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Developing the Growth Group Program · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Imagine Imagine you are a pastor, or maybe an elder, and
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  you are looking over the roster of your church's various
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  ministries and you see one specific small group that has
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  been meeting on Tuesday nights for, well, 10 solid years.
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  Right. A whole decade.
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  Yeah, the attendance is incredibly consistent.
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  The host's house is always packed.
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  They have an incredible spread of food every single week.
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  Oh yeah. We're talking, you know,
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  homemade dips, artisan breads, the works.
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  Good stuff. Right.
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  And from the outside, looking through the living room window,
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  it looks like the absolute pinnacle of Christian
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  fellowship. It looks like a massive success.
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  Sure it does. But what if I told you that
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  according to the manual we're looking at today, that specific
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  group, the one with the great snacks and the tenure track
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  record, might actually be considered a total catastrophic
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  failure? That is a jarring scenario.
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  I mean, it really is, but it is a highly realistic one.
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  Yeah, because we have a very bad habit of confusing
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  organizational longevity with spiritual vitality.
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  We measure the steel, you know, we count the floors of the
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  building, and we check the attendance boxes on a clipboard.
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  Right, the metrics we can easily see.
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  Precisely. We look at a group of friends
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  who have been eating cheese and crackers together for a decade,
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  and we label it a triumph. But the metrics of success in
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  the Kingdom of God operate on an entirely different scale.
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  That makes a lot of sense. When you start measuring the
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  fruit of a ministry by scriptural standards and of like
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  corporate longevity, that comfortable Tuesday night group
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  might actually be the most stagnant, lifeless Organism in
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  the entire church. Welcome to our Reformed Thinking
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  deep dive. If you are listening to this,
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  you are likely someone who values theological rigor.
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  You want practical wisdom for your local congregation, and you
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  prefer avoiding the noise of information overload.
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  We are glad you are here, and we have crafted this conversation
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  with you in mind. Today our specific mission is
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  examining Chapter 15 of Colin Marshall's manual on Developing
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  a Small group program. A fantastic manual.
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  It really is. This chapter is titled Growth
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  Groups. We are going to investigate the
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  grand vision for global gospel spread.
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  We'll also look at the gritty reality of starting, pausing or
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  closing groups, and the weighty task of evaluating ministry
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  fruitfulness. And to set the proper stage for
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  you, the listener, we must ground our upcoming conversation
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  in our shared Reformed perspectives.
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  Absolutely everything we discussed today regarding these
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  small groups, well, it will be viewed through the lens of God's
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  absolute sovereignty in building His church right and the
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  absolute sufficiency of Scripture.
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  These are core truths beautifully affirmed in the
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  Westminster Confession of Faith. Spot on.
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  We are not looking at a pragmatic business strategy
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  lifted from a corporate boardroom.
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  Here, no, not at all. We are looking at how God uses
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  faithful agents to accomplish His predetermined will through
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  the ordinary, steady teaching of His Word.
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  That is right. OK, let's unpack this.
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  To understand the practical, everyday steps of building a
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  small group program, like how to pick leaders or what to study,
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  we first must grasp the massive global goal that justifies all
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  this effort. The source text points us
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  straight to the Apostle Paul's aim in Colossians 1.28.
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  A vital passage, yeah. Paul says his goal is presenting
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  everyone mature in Christ through admonishing and teaching
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  with all wisdom, right? The vision laid out here is
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  staggering. We are talking about millions of
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  groups across all sectors of society.
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  Yeah, everywhere. Schools.
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  The military, the business World, University campuses.
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  Exactly. I mean, the text notes something
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  striking. In some persecuted areas of the
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  world, these small, quiet gatherings might be the only
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  church gathering possible. That global vision?
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  It resets our entire perspective on what a small group actually
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  is. How so?
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  Well, when Paul writes about the gospel bearing fruit and growing
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  all over the world in Colossians 1.6, he is not speaking
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  hyperbolically. Right, he isn't just trying to
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  make the Colossians feel good. Precisely, he is stating a clear
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  theological reality. The Word of God is an active
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  agent. So gathering Christians together
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  for Bible study, prayer and evangelism, well, that is
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  central to this global expansion.
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  It isn't just a side project. No, this is not a secondary,
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  optional program for a local church to offer if they happen
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  to have enough volunteers to fill a schedule.
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  This is the primary mechanism for admonishing and teaching.
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  And as you mentioned, in regions hostile to the Christian faith,
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  the small, quiet gathering in a living room or a basement is the
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  frontline of the visible church. When you understand that, you
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  stop viewing your Wednesday night Bible study as a casual
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  social club and start viewing it as an outpost of the Kingdom of
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  Christ. I really want to dig into that
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  specific phrase from Colossians presenting everyone perfect in
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  Christ, because in our modern vocabulary, perfect sounds like
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  an impossible standard. It does.
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  It sounds almost like we are demanding absolute sinlessness
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  before someone can graduate from the group.
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  But I assume Paul's using that term differently here, which
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  effects how we actually run these groups.
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  Precisely, the Greek word Paul uses there conveys the idea of
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  maturity, completeness, or reaching the intended goal.
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  OK, so maturity. Right.
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  He is not talking about sinless perfection in this life.
