

Are you familiar with the story of Achan in the Old Testament (Joshua 6-7)? You see, God told Joshua that Jericho had been delivered to the Israelites and Joshua gave explicit instruction to the people that the city was an offering to God. They were not to take anything for themselves from the city because it was the Lord's.

But Achan took Babylonian wealth for himself and hid it in his tent. And the Lord's anger rained down on all of Israel. Did you get that? All of Israel! Why? Does that sound wrong to you? Well, try this on for size. When Achan confessed his sin, he was stoned, but so were his belongings, his livestock, and his children. All stoned and burned.

OK, let's not go too far off track with this story. The point is that individual, private sins affect the whole community. And maybe, like the video suggested, we don't confess because we don't truly believe. Or, maybe we don't confess because we fear the reaction. If you confess to your Christian brothers and sisters, will they stone you and your entire household? Or, is your Christian community going to follow Christ's instructions. Take a look at the reason, according to James for confessing your sins:

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16