Excerpts from Chapter 10
"On this rock..."
Small Group Resources
Study Material
There can be no effective mission group without a committed core. This core is the church. It is comprised of those who have had conscious experience of Christ and have moved into discipleship.
In our mission group the hard core is the members of the Church of the Saviour. They have voluntarily adopted the disciplines of the church, and in addition, those disciplines which are necessary for the accomplishment of the mission to that particular segment of God's world where they will cast their nets.
There may be defection among the members of a mission group but the defection should not deflect the others. The members have declared themselves called to a specific expression of the Body of Christ and to be on mission with His people at a specific point of concern.
Associate membership is comprised of those who for the most part are moving toward full belonging in this church or another church, but they have not yet said, “We belong to Christ and we belong to you in Christ.”
The members of a mission group must be willing to face the clear line of demarcation between discipleship to Jesus Christ and any sort of partial loyalty or commitment. This is a line which is difficult to draw for many reasons.
Often the talents of the nonmember will be vital to the accomplishment of a mission. So we say, “Come be a part of our mission group. We cannot get on with our mission without you. It has waited your coming.” Unless we have drawn the line between membership and non-membership he will, as a member of the group, exert a certain amount of leadership and will help to determine the life and destiny of the group. Perhaps he does not believe in prayer, or his concept of it is different. Or perhaps he does not share our conviction that discipleship to Christ involves our belonging to the Christian community, and that the purpose of the mission is to draw others into that community.
The committed members must be the ones to determine the nature of a mission and their own disciplines as well as the disciplines for associate members. It is surprising how easy it has been for some to participate in our church, to use it as an example of vital Christianity, never to think of going to another church, but all the while to fight that which makes the church what it is.
This is not to say that the associate or participant does not make a significant contribution to the life of a group on mission, not only in the gifts he brings, but just in his being. He often is the one who gives to a group its fresh, pristine quality, its eagerness and wonder. He brings those words that God whispers only to wide-eyed, open explorers of the Christian way, or be brings an objective point of reference, questions, doubts, probing words that need to be spoken. God does not confine the revelation of himself to a few. We know this so well that we are tempted to make the costly mistake of not distinguishing between the members and the nonmembers of a group, and so invite the uncommitted in to shape the life of a church when, if we took the care to ask, they would say they were unwilling to be the steel structures which support it.
As members of a mission group we need to be disciplined and we need to be willing to require a discipline of those who would be on mission with us. No person or group or movement has vigor and power unless it is disciplined. Are we willing to be disciplined ourselves and to require it of others when it means that we will be the target of the hostilities and the pressures of many who do not see the necessity? The chances are that we will give in unless we know that this “giving in” means that our mission group will have no hard sharp cutting edge, and will, in time, peter out.
This does not mean that we exclude a person from the Christian community. It simply means that we define his participation in the mission. We do not ask him to articulate what he does not know, or subject him to pressures for which he is not ready.
The endeavor we are in is one that will or will not take a segment of the world for Christ. It matters very much whether we are sloppy or orderly, whether we are informed or uninformed, whether we care or do not care. It matters very much whether we will stay with it when the going is tough. Are we clad with the whole armor of God or do we just have a few sweet ideas of what the Christian faith is all about?
The group does not meet only for the nurture of its own members, but it also meets in order that God may have an instrument through which His power may come and through which His life may break in new ways for the world. If a person has not grasped this concept also, he does not yet know that discipleship is discipleship beneath a cross. We have seen miracles in our fellowship, be we have seen no miracle that did not come out of sacrificial giving.
In our mission groups we should be able to see more vividly the ministry of the laity. Presumably the pastoral role is being executed by every member. While we require a discipline of non-members, it is not the same as we require of members. The members must give pastoral support to nonmembers who have yet to take the step into the circle of discipleship.
As members we should know those who comprise our congregation. To us has been entrusted the ministry of reconciliation. Our responsibility is threefold: 1) for one another—“consider how to stir up one another to love and good works:; 2) for the half-way church (associate members or participants); 3) for strangers to the covenant (those to whom we are specifically on mission).
First among our pastoral duties is that of prayer. This is where our sacrificial giving should begin. Have we prayed for our flock all through the week? Only the Holy Spirit converts, redeems, and will make us one. A mission-group meeting can be a time when God is present and forgiveness is granted and healing takes place. It is only as we pray for each person in the group that we gain the pastor's heart, and are enabled to put something of self aside.
Every member in our group is a member of our congregation. In our times of prayer we will learn how to be pastors. Our minds will be made alive to those creative ways of letting another know that we care. Our meeting with the person we have prayed for cannot be other than different. Sometimes the change comes first in me. I see that in me which blocks a relationship. I am more able to allow a conversation to reach profounder levels that the usual, or I share the fruit of a meditation, or make a telephone call that says I am concerned. We must move toward the day when we do not have people within our group who struggle week after week with the same problem and we are unaware of it because we are not the kind of people to whom others tell their problems. Somehow we must be able to make it known that another's burden matters to us.
