Iron Sharpens Iron

Leading Bible–Oriented Small Groups that Thrive

Orlando Saer

• Publisher: Christian Focus Publication
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781845506728

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Line solution for both platforms!

Why Small Group Bible Study?

Small is beautiful. That is one of the maxims of the moment in Western Christianity. Recent years have seen a significant reaction against the mega-church culture in favour of smaller, more ‘authentic’, Christian communities. Quality of relationships has once again become more important than sheer quantity. Genuine believers want to be participants, not just consumers. They want to experience what it is really like to live out their Christian lives in the context of a group of fellow believers with whom they can share at a deep level.

It is hardly surprising that against this backdrop, Christian small groups have proliferated. Call them what you will – ‘home groups’, ‘fellowship groups’, ‘ladies’ groups’, ‘men’s groups’, ‘discipleship groups’, ‘growth groups’, ‘cells’, ‘Bible study groups’, or simply ‘small groups’ – they have become integral to the programmes of most Bible-believing churches of any size and indeed to many para-church organisations too.

But is this a good thing? Christians love to study the Bible. We’re convinced that when we do, we hear God himself addressing us. But we already find ourselves opening it up in all sorts of contexts as it is: on our own, at prayer meetings of various kinds, in Sunday meetings, sometimes even at huge conventions. We’re always at it! So why add yet another forum for Bible study?

Potential Pitfalls of Small Group Bible Study

Any good and worthwhile activity – from snowboarding to crossword-solving – carries with it hazards as well as its pleasures. And small group Bible study is no exception. Most Christians who have been involved in Bible study groups for a while will have their fair share of horror stories to tell. Etched on their memories are recollections of times when it all went terribly wrong. Experience has left them painfully aware of some of the potential pitfalls and drawbacks of these kinds of meetings.

So before we look at the positives, it’s worth being realistic about some of the more common dangers.

The vertical is pushed out by the horizontal

If the runaway success of social networking websites teaches us anything, it is that all of us need to have a community where we feel we belong. The technology may change, but the principle does not. The need to relate is written into our DNA.

In any sizeable church, there is a tendency for the small group to become the primary ‘place of belonging’ or ‘social unit’ for the average member. And it is not hard to see why. You look around at a Sunday meeting and – unless you’re a particularly gregarious sort – you feel swamped, even intimidated, by the sheer numbers of people all around. So where do you go if you want to get to know people? If you’re anything like the typical church member, you retreat to the more manageable arena of the mid-week, small group meeting. That seems like the right place to develop real, meaningful friendships. And so, quite naturally, over time your fellow group members become those with whom you want to share your life most intimately. Week by week you look forward to the meeting for exactly that reason.

And why not? This dynamic is not only inevitable; it is quite natural and healthy. As we shall see later, we all need an environment where we can encourage one another personally and perhaps even become accountable to each other in some measure.

However, there is always the danger that the desire of group members to grow in relationships with one another will come to dominate the agenda of the group. It may not happen straight away, but like the proverbial frog in the saucepan, by the time anybody realises what is happening, the original ‘culture’ of the group has died. The group’s social agenda has squeezed out what was most likely the group’s primary purpose at the outset – to encounter God himself and to get to know him better by studying his Word together.

What has happened? The whole reason for meeting has been upturned. The group has become a social club. The ‘horizontal’ is all but enthroned. The ‘vertical’ is all but forgotten.

The message is sidelined by the method

Some years ago, I used to commute to work across the spectacular Dartmoor National Park in South West England. I loved that trip. As you can imagine, the route was at least as thrilling as the destination!

Bible study can be just like that. The destination – discovering what God is saying right now – properly remains the focus. But the route by which we travel to that destination can be a wonderful adventure. Generation after generation of Christians has been thrilled by the process of taking the ‘raw material’ of words on a page and – under God’s direction – reading, discussing, sharpening, refining, conceptualising and applying those words to their daily lives.

You might be able to identify with this. You know what it feels like. You are not being addressed from an unanswerable pulpit fifty metres away; you are engaged in a lively discussion with friends a mere coffee table’s length away. You are not simply allowed to think for yourself; you are positively encouraged to. You are discovering biblical truth for yourself. And – on a good day – it can be nothing short of exhilarating.

But you might, just might, be playing with fire. The risk is that small group members become so addicted to the process itself that over time they find themselves turning their noses up at less ‘exciting’ forms of Bible study, such as the Sunday sermon or personal study. What has happened is that they have become addicts to the method of Bible study. The message – which ought to be, and perhaps once was, the focus – has been pushed into second place.

The blind are led by the blind

Right across history battles have been won or lost again and again, ultimately by the calibre of the general in command. The one calling the shots is the key to a successful campaign. A wise foot-soldier would always want to serve under a great leader.