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  Our Reformed confessions rightly deny that is possible for the
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  fallen human. Yeah, definitely.
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  Rather, he is talking about spiritual maturity.
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  The goal of the small group is not to just keep people busy,
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  but to bring them to a robust, mature faith.
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  Where they actually understand the doctrines of grace.
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  Spot on. Where they can weather the
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  storms of life without abandoning Christ, and where
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  they are actively putting sin to death.
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  That takes a lot of work. It takes immense labor.
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  It takes admonishing, which means gently but firmly
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  correcting someone when they stray.
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  And it takes teaching with all wisdom.
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  So keeping that massive global vision in mind and that goal of
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  producing mature believers, the text gives us a strategy for
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  where to start. Whether you are a pastor with
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  zero small groups or you inherited an existing messy,
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  chaotic program, the strategy the manual represents is
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  surprisingly simple. It really is.
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  It says to start small, gather only highly dedicated
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  individuals rather than trying to accommodate everyone at once,
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  right? The author presents a
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  multiplication model that spans 4 full years.
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  Yeah, 4 year plan. In year 1, you start with just
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  one single group and you train 4 leaders.
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  Yeah, by year 2 you have three groups, year 37 groups and by
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  year 4 you have 15 groups. It is a slow build.
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  It reminds me of planting an oak tree versus building a pop up
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  tent. Oh, I like.
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  That a massive, sturdy oak starts from a single, quiet
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  acorn. It takes years to establish a
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  root system underground before you see the massive branches,
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  right? And that contrasts heavily with
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  modern church growth models that often resemble flashy, hastily
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  erected tents meant to draw a quick crowd.
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  That oak tree analogy. It captures the essence of this
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  method beautifully. Think about a pop up tent.
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  It provides immediate shelter, it looks impressive from a
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  distance and you can put it up in 10 minutes.
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  Yeah, it's super fast. But the first strong wind will
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  tear it apart. It has no roots, exactly.
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  Modern pragmatic church strategies often rely entirely
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  on the pop up tent method. They want large numbers
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  immediately to validate their efforts to the elder board or to
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  the congregation. Right, they want to show instant
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  results. Precisely.
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  So they launch fifty groups on a single Sunday with a massive
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  marketing push. Wow.
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  But Marshall's manual advocates for the ACORN.
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  You spend an entire year with just one group focusing entirely
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  on training 4 specific leaders. And to the outside observer it
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  looks like nothing is happening. It looks painfully slow.
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  The congregation might even wonder what the pastoral staff
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  is doing with their time. Right.
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  But underground, out of sight, you are developing a root
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  system. I do have to push back on this a
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  little bit though. Sure, if Paul's vision is to
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  reach everyone globally, and we want everyone in the church to
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  be maturing in Christ, why does the text advise restricting that
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  first group only to the highly dedicated?
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  Is a tough question. Doesn't excluding the half
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  hearted contradict the goal of reaching everyone?
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  It feels almost exclusionary, which goes against our typical
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  welcoming open door church ethos.
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  Yeah, like if someone wants to show up to a Bible study,
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  shouldn't we let them? It is a very valid pushback, and
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  the text provides a very blunt, unvarnished answer to that
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  tension. The manual warns that the half
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  hearted will bleed the group dry.
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  Ouch. Yeah, we have to look at this
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  both practically and theologically.
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  Practically speaking, a small group requires mutual
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  participation to function as designed, right?
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  Let us imagine a scenario. You have a group of 10 people.
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  Four of them are dedicated, They read the text, they come ready
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  to discuss the theology of Romans, and they want to pray
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  for the lost. OK, but the other six are half
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  hearted. They never do the reading.
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  They constantly derail the discussion to talk about their
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  golf game or the local sports team.
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  I've been in that group. Many of us have, And they treat
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  the prayer time as a venue for superficial requests, right?
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  What happens? The dedicated core will become
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  exhausted. They will become intensely
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  discouraged because the group is not moving toward maturity.
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  The Organism gets sick. The dedicated ones are basically
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  dragging the rest of the group up a hill and eventually their
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  muscles give out. They burnout.
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  Yes, precisely. But if you restrict that initial
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  core to dedicated believers, they create a healthy, vibrant
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  Organism. They establish a culture of
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  actual study and real vulnerability, and that healthy
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  culture naturally reproduces. It sits the DNA for the whole
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  ministry. Spot on.
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  Theologically, this multi year multiplication plan avoids the
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  pragmatic human center tactics we often see right.
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  We are so accustomed to high pressure sales pitches from the
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  pulpit. Sign up for a group today.
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  Your life will be completely changed by next week.
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  Oh yeah, you hear that all the time, but by.
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  Focusing on intensive leader training over immediate
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  numerical bloat, the growth relies on the visible attractive
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  fruit of the spirit in believers lives.
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  So the congregation sees the. Yes, when the rest of the
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  congregation sees genuine Christian maturity happening in
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  those core leaders, you do not need a marketing campaign.
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  The congregation will naturally want to participate in what they
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  see God doing. That shifts the burden of growth
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  entirely. It really does.
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  If I am understanding this correctly, it takes the pressure
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  off the pastor to be a charismatic salesman, and it
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  places the reliance squarely on what we call the ordinary means
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  of grace. Yes, absolutely.
