Summit Church on Small Groups

This year we have collectively taken up two prayers as small group leaders for each of our small groups here at the Summit in 2010. They are:

1.Every group would witness at least one person come to know Christ in 2010.
2.Every group would plant a new small group by the end of the year.
These are not ministry “goals,” these are our expressions of God’s mandate to the church: make disciples.

I imagine this not being received all that well, but the scriptures are clear. Jesus looked at his disciples after he conquered death and commissioned them to one thing: make disciples. So this is what we will aim for in 2010, making disciples.

If we are honest and really pray these prayers, some of us and some in our groups are going to start getting uncomfortable as God begins to put non-christians increasingly in our path that we can tell them the great news of the gospel. But when the group actually walks alongside someone who comes from death to life, I promise the joy of sharing Christ will become infectious in that group. I believe a big reason our people don’t share Christ is because they don’t actually believe God will bring salvation to those they know. We are fickle in our humanity in that way. But when we see God go to work on an atheist and turn him into a worshipper of Jesus, our own faith is bolstered and we share with renewed boldness.

On the other prayer, we don’t just want to make converts, but make disciples. And disciples are ones who make other disciples. That means the community of the local church, when healthy, is ever growing. So if we want people in our small groups to become “disciples” and not get stuck at “convert” we want to empower them to make disciples. That means encouraging their own evangelism and opening our church community to those people. Again this will be uncomfortable to some who’ve become more inward focused than they realize. But once the leader guides the group over that awkward hurdle, a fresh flame of disciple making will have room to grow into a white hot disciple making movement in our church!