The same principle holds true in the battle for a good Bible study. One of the greatest frustrations of small group Bible study is simply poor leadership. It is probably the most common complaint voiced by group members. Discussion, they say, is allowed to drift aimlessly. Conflicting ‘truths’ are accepted without any attempt at resolving them. Conclusions are drawn more on the basis of the force with which the ideas were suggested or a general democratic consensus than from a rigorous examination of the text. To be sure, nobody has been offended by their ideas being rejected. But, as likely as not, nobody has made much progress either. The leader has failed to lead; the members leave having failed to learn.

Sometimes this exasperating experience comes down to mere force of circumstance. In the student world, for example, studies are often led by peers who may be both inexperienced and inadequately trained. Such leaders understandably find it unnatural and stilted to put on the leader’s ‘hat’. Sometimes it is justified by theological principle. ‘The spirit will lead us into all truth’, say the advocates of this style of meeting. ‘We don’t need any other kind of leader. A discussion-facilitator, perhaps, but not a leader.’ Either way, whether the cause is situational or ideological, the result is simply painful. It feels to the members as though the blind are being led by the blind.

The vertical pushed out by the horizontal: they can turn into little more than social groups. The message sidelined by the method: members can become addicts to one way of encountering God. The blind led by the blind: meetings can become simply opportunities to pool ignorance.

Benefits of Small Group Bible Study

With hazards like these abounding, then, is it perhaps time to draw stumps on small group Bible study? Is the format something to shy away from? Should such groups be disbanded in order to refocus solely on the Sunday congregational meeting? Not at all! Because the benefits of the format vastly outweigh these dangers.

Let me be clear on one point here. Despite what is suggested in almost every book on small groups I have ever read, there is nothing in the Bible to say that a church ought to have an organised network of small groups. Or that without dividing up into such groups a church will necessarily be unhealthy in some way. The basic ‘unit’ of the church is the church itself, not some subdivision of it.

But that said, small groups can be a very helpful means of achieving ends which certainly are demanded by the Bible of Christian churches. The New Testament abounds with instructions to Christian believers to do things to ‘one another’. For example, we are to teach and admonish one another (Col. 3:16), to pray for one another (Eph. 6:18), to carry each other’s burdens (Gal. 6:2) and to work with one another in evangelism (literally ‘with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel’, Phil. 1:27 KJV).

How can small groups help us to take instructions like these seriously?

A good place to listen to God

My wife and I had an unusual engagement: we spent it 7,000 miles apart! There was no access to any telephone communication to speak of. So if I wanted to get to know her better, all I could do was read and re-read her letters. There would come a point when I would see her face-to-face, and I could dispense with the letter-reading. But in the meantime, that written material was what I had to get to know her better and grow in my relationship with her. And believe me, I treasured those words!

One day every Christian believer will encounter God face-to-face. But in the meantime we have the great work of his Spirit, the Bible. So interacting with God’s Word is at the heart of all authentic Christian spirituality. It is in the Bible that God speaks to us personally and powerfully: ‘Your Word is a lamp to my feet’, wrote the Psalmist, ‘and a light to my path (Ps. 119:105 ESV). Christian experience without God’s Word is like a car without an engine: it might look good but it is not going anywhere anytime soon! This being so, every believer needs to make sure he or she is reading the Bible properly. It is important to get it right. Small group Bible study is a great way to do exactly that.

For a start, this kind of meeting is an excellent place to learn good habits (and correct bad habits) of reading the Bible – habits which will be of great use in individual study. Often young Christians have little idea about how to approach their Bible-reading in ‘quiet times’ or ‘personal devotions’. They know it’s something they’re ‘meant to do’, yet they feel ill-equipped to do it without at least the benefit of some notes which tell them ‘what it means’. Sermons can often be helpful here.

But there is always a limit to how far a preacher can show his workings. In a small group, however, this is far from the case. Methodology is always bubbling away in the background as contributions to the discussion are made, refined or corrected. And more than that, it is a natural and unthreatening environment for very basic questions on approach to be cleared up.

But it is not just a question of honing our interpretation skills. It is also about getting on and actually learning from the Bible. This is where small groups really come into their own. If you wanted to learn how to carry out basic servicing on your car, which would you choose: an hour-long lecture from a pro on ‘The principles of the internal combustion engine’ or an evening’s practical group tutorial, getting your hands dirty down on the workshop floor? It’s not a difficult choice. The interactive environment of the small group allows for extremely fruitful teaching and learning to take place; often much more so, indeed, than sitting in the pew listening to a Sunday sermon. It’s a great place to ‘teach and admonish one another’ (Col. 3:16).

We have already seen how the primacy of the preached word on Sunday can sometimes be endangered by the excitement of personal discovery in the mid-week small group. The fact remains, though, that interactive communication is generally vastly more ‘efficient’. The minds of group members are highly engaged and therefore receptive to information. Their particular ‘wavelengths’ can be reached relatively easily and content therefore appropriately packaged. Their learning can be fortified by their articulating ideas for themselves and their understanding therefore bolstered. Their specific questions can be addressed and their assumptions therefore either confirmed or corrected. Their comprehension can be questioned and their grasp of difficult concepts therefore checked. Getting your hands dirty down on the workshop floor has an awful lot going for it!