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  For the listener who might not use that specific terminology
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  everyday, when we say ordinary means of grace, we are talking
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  about taking the pressure off the church to invent flashy new
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  programs, right? We're getting back to basics,
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  just opening the Bible, preaching the Word, praying
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  together, and administering the sacraments while trusting that
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  God actually uses those simple, ordinary things to build His
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  church. That is a perfect explanation.
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  This slow, deliberate multiplication requires a highly
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  reformed trust in God's Providence and timing.
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  You are flatly refusing to rely on manufactured human momentum.
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  You are submitting to the reality that God gives the
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  growth, and He often does it through slow, methodical,
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  faithful labor. It is a massive exercise in
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  patience. It is you train 4 leaders in
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  year 1, trusting that God will use those four to shepherd 8 new
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  leaders in year 2. It is an act of real faith to
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  start small in the world and often the congregation demands
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  large immediate numbers. You are declaring through your
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  administrative structure that the Holy Spirit does not need a
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  height machine to regenerate hearts and mature believers.
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  And the math of it is actually brilliant when you map it out.
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  It is. If you take the time to build
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  the roots, the exponential growth eventually catches up.
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  By year 4, you have 15 healthy groups led by people who
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  actually know how to study the Bible and minister to others.
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  Exactly. If you tried to launch fifteen
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  groups in year 1, you would have 15 exhausted leaders who do not
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  know what they're doing leading 15 chaotic, unfocused meetings.
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  The contrast is stark. The Year 1 massive launch
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  guarantees high casualty rates among your volunteers.
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  Yeah, people would just quit. They will burn out, they will
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  step down, and they will likely carry resentment toward the
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  church leadership for tossing them into the deep end without a
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  lifeline. That is a terrible.
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  It is the four year multiplication strategy protects
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  the flock. It ensures that when a new
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  believer joins a group in Year 4, they are being met by a
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  leader who has been thoroughly seasoned, tested and equipped.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting.
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  If planting a group is like planting an oak tree and we
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  establish these roots, what happens when that tree stops
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  bearing fruit and starts rotting?
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  This brings us to a concept in the manual that is honestly the
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  most counter intuitive advice I have seen in a long time.
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  It surprises a lot of people. It is the idea of intentionally
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  closing groups down, the author says point blank small group
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  pastors should also be small group terminators a very.
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  Striking choice of words. That is wild phrase to read in a
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  pastoral ministry manual. A Terminator.
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  It is an incredibly jarring phrase, but an absolutely vital
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  1. Why is that?
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  Well, as we discussed in our opening scenario, we tend to
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  view longevity as the primary metric of success.
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  If a group has been meeting for 10 years, we assume it is a
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  phenomenal success. Right, because they stuck
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  around. But the text challenges that
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  assumption head on. Groups get comfortable, Roles
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  become rigidly defined. Yeah, I've seen that.
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  The person who always brings the snacks is always the snack
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  person. The person who always dominates
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  the conversation is allowed to dominate.
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  It and nobody ever challenges them, right?
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  And eventually the members simply become bored.
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  They meet out of sheer habit. They are no longer growing.
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  They are just maintaining a social calendar.
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  The text describes a dead group as one where there's no longer a
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  struggle together over the scriptures, prayer or reaching
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  others. Yes, a struggle.
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  But I want to pause on that word struggle.
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  Why is a comfortable group considered a dead group?
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  Is comfort not something we should desire in a chaotic,
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  exhausting world? It is a fair question.
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  People go to their small group on a Wednesday night precisely
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  because their boss yelled at them all day.
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  Their kids are driving them crazy and they just want a
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  comfortable place to relax. We must make a careful
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  distinction here. Comfort in the sense of finding
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  rest in Christ's finished work is good and necessary, of
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  course, but comfort in the sense of spiritual stagnation is
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  lethal. We must consider the psychology
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  of a stagnant group. They gather, they drink coffee,
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  they catch up on each other's week, and they might skim a
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  Bible passage, but there is no friction.
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  No challenge. Right, the text uses that
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  specific phrase without struggle.
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  It is dead. Christian sanctification is not
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  a passive, comfortable state. No, it's not.
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  Putting your sin to death requires intense effort.
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  Understanding the deep doctrines of Scripture requires rigorous
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  mental labor. Interceding for the lost
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  requires carrying an emotional weight.
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  Yeah, that is heavy work. If a group is just floating
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  along, predictably they are no longer engaging in the rigorous
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  work of discipleship. They are just a social club with
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  a very thin Christian veneer. It sounds like a spiritual form
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  of controlled burns in a forest. That is a great way to put it.
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  If you manage a forest, you cannot just let the dead brush
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  pile up indefinitely or eventually a lightning strike
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  will cause a catastrophic wildfire that destroys the
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  healthy trees. You have to intentionally bring
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  in a torch, start a controlled fire, and burn away the dead
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  brush so that new seeds can actually get sunlight and the
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  soil gets fresh nutrients. The Terminator pasture is
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  essentially conducting a controlled burn.
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  I think that analogy hits the nail on the head.
