Small Groups host the Virus

      Lee Strobel writes....

I'm excited about the huge trend of believers starting small groups and inviting nonbelievers to join them. The Alpha Courseis taking this approach. A ministry on the East Coast, Neighborhood Bible Studies, was just kind of floundering. They have a new leader, Mary Schaller. Her vision is 25,000 groups, which have a new name, Q Place, in the next six years. We started these kinds of groups at Willow Creek. At one point, we had 1,100 nonbelievers in these groups. We found that if nonbelievers join one of these groups and stay with it, 80 percent come to faith.

 

80% is a big number!

 

If the Gospel is like a virus that spreads from person to person then maybe small groups are the best hosts of the virus. I firmly believe in the power of small groups. One of the truths that we are rediscovering from the non-western Church is that our models of 'what is Church' is often found wanting. By spending most of our time focusing on the one sacred hour on Sunday morning, we can be a Sunday morning, program orientated, building fixated Christianity. In doing so we have effectively contained the virus in quarantine and stopped the gospel becoming a pandemic. 

 

Many non-western Churches however gather anywhere and anytime they can, they study often in twos and threes... they are usually part of viral movements that spread and cannot be contained. These groups are simple, organic and led by 'untrained' and un-ordained men and women. . Though bound together by relationship, they also easily multiply.

 

If our job is to get the virus of the gospel out of quarantine.... could rediscovering the missional qualities of small groups be one of the keys?