More even than this, in a small group, the door is opened to a whole variety of teaching styles. There is more than one way to skin a cat – so the saying goes. And there is certainly more than one way to convey biblical truth. This means the way information is communicated can be tailored to the individual group members.

It is worth pointing out that a good deal of research has been carried out in recent years about the various types of learning style favoured by different people. Some are ‘visual’ learners (they understand things best by seeing them); others are ‘auditory’ learners (they understand things best by hearing them explained); others still are ‘kinaesthetic’ learners (they understand things best by doing something). You can work out which category you fit into by thinking about your approach to different situations. When you’re unsure of a spelling, do you write it out to see if it ‘looks right’ or say it slowly to see if it ‘sounds right’ or write it out to see if it ‘feels right’? When you’re chatting with somebody, do you prefer to meet face-to-face, to chat on the phone or to talk while doing some task together? We’re all different. But in a small group, there is opportunity to adapt the teaching style to the preferred learning styles of different group members so that they can benefit the most. It is important to be deliberate about this, though; otherwise the leader is likely simply to end up teaching in the way he or she personally prefers to learn.

A good place to talk to God

Contemporary Western society has a lot to answer for! By and large, the quality and intensity of relationships we enjoy in the West today are not a patch on what many of our cousins in the developing world have.

The impact of this on churches is plain to see. In even a relatively small church, it is all too easy for individual needs – and joys – to remain unnoticed. However well-intentioned church members may be about trying to look out for their Christian brothers and sisters, keeping up to date with one another is an uphill struggle. The problem is even more acute for those in churches where members are drawn from a geographically wide area. If church members neither live nor work near each other and their only regular meeting is in the context of a large gathering, it is hard for them to be meaningfully involved in each other’s lives.

This being the case, mutual prayer support is likely to be tricky, to say the least! It is hard to pray for – let alone with – one’s fellow believers when one is largely unaware of their concerns and spends little time with them. But mutual prayer support is not optional. It is an integral part of every Christian’s ‘to do’ list. ‘Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests’, writes Paul, ‘With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints’ (Eph. 6:18).

A regular small group meeting does allow for significant relationships to be both developed and maintained. So it becomes a very obvious arena where we can share concerns and ‘pray for one another’.

But it is not just the opportunity to pray in an informed way that is on offer here. There is also the question of know-how. Most young Christians mature in their faith at least as much through example as through verbal teaching. We’ve already seen how this works in the area of Bible study. It is perhaps nowhere more true, though, than in the area of prayer. Good habits for both personal and public prayer are usually caught more than they are taught. In a small group, prayer can be effectively modelled by more mature Christians for the benefit of the younger Christians very simply, as shared news and information is turned into humble prayer.

There is one more useful spin-off from this kind of regular small group prayer. That is the way it allows for a steady flow of encouragements from answered prayer. As issues come up again and again, many can testify to the great spur it has given their Christian lives to see God acting in response to the prayers of the group. So as well as opportunity and know-how, a right attitude to prayer is constantly and subtly being fostered: a proper sense of confidence and expectancy.

A good place to care for each other

Imagine what it would be like to surf the internet if you were the only one connected to it. It would be worse than useless. In fact, it would be impossible. There would be nothing ‘there’. The internet is defined by the connection of multiple computers. So it is with the church. The New Testament takes it for granted that church is defined by relationships. There is the fundamental relationship between the church and Christ (as, for example, a bride relates to her husband). But there are also the individual relationships between members of the church (as different parts of the body relate to other parts).

We have already noticed how small groups can play an invaluable role in fostering significant relationships between Christians. But the importance of this cannot be stressed enough in the light of the responsibility we have to care for each other and ‘carry one another’s burdens’ (Gal. 6:2). If individuals are to be effectively pastored and discipled, it is difficult to imagine how to achieve that without a familiarity and mutual involvement such as that fostered by regular small group meetings.

Of course, the most extreme spiritual failure from which Christians naturally want to protect each other is falling away from faith altogether. Sadly, though, while a good many churches hold their front doors wide open to the world, with friendly faces beckoning in all who will come, their back doors are even wider open and stand utterly unguarded. With the kind of mobility we are used to in our society, it could be week...

Table of contents

• Reviews
• Title
• Indicia
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Why Small Group Bible Study?
• 2. Preparing for Leadership
• 3. Managing the Group
• 4. Mapping Out the Study
• 5. Leading the Meeting
• 6. Prayer, Care and Personal Nurture
• Appendix 1: Evaluating the study
• Appendix 2: Sample Group Covenant
• Appendix 3: Resources
• Read / Mark / Learn Series
• Christian Focus