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  You are clearing out the Deadwood to make room for new
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  life. When a group has flatlined when
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  they are just discussing the bean dip for 45 minutes and
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  giving 5 minutes to the Apostle Paul, the leader must intervene.
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  But doing that is incredibly difficult.
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  Because you are dealing with humans, not actual trees.
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  You're dealing with people's feelings, their routines and
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  their social lives. When you identify that a group
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  is flatlined, the manual advises shooting the dead horse, but
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  doing that is incredibly awkward.
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  It is deeply uncomfortable. I can only imagine the tension
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  in the room when a leader looks at five of their friends and
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  says this isn't working anymore, we are shutting it down, right?
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  The text gives very specific instructions on how to end well.
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  You do not just let the group slowly fade away until numbers
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  drop to zero and everyone ghosts each other.
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  No, you. Have to be intentional.
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  You set a final date, you review the highlights, you discussed
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  the growth scene in individuals, and you send her the final time
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  on prayer and Thanksgiving. The mechanics of that final
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  meeting are brilliant from a pastoral care perspective.
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  They really. Are it is.
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  Deeply demoralizing to watch a group slowly bleed out over six
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  months. People stop showing up.
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  The host feels guilty and the whole thing ends with a whimper.
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  Yeah, it leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth.
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  Ending with a bang. Setting a definitive finish
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  line, as the text suggests, provides much needed closure.
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  You acknowledge the end clearly. And there is a strict explicit
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  warning in the text to avoid negative feedback or gripe
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  sessions at this final meeting. Yes, very strict.
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  Why is avoiding negative feedback so critical at the end?
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  If things went wrong, if the leader was unprepared, or if the
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  material is too dry, shouldn't people have a space to air their
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  grievances so the church can learn from those mistakes?
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  You would think so. It feels a bit like sweeping the
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  dirt under the rug. There is a proper time and place
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  for evaluating structural failures, which we will examine
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  later, but the final gathering of a group is absolutely not
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  that time. OK, ending with complaints
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  obscures God's grace. We have to factor in human
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  depravity here, right? Our natural fall in human
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  tendency is to focus intensely on the irritations.
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  We remember the person who talked too much, we remember the
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  snacks that were always stale, and we remember the meetings
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  that ran late when we had to get up early for work.
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  We hold on to the negative stuff.
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  We do. If a leader opens the floor to
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  negative feedback in that final meeting, it will rapidly
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  snowball into a toxic gripe session.
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  Oh, I can see that. One person complaints, which
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  gives permission for the next person to complain, and suddenly
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  the entire history of the group is rewritten in a negative
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  light. You were trying to prevent a
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  parting wave of bitterness. Yes.
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  Instead, by forcing the review questions into a positive mode,
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  asking specifically what growth in our lives has God-given this
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  year, the leader shepherds the group to recognize divine
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  Providence. You are actively forcing them to
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  look for the grace of God, even if the group dynamics were
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  incredibly difficult. Precisely.
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  Even in a group that struggled heavily with interpersonal
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  conflict, God was still at work. Perhaps dealing with that
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  difficult talkative member taught someone immense patience
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  and forbearance. That is true growth.
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  Or perhaps struggling through a dense, confusing book of the
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  Bible revealed a new facet of Christ's character that they had
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  never seen before. Ending with Thanksgiving
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  acknowledges that God uses imperfect vessels.
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  He uses messy groups to accomplish his sanctifying will.
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  Furthermore, it helps manage the very real emotional loss members
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  will feel. Let's talk about that loss,
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  because the text advises acknowledging this emotional
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  reality. It does.
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  Even if a group was struggling, shutting it down means people
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  are losing a Tuesday night routine and a set of
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  relationships. It is a real loss.
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  The manual talks about compensating for that loss by
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  transitioning members into new gatherings or encouraging 1 to
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  one fellowship. You do not just abandoned them,
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  you redeploy them. Redeployment is the exact right
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  word. You are not kicking them out of
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  the church, you are moving them to a different part of the
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  vineyard. That's a good way to phrase it.
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  You might say, John, I know this group is ending, but I've
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  noticed you have a real gift for understanding systematic
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  theology. I want to pair you up with this
• 20:31
  new believer, Mark to read through the Gospel of John
• 20:35
  one-on-one. Giving them a new purpose.
• 20:37
  Yes, you give them a new mission.
• 20:39
  This mitigates the pain of the ending and immediately reengages
• 20:42
  them in the global vision we discussed at the beginning.
• 20:45
  Now, since ending a group is so emotionally taxing and awkward,
• 20:49
  even if you handle it incredibly well with prayer, Thanksgiving,
• 20:53
  and redeployment, is there a structural design that prevents
• 20:56
  this stagnation in the first place?
• 20:58
  There is actually. Can we build the system that
• 21:00
  avoids the painful termination conversation entirely?
• 21:05
  The text offers a phenomenal solution.
• 21:08
  It calls it the fixed Term model.
• 21:11
  The fixed term model is a masterful stroke of
• 21:13
  administrative wisdom. It really is.
• 21:16
  Instead of letting groups run indefinitely until they die of
• 21:19
  old age, you run all groups in the church on a strict one or
• 21:23
  two year cycle. OK, when the term is up, every
• 21:25
  single group in the church officially closes.
