Fellowship Groups

I have been thinking a lot lately about growing people in their faith, about how to help the church become alive in Christ, thus fulfilling it's mandate to make disciples, and experiencing the richness of being in Christ. I have been thinking about discipleship groups and small groups. I always end up thinking that they are a good idea, but I despair about how to start and maintain them and how to integrate them into the body. From the logistics of child care to the concern over pastoral oversight, I find the concept difficult to deal with and it is a weight upon me.

Even more so now I am concerned about finding answers to my questions since I have read the chapter on Fellowship in John Stott's book, The Living Church: Convictions of a Lifelong Pastor. Stott makes a compelling case for the need and appropriateness of small groups or “fellowship” groups. It was the following quote that grabbed my attention most forcibly.

“There is always something unnatural and subhuman about large crowds. They tend to be aggregations rather than congregations—aggregations of unrelated persons. The larger they become, the less the individuals who compose them know and care about each other. Indeed, crowds can actually perpetuate aloneness, instead of curing it. There is a need, therefore, for large congregations to be divided into smaller groups.”

When I read these words I was struck by how clearly they seem to resonate with my experience of larger churches, and I was grateful for how expertly they expressed and revealed to me the source of my angst for the Church. I have long felt that the Church is missing something vital, that it was empty of much life. Only on a small level does it seem to satisfy our need for community. Only in some rare cases do the people of the Church seem to be intimately concerned with and involved with others as people who love one another. My question for so long is what is wrong, why do the people of God seem so lonely?

I believe I now know. There is no loving of one another, because there is no knowing of one another and there is no knowing of one another because there is no fellowship with one another. Now be careful. I am thinking of fellowship in Stott's terms not the common terms. I am not thinking that the Church must move toward a greater “experience of warmth and security in each others presence” rather, I am thinking that the Church must have more of a unity in Christ that expresses itself in our service to others, our proclamation of the gospel in the world and our partnering together in giving and receiving.

It seems right to me that this sort of fellowship, based on the objective facts about our salvation, our service toward others and our proclamation of the gospel, can most effectively be achieved and bring the greatest good, when it is exercised among smaller fellowship groups, where people find unity in the Faith with others.

Now to overcome the other obstacles...