Prayer gives to a life a listening quality and in this listening there is power that lets another's life unfold. We support and nurture one another by our very attentiveness. Conversely, a group is wounded whenever there is lack of openness on the part of everyone in the group to every other person in the group.
While each person is nurtured in the concept of himself as minister, this does not mean that every mission group does not need a recognized leader. The responsibilities of all must be defined and the final administrative authority given to one person, who in turn is responsible to the church Council. The more creative and individualistic a group, the more it is confronted with many directions in which to move, and the greater may be the need for one who has the authority to say, “We will do it this way.”
A mission group, in addition to the times when it is engaged in mission, needs those times apart. For most of our mission groups this is a weekly meeting which is divided into three parts: a worship time, a study time, and a time of sharing. The sharing time is used in various ways. Sometimes we reflect on where we are as a group, or discuss what is needed to move on with the mission, or articulate again our purpose for being. It is strange how easy it is to lose sight of a vision, or even of the truth in which we are grounded.
The sharing time should also be a time when members feel free to share their lives with each other. It is easy, however, for a group to become problem-centered because it consistently wraps the whole direction of a meeting around one person's need. There will always be one who is feeling low in the group. Sometimes we need to share this lowness with the group or to let it know of a problem that we need help in working through, but generally we have found that this is better done in a time apart from the meeting. As group members we have unlimited liability for one another and this gives us freedom to contact a member outside the group meeting.
After the meeting times of a group have been decided on, they are no longer optional with us. It is elementary that there will be full attendance, although again we need often to remind each other of this. A little thing like two or three people attending spasmodically for a short time can finish a mission. It says something profound which has the potential of damaging a group. If a member needs to be consistently late or absent because of other covenant relations, this is something the membership is told about and consents to. If a person is providentially prevented from being present, his reason ought to be impressive enough for nonmembers to see it as an emergency. The fellowship gathered is not a means to an end. It is the end. It is the reason for which the mission exists.
It matters, therefore, how we approach a meeting. Do we come with a feeling of meeting with a people who are “our people,” as people who will share with us whatever is involved in the specific mission to which we are called—the sacrifice, the joy, the suffering, the fatigue? Do we come in gratitude for this little company, both those who are strong and those who are weak? This is a group which is embodying love in action when it meets. We are in that moment experiencing the fellowship of the redeemed. It is true that we will not always feel it, but by faith we will affirm it. We will proceed on the basis that something is happening, though this may be contrary to what we feel. We are claiming a reality which has already taken place. Jesus Christ is present. There is nothing more to ask.
In addition to those times when the whole mission group meets, there should be times when the members alone come together to work on their special responsibilities, one of which is the nurture of associate members.
Because members have a shepherding responsibility toward non-members and are at the same time responsible for the mission, it is important to maintain within a group a ratio between members and nonmembers. We cannot add to our numbers without having considered the question of how many people the committed core can properly care for while it is on mission. When we accept a person into our group, we are responsible for him before God. Can we be with him enough to let him know that God cares? Can we be with him at the crisis points of his life, and at the times he will need sustaining help? Will we help him to find that task which will express his life?
We also need to be aware of our evangelistic strategy. If a group is to minister to many different types of people, it must have within the group varying types. Otherwise we who are so eager not to discriminate, do discriminate. We become a class church, ministering to its own and excluding by its very nature those of other classes.
The Christian fellowship draws from the whole spectrum of life. We need to place in position of leadership the kind of person who touches the total—that kind of a person to whom many different kinds of people gravitate. Gifts vary, and there is a type of personality which is a special gift, not superior but necessary.
We would also say that each group needs to accept its inadequacy. We ought never to say, “If we only had this person in the group” or “If that person were only different” We accept ourselves and we give to God our sinning creaturehood and He uses it for his purpose. Sometime it is the poorly staffed, inadequate group which is the stronger, because it knows that it cannot depend on itself.
Basic integrity and honesty are demanded for the upbuilding of the Christian community. Therefore, from time to time we need to look at the conditions of group membership that we have accepted. Have we followed through on that which we are committed to do? It is easy to become insincere or unreal unless we have a time of self-examination, a time when we renew our awareness of those disciplines which we said we wanted as a part of our lives, and which are essential to being a hard-hitting task force.
Out yonder lies the world. The time of “come” is over. The church is mission and in our mission groups we have positioned ourselves at the point of “go.”
Questions for discussion
- What phrases or sentences of this chapter stand out for you?
- What are the major themes of this chapter?
- What parts of this chapter to you find most compelling?
- With what parts of this chapter do you disagree?
- Are there ideas in this chapter that we already use in our own church?
- For those that we use, should we be more intentional in their use?
- Are there ideas in this chapter that we do not use in our own church but should?
- Are there ideas in this chapter that are not useful or beyond the capability of our church?
- Has this chapter brought any new insights to you?