Wesley on Small Groups

I’m taking my annual trip through C.J. Mahaney’s Why Small Groups and came across this rather spectacular piece of history I’ve missed before. If you are familiar with church history, you probably have heard of the Wesley brothers. John may be the larger figure in history, but Samuel Wesley is our focus today. Most small group fanatics know Samuel Wesley is basically the architect of what we now call “accountability groups.” He started groups called ” Band Societies that Mahaney refers to in calling small groups towards a correct understanding of how the community of saints is involved in the sanctification process of each individual in the community. Check out the questions you had to answer “yes” to if you were going to join one of these small groups:

1. Have you peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ?
2. Do you desire to be told of your faults?
3. Do you desire that every one of us should tell you, from time to time, whatsoever is in his heart concerning you?
4. Consider! Do you desire that we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear, concerning you?
5. Do you desire that, in doing this, we should come as close as possible, that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom?
6. Is it your desire and design to be on this, and all other occasions, entirely open, so as to speak everything that is in your heart without exception, without disguise or without reserve?

Whoa. Down to business hu? The reality is, if God’s plan A for how we grow in Christ’s likeness is through the collective ministry of the saints to one another, then these questions are not so far off are they? The primary way the gospel is going to reach into the deep recesses of your life is if you are open to allowing others to peer in and show you, through the scalpel of scripture, what it really looks like in there. So get serious in your small group…if you can take it.