• 21:28
  No exceptions. I can hear a collective gasp
• 21:31
  from the listeners who love their 10 year small group.
• 21:34
  Oh, I'm sure they are gasping. A strict one year cut off?
• 21:38
  Doesn't that feel a bit cold? Like we're applying corporate
• 21:41
  restructuring to spiritual friendships.
• 21:43
  It does sound harsh initially. We were basically telling people
• 21:46
  your friendship contract has expired, please move to the next
• 21:49
  department. It sounds rigid at first glance,
• 21:51
  but you have to look at the immense pastoral benefits it
• 21:54
  provides, such as everyone shuffles at the end of the term.
• 21:57
  This naturally diffuses difficult relationships without
• 22:00
  any awkward confrontations. I see.
• 22:03
  If two personalities clash heavily in a group and they are
• 22:06
  grading on each other every week, you do not need a massive
• 22:10
  tearful mediation session with the elders.
• 22:13
  Which nobody wants to do. Right, you just endure it with
• 22:15
  grace, knowing that at the end of the year they will naturally
• 22:18
  shuffle into different groups. It creates a built in release
• 22:21
  valve for the entire small group ecosystem.
• 22:24
  It does, and it also prevents those impenetrable long term
• 22:28
  cliques from forming. Yeah, I have seen churches where
• 22:31
  a small group has been together so long they have their own
• 22:34
  inside jokes, their own vacation schedules.
• 22:36
  Less they become a fortress. And if a new person walks in,
• 22:39
  they feel completely alienated. The fixed term breaks that up.
• 22:44
  It does, and it addresses a much deeper theological issue, which
• 22:48
  is the agonizing dilemma between open and closed groups.
• 22:51
  This is attention every church later faces.
• 22:54
  Let's investigate that dilemma. If a group is constantly open to
• 22:57
  new members every single week of the year, it contradicts the
• 23:00
  goal of building real intimacy. It is always a group of
• 23:04
  strangers. You spend the 1st 30 minutes of
• 23:06
  every meeting doing superficial Ice Breakers because there is
• 23:10
  always someone new in the living room who needs to be caught up.
• 23:13
  That gets exhausting. It really does, but on the flip
• 23:16
  side, if a group is strictly closed and never allows new
• 23:20
  people in, it contradicts the outward looking evangelistic
• 23:24
  ethos we established back in section one with Colossians.
• 23:28
  Right, it stops being missional. It becomes a fortress.
• 23:31
  I look at this tension and wonder, is it a failure of
• 23:34
  Christian charity if we prefer a closed group so we can finally
• 23:38
  get past surface level small talk and actually share our
• 23:42
  deepest struggles? That tension is incredibly
• 23:44
  common and the source material validates it completely.
• 23:47
  Good to know. A closed group absolutely allows
• 23:49
  for deeper vulnerability. You need a stable, trusting
• 23:52
  environment to confess deep seated sin and to carry one
• 23:55
  another's heavy burdens. Yeah.
• 23:57
  You cannot confess A struggle with anger or addiction to a
• 24:00
  room full of strangers. You just met.
• 24:01
  No, you definitely cannot. But if that group stays closed
• 24:05
  indefinitely, year after year, it inevitably becomes
• 24:09
  introspective. It begins to focus solely on its
• 24:12
  own comfort and its own internal relationships.
• 24:15
  It becomes selfish. Exactly that is a direct
• 24:18
  contradiction of the Gospel mission, which is inherently
• 24:20
  expansive and welcoming to the outsider.
• 24:22
  So how does the manual resolve this tension between needing
• 24:26
  deep intimacy and needing an open door for the stranger?
• 24:30
  It resolves it using the exact fixed term cycle we just
• 24:33
  discussed. OK, lay that out for us.
• 24:34
  Here is how it works. Practically.
• 24:37
  A group is open at the very start of the year, let us say
• 24:39
  January. People join, the roster is set,
• 24:41
  and after a few weeks the door closes, right?
• 24:44
  The group effectively becomes a settled, stable community for
• 24:47
  the remainder of that year. You get the intimacy, you get
• 24:50
  the vulnerability. People learn to trust each
• 24:52
  other. Because the roster isn't
• 24:53
  constantly changing. Right.
• 24:55
  But because there is a hard, predetermined stop in December,
• 24:58
  it never becomes a permanent, impenetrable clique.
• 25:01
  It satisfies the need for deep, stable relationships while
• 25:05
  maintaining A structural hospitality for the outsider at
• 25:08
  regular intervals. But what happens if someone new
• 25:12
  joins the church in May? You can't just tell them to wait
• 25:15
  until January to find Christian community.
• 25:17
  The manual anticipates that perfectly.
• 25:20
  Another solution the text offers is planting brand new groups mid
• 25:24
  cycle, perhaps in April or July, specifically designed to catch
• 25:28
  those newcomers that. Makes a lot of sense.
• 25:30
  Instead of shoving a brand new family into a group that has
• 25:33
  already been building relational capital and inside jokes for six
• 25:36
  months, you start a new group where everyone is starting on
• 25:39
  the same footing. If we connect this to the bigger
• 25:42
  picture, we really have to look at our own hearts.
