The Importance of Small Groups and Growth Groups
In the beginning we were created with a need and desire for community. When “God
said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us” we notice that God was not alone (Gn
1:26).1 He further emphasized community when he “said, ‘It’s not good that the human is alone. I
will make him a helper that is perfect for him’” (Gn 2:18). God did not create alone, and he did
not create us to be alone. According to Earley, we were created with “an others-shaped void
etched into our hearts.”2 Gathering together on Sunday mornings to worship and listen to a
sermon is good and helps with that need for others, but we need more.
We need spiritual growth and that happens more within a small group than Sunday
mornings. Jesus set the example of a modest company by calling twelve disciples (Mk 3:13-14).
These men learned by listening to Jesus’ teaching and watching him interact with others.
Spiritual formation is growth process and has three directions: upward, inward, and outward.3
Jesus taught the disciples to love upward by loving “the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your being and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). He commanded them to “Love each other.
Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other” (inward) (Jn 13:34). Jesus also told
them “You will love your neighbor as yourself” (outward) (Mk 12:31). We can love God without
others, but we cannot love inward or outward without community.
Spiritual growth can and will happen in a small group, but there is more accountability
with a growth group. According to Dempsey, “a growth group of three or four person of the same
1
2 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey. Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and
Confidence. (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 144.
3 Ibid, 149.
Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced are in the Common English Bible (Common
English Bible, 2011).
sex who gather weekly to encourage one another to make progress in their walks with Christ.
This is usually a subgroup of a larger, mixed-gender group.”4 A smaller, more intimate group
provides for more accountability and focus which will lead to growth. If we do not grow from
spiritually dead to spiritual parent, we cannot disciple others.5 It is a sign of spiritual parenthood
to want to produce disciples. According to Coleman, Jesus’ “whole evangelistic strategy …
depended on the faithfulness of his chosen disciples to” produce more disciples and those
followers would reproduce even more.6 Without the production and reproduction of disciples, the
body of Christ cannot grow.
4 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey. Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and
Confidence. (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 169.
5 Jim Putman, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman. DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your Church to
Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 61.
6 Robert E. Coleman. The Master Plan of Evangelism. (North Carolina: Revell, 2006), 105.
Bibliography
Putman, Jim, Bobby Harrington, and Robert Coleman. DiscipleShift : Five Steps That Help Your
Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013.
Dempsey, Rod and Dave Earley. Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion
and Confidence. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018.
Coleman, Robert E.. The Master Plan of Evangelism. North Caroline: Revell, 2006.
