The Promise of Small Groups

1. The Promise of Small Groups

2. Small Groups • Why • How • When

3. The Challenge of Time • I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer. • Martin Luther • If we are rushed for time, sow time and we will reap time. Go to church and spend a quiet hour in prayer. You will have more time than ever and your work will get done. . . Sow kindness and you will reap kindness. Sow love, you will reap love. • Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness • Where there is no love, if you put love, you will take out love. • St. John of the Cross

4. The Challenge of Time • Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment. . . Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller, and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen. • Leonardo da Vinci

5. 1985-2004 • Those reporting 4-5 discussion partners went from 33% to 15%. • The numbers of those who discuss important matters with a spouse increased from 30% to 38%. • Percentage of people who talk to at least one person who is not kin went from 80% to 57%. • the percentage of the American population who feel isolated has increased, from 25% to 50%.

6. We get married because we need all need a witness to our lives. • Shall We Dance • We all need a witness to our lives. Without such a witness, we live in a crushing anonymity – even though we move day in and out among countless others. Without the witness of friends, we walk alone in the uncertainty that someone cares enough to see us truly, to know us for who we are, to love us in the particularity of out lives. • David J. Wood

7. At the heart of the Christian Gospel is the conviction that God in Christ is the witness to our lives. What is Christian community if it is not the place where we come to know we are not alone through the love of Christ in the gift of friendship? One day we will know and be fully known. Until then, we have friends.

8. Friendship • St. Aelred January 12 St. Valentine February 14

9. Friendship • Voluntariness • Mutuality and Reciprocity • Esteem and Goodwill • Common Activity • Sharing of Inner Life • Continuing Commitment • Positive Affection • Equality • Virtue

10. Small Group Ministry • Intentional

11. Acts 2:41-47 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

12. Acts 2 • Koinonia / Community / Fellowship • Needs met • Time together in temple and home • Practiced generosity • Growth

13. Benefits • Ministering to one another • Offering mutual support • Lives are changed • Commitments build trust • Accountability