• 25:45
  We do. We must connect this tendency to
• 25:47
  form cliques directly to human depravity.
• 25:51
  Our natural fallen inclination is to build insulated,
• 25:55
  comfortable bubbles where we are surrounded only by people who
• 25:58
  think exactly like us, look like us, and demand very little of
• 26:02
  us. Yes, that is our flesh at work.
• 26:04
  We want the benefits of community without the friction
• 26:07
  of hospitality. These fixed term structures act
• 26:10
  as a wise, practical guardrail against our own selfish
• 26:14
  tendencies. Spot on.
• 26:15
  They force us structurally to continually welcome the
• 26:19
  outsider, to learn how to love new people, and to rely on God's
• 26:22
  grace in new relational dynamics year after year.
• 26:25
  That is spot on. We need structural help to
• 26:28
  overcome our own fleshly desires for mere comfort.
• 26:31
  We are prone to selfishness and a good administrative structure
• 26:35
  assumes that reality and builds fences to keep the sheep moving
• 26:39
  in the right direction. We have covered so much ground
• 26:42
  already, but that brings us to the final and perhaps the
• 26:45
  heaviest portion of our discussion, the weight of
• 26:47
  assessing the harvest. This is crucial.
• 26:49
  We have built the structure, established the one year cycles,
• 26:52
  manage the membership and train the leaders, but how do we
• 26:55
  actually know if any of this is achieving the spiritual goals we
• 26:59
  set out to accomplish? We have to assess.
• 27:01
  That we have to evaluate. But the manual warns that
• 27:03
  evaluating God's work is entirely different from a
• 27:05
  corporate performance review. It is a sobering distinction.
• 27:09
  The text points us directly to the apostle Paul's letters,
• 27:12
  specifically First Corinthians chapters 3 and 4.
• 27:15
  Right when we evaluate ministry, we are not looking at profit
• 27:18
  margins or customer satisfaction scores.
• 27:21
  We are assessing if the ministry is built on the foundation of
• 27:24
  Christ and if it results in eternal fruit.
• 27:26
  Not just earthly numbers. Right.
• 27:28
  Paul talks about building with gold, silver and precious stones
• 27:31
  versus wood, hay and stubble. The foundation must be Christ,
• 27:35
  because only that kind of ministry survives the fiery
• 27:38
  testing of the final judgement. The manual also highlights the
• 27:41
  severe danger of human evaluation.
• 27:44
  Our hearts are tricky. Very.
• 27:47
  Tricky. We can become incredibly proud
• 27:49
  of our thriving groups. Looking at the attendance
• 27:51
  numbers and forgetting that we are only stewards.
• 27:54
  We start thinking we are the architects of the growth.
• 27:57
  That is a huge temptation. Or conversely, we can make false
• 28:00
  judgements based on external appearances while the true
• 28:03
  motives of the heart remain concealed.
• 28:05
  We might judge a leader as failing because their group is
• 28:08
  small. Maybe only three people show up,
• 28:12
  totally missing the quiet, faithful, intense fruit bearing
• 28:16
  happening in the lives of those 3 members.
• 28:18
  That is the peril of relying on visible worldly metrics.
• 28:22
  It really is. A group might have 20 people
• 28:24
  attending every week, eating that great food we mentioned and
• 28:27
  having lively political debates, and the pastoral staff might
• 28:30
  label it a massive success. Right, checking all the boxes.
• 28:33
  But if we apply the specific criteria Paul uses in
• 28:36
  Colossians, the picture might look devastatingly different.
• 28:40
  Let's unpack those criteria. Yeah, the text pulls 4 specific
• 28:43
  markers from Colossians to use as our ultimate assessment
• 28:47
  rubric. OK one, have the members been
• 28:50
  taught and do they understand the Gospel of Christ?
• 28:52
  The basic foundation. Two.
• 28:54
  Have they responded by putting their active faith in Christ?
• 28:57
  3 Have they rejected human religious systems?
• 29:00
  And four, do they live in love and unity toward each other?
• 29:04
  Those four points are the absolute bedrock.
• 29:06
  If those four things are not evident in a group's life, the
• 29:10
  manual states clearly that the group needs to return to the
• 29:13
  basics. No matter how much fun they are
• 29:15
  having, they are failing the mission I.
• 29:17
  Want to look closely at the third metric?
• 29:20
  Have they rejected human religious systems?
• 29:23
  That one is fascinating. What does a human religious
• 29:26
  system even look like in a suburban Tuesday night Bible
• 29:29
  study? Right.
• 29:30
  Are we talking about someone joining a bizarre cult, or are
• 29:33
  we talking about something far more subtle?
• 29:36
  It is almost always subtle. A human religious system in a
• 29:39
  modern context often looks like moralism.
• 29:41
  Moralism, right? It is the belief that if you
• 29:44
  just follow these five steps, you will have a perfect marriage
• 29:47
  and obedient kids. It is substituting the finished
• 29:50
  work of Christ for a self help checklist.
• 29:52
  We see that everywhere. Or it could be legalism, adding
• 29:55
  human traditions and rules to the gospel.
• 29:58
  We are the good Christians because we homeschool our kids
• 30:00
  and listen to this specific teacher.
• 30:02
  This aligns directly with the core conviction of the
• 30:05
  Protestant Reformation. We are constantly tempted to add
• 30:09
  humanly invented traditions, rules, or philosophies to the
• 30:13
  simple gospel. It is our default setting.
• 30:15
  It is. A healthy small group will
• 30:18
  actively dismantle those human systems, fostering a total
• 30:21
  reliance on scriptural sufficiency.
• 30:24
  If a group is just teaching moralism with a few Bible verses
• 30:27
  sprinkled on top, they are failing this metric.
• 30:30
  I have to pause here and offer another theological pushback.
• 30:33
  Sure, go ahead. If God is completely sovereign
• 30:36
  and He is the one giving the growth, as we affirm in Reformed
• 30:40
  theology, why should we bother with human evaluation at all?
• 30:44
  A very common question. Shouldn't we just teach the
• 30:46
  Bible, pray, and leave the metrics entirely to Him?
• 30:50
  Does setting up a rubric and evaluating our fruitfulness
• 30:53
  imply that we are somehow taking credit for the harvest or trying
• 30:56
  to manage the Holy Spirit? What's fascinating here is how
• 30:58
  the text answers that exact tension.
• 31:01
  OK, how so? God is sovereign, yes,
• 31:03
  absolutely. But God uses agents.
• 31:05
  He entrusts us with tasks and the stewardship of the gospel
• 31:08
  message. Because he has entrusted us with
• 31:11
  this labor, He requires faithfulness from us.
• 31:14
  As stewards, we evaluate not to take credit for the growth, but
• 31:18
  to assess our faithfulness to the assigned task.
• 31:21
  To see if we are doing our job. Right.
• 31:23
  Are we planting the right seed? Are we watering it correctly?
• 31:27
  Or have we accidentally started planting weeds?
• 31:29
  It is about assessing our obedience, not manufacturing the
• 31:33
  results. We check to make sure we are
• 31:35
  actually preaching the gospel and not just handing out moral
• 31:38
  advice. Precisely.
• 31:40
  And to help us get incredibly practical, the manual breaks
• 31:43
  down the evaluation into six concrete categories, Bible
• 31:47
  learning, prayer, personal godliness, group life,
• 31:50
  evangelism, and leadership. And the questions provided for
• 31:53
  these categories are not your standard superficial survey
• 31:56
  questions like rate the snacks from 1:00 to 10:00.
• 31:59
  They are piercing. They bypass the external metrics
• 32:01
  entirely and aim straight for the heart.
• 32:03
  Let's look at a few of these. Let's do it under the prayer
• 32:05
  category. The evaluation question is not
• 32:07
  simply did we pray for 15 minutes?
• 32:10
  The question the leader must ask is is prayer a joy or a burden
• 32:14
  for the group? That changes everything.
• 32:16
  That changes the entire evaluation.
• 32:18
  Yeah. You were assessing the
• 32:19
  affections of the heart, not just the fulfillment of a duty
• 32:22
  it. Forces the leader to gauge the
• 32:25
  actual spiritual temperature of the room.
• 32:27
  Yeah, if prayer is viewed as a tedious chore to rush through at
• 32:31
  the very end of the meeting, OK everyone, let's quickly share
• 32:33
  requests so we can go home. The group is entirely missing
• 32:38
  the relational reality of communion with God.
• 32:41
  It becomes a chore. Right.
• 32:43
  A healthy group finds joy in approaching the throne of grace
• 32:46
  together. If that joy is missing, the
• 32:49
  leader has work to do. Under group life, the text asks
• 32:53
  how are members assisting each other?
• 32:56
  Or we could say how are members ministering to one another?
• 32:58
  Yes, It is not about the leader doing all the caretaking,
• 33:01
  running around making sure everyone is happy.
• 33:03
  It is looking for mutual edification.
• 33:06
  Is the older man counseling the younger man?
• 33:08
  Are the women bearing one another's burdens?
• 33:11
  Exactly. And under evangelism, it asks a
• 33:13
  brilliant question. Is there a confidence in God's
• 33:17
  saving might? Not just did we hand out tracks
• 33:20
  this week, but do we actually believe in God's saving strength
• 33:25
  to rescue the lost? That distinction regarding God's
• 33:28
  saving might is vital. Why is that?
• 33:30
  Because if a group lacks confidence in God's ability to
• 33:34
  save the most hardened Sinner, their evangelism will go one of
• 33:37
  two ways. OK?
• 33:38
  It will either become frantic and manipulative, trying to
• 33:41
  force people into the Kingdom through sheer psychological
• 33:44
  pressure, or it will cease entirely out of despair.
• 33:47
  Wow. Yeah, true biblical evangelism
• 33:49
  flows from a restful confidence in his sovereign grace.
• 33:52
  You share the gospel boldly because you know God has the
• 33:55
  might to regenerate the heart. The final category for
• 33:58
  evaluation is our leadership, which the author admits can
• 34:01
  become intimidating and far too introspective.
• 34:03
  It can be daunting. But the questions are pure gold.
• 34:06
  Do I look forward to the group? Why or why not?
• 34:09
  Who do I find difficult in the group?
• 34:11
  Why? Very confronting questions.
• 34:13
  But the most striking question, the one that stopped me in my
• 34:16
  tracks, is this. Do I feel in control?
• 34:21
  That is the ultimate diagnostic question for a small group
• 34:24
  leader. It seems intensely ironic.
• 34:26
  We train these leaders for a year.
• 34:28
  We give them manuals, we set up schedules, We teach them how to
• 34:31
  ask inductive questions. Right.
• 34:33
  And yet, a sign of good leadership might be realizing
• 34:37
  you are not entirely in control of the meeting.
• 34:39
  It is the great paradox of Christian leadership.
• 34:42
  A good leader prepares diligently, understands the text
• 34:45
  well, and guides the discussion to keep it from going off the
• 34:48
  rails. But they must eventually
• 34:50
  relinquish tight fisted control to allow the group members to
• 34:54
  minister to one another and to allow the Holy Spirit to work
• 34:56
  organically. We have to let go.
• 34:58
  Yes. If a leader feels completely in
• 35:00
  control of every single variable, if they know precisely
• 35:03
  who will answer what question at what time, they are likely
• 35:06
  dominating the discussion. They are running a script.
• 35:09
  Right. They are suppressing organic
• 35:11
  questions, they are shutting down authentic doubts, and they
• 35:15
  are preventing the messy, beautiful work of mutual
• 35:18
  sanctification. They are managing A rigid
• 35:21
  classroom, not shepherding a living, breathing Organism.
• 35:25
  So we have covered a massive amount of ground today.
• 35:28
  We started by looking at the staggering global vision of
• 35:32
  presenting everyone mature in Christ A.
• 35:35
  Huge vision. And how that massive vision
• 35:37
  requires the extreme patience of starting small, planting an
• 35:41
  acorn instead of pitching a tent, and enduring that quiet,
• 35:44
  invisible first year. We discussed the courage
• 35:47
  required to prune dead groups, to step up and be small group
• 35:50
  terminators when the vital struggle over the Scriptures has
• 35:53
  vanished, and doing so with Thanksgiving rather than
• 35:55
  complaints. Yes, ending well.
• 35:57
  We examined wise structural guardrails like the Fixed Term
• 36:00
  model that protect us from our own cliquish, selfish
• 36:03
  tendencies. Very helpful.
• 36:04
  And finally, we looked at the humbling task of evaluating the
• 36:08
  fruit of our labor against the rigorous heart level standards
• 36:11
  of Scripture, assessing joy and confidence rather than just
• 36:15
  attendance, always remembering that God alone gives the growth.
• 36:19
  It is a brilliantly comprehensive framework.
• 36:21
  It balances high theological ideals like God's sovereignty
• 36:25
  and the sufficiency of Scripture with raw boots on the ground.
• 36:29
  Pastoral reality is like what to do when two people in the group
• 36:32
  cannot stand each other? So what does this all mean for
• 36:35
  you? Whether you are a pastor mapping
• 36:37
  out a four year strategy for your entire congregation, a
• 36:40
  small group leader wondering why your Tuesday night meeting feels
• 36:43
  lifeless despite the great snacks, or simply a church
• 36:46
  member faithfully attending a group every week, this material
• 36:49
  challenges you. It does.
• 36:51
  It calls you to view your participation not as a consumer
• 36:54
  looking for a comfortable social club, but as a dedicated
• 36:57
  participant. It asks you to embrace the
• 36:59
  necessary, sometimes highly uncomfortable, struggle of
• 37:03
  spiritual growth alongside your brothers and sisters.
• 37:06
  And as we close, I want to leave you with a final thought that
• 37:08
  builds on what we have discussed today.
• 37:10
  Please do. We spend significant time
• 37:12
  analyzing how a small group without a struggle over the
• 37:15
  Scriptures is considered spiritually dead right.
• 37:19
  The friction of the text, the wrestling with deep, difficult
• 37:22
  truths, and the painful application of those truths to
• 37:25
  our specific secret sins, well, that is the undeniable evidence
• 37:29
  of life. Absolutely.
• 37:31
  If that is true for a community gathering, what does that imply
• 37:34
  about your own private reading of the Bible?
• 37:37
  Are you too comfortable in your personal study?
• 37:40
  Oh. That's a good question.
• 37:41
  Are you just skimming familiar verses in the Psalms to check a
• 37:44
  box before you start your work day, or are you actively
• 37:48
  wrestling with the text? Perhaps you need to
• 37:50
  intentionally introduce a healthy, challenging struggle
• 37:53
  into your own daily routines. Maybe that means reading a
• 37:56
  denser book of the Bible, like Leviticus or Hebrews.
• 38:00
  Maybe it means studying a challenging doctrine that makes
• 38:02
  you uncomfortable or praying for seemingly impossible things.
• 38:06
  You need that friction to ensure your own faith remains vibrant
• 38:09
  and alive. That is a piercing question to
• 38:11
  consider and a perfect place to land.
• 38:14
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the source
• 38:16
  material. We hope this conversation equips
• 38:19
  you to keep performing your minds and your lives according
• 38:22
  to the Word. Until next time, remember that
• 38:25
  the quiet, slow work of the Acorn always outlast the noise
• 38:28
  of the construction site.