DSMN 630-D02
Small Group Ministries
Dr. Rick Garner
Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary
Sabrina Mawyer
April 16, 2017
There are many Bible passages that support the importance and necessity of small group
ministry. An understanding of these passages will lead to small groups that are properly designed
and equipped to make disciples and contribute to the body of Christ.1 God Himself is a relational
being since they are three in one. The Trinity is essential for understanding small groups.
Torrance notes that “the doctrine of the Trinity is foundational to Christianity, defines who we
worship and serve, while guiding the church to practice love, care and unity.”2 One major
passage involving small groups is the Great Commandment found in Matthew. Jesus basically
takes all of the religious laws that were in place at the time and condenses them into two ideas, to
love God and to love others as themselves. The time spent in worship and prayer are ways to
demonstrate the love of God, and this can be done in both private and in community. The idea of
loving others is important for small groups. A group needs to have a love for one another. Not
only should the Bible be studied in small groups, but the members of a group need to go through
life together, sharing the joys and sadness that everyone goes through.
A second passage that is applicable to small groups is the Great Commission. Small
groups provide great opportunities for discipleship. As new people come into the church, they
need to feel welcomed and that they belong. Individuals in a properly led small group don’t just
study the Bible together, they are also going through life together. The atmosphere of a small
group setting is more conducive to people sharing their stories and what is going on in life as
opposed to a large church setting with lots of unknown faces. The small groups allows for deeper
1 Rod Dempsey. (2015). Leading Healthy, Growing, Multiplying Small Groups, 1st Edition. [MBS
Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/MBS1867516/
2 Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T
Clark,1996), 2.
relationships which are necessary for accountability and growth.3 The time and energy spent by
those in a small group helps make disciples and allows the church to grow organically.
A third passage is the first two chapters of Acts which provide an image of what the
church should look like. This section provides a precedent for how believers are to meet. Around
the time of Christ, believers met in small groups, usually in someone’s house. The church in its
entirety consisted of these different small groups all coming together for worship or service. This
provides the modern Christian with an excellent example of how the church did and should
function. Christians meeting in fellowship with one another experience joy and find favor with
one another.4
Ephesians 1 describes what the body of Christ looks like in the world. Small groups are
an important part of a properly functioning body of Christ. As many churches get bigger and
more complex, there needs to be an even greater effort on having effective small groups so that
each member of the body can use their gifts to the utmost for the body.
Ephesians 4 goes into more details about the body of Christ and how it needs to function.
Here we learn about how individuals come together as a small group in order to make the body
function properly. When a believer seeks to intentionally love the people around them, the small
group experience will benefit all of those who are involved as well as the body as a whole.
3 Joel Comiskey, Biblical Foundations For The Cell-Based Church: New Testament Insights for the
21st Century (Moreno Valley, CA: CCS Publishing, 2012), 39.
4 Darrell L. Bock, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2007), 155.
The structure of the church I currently attend is best described by the hybrid model. It is
led by the pastor and a board of Elders who set the tone of the church. The church is based out of
the main campus, with some community activity, but not much. The church seems complex to
the ordinary church goer, with many different ministries and leaders that all have a specific role.
I have observed that it can be difficult to help new church members as there are so many
different options and people to talk to. There is not a big push on evangelism, it is more about
what the church has to offer and people should come and check it out and stay for the message.
There are classes that discuss discipleship, but they don’t really help the membership get into
true discipleship efforts. My church has “of” small groups. This will be described more detail in
the next section, but fits with the hybrid church structure. I have personally observed that change
is not well tolerated in my church. It does occur, but more often than not attempts at change seem
to lead to people leaving the church. Spiritual gifts are explored, but only to see how they benefit
the church membership. My church supports various ministry organizations and sometimes sends
short term missionaries abroad through these organizations. My church does not have any other
campuses other than the main church, but there are several church plants in the area. Overall, my
church is a good example of a hybrid model church. I believe that the heart of the leadership is in
the right place, but the church has become big and organizationally complex that the average
church member has a difficult time really getting involved in the church and building authentic
relationships that are key to discipleship and small group ministry.
My current church fits best with the “of” small groups model with some elements of the
“is” model. Ideally, a church that is successful with small groups is an “is” church. In my church
groups are organized by leaders in the church. While there is an emphasis on the importance of
small groups, they are also portrayed as one of the many options available through the church.
Groups are led and instructed from the church and then are expected to go back to their
neighborhood to continue the group. The goal of an “of” small group is to preach the gospel and
make disciples. I have heard this statement many times at my church. The preaching at my
church is exegetical, where the pastor goes through one book of the Bible at a time. The church
holds big events around Easter and Halloween designed to attract members of the community
and hopefully get them to come back for a service. Classes on discipleship are offered on a
regular basis at the church. The classes are helpful but I have observed that they have a difficult
time transitioning to discipleship after the classes have ended. They give church members a good
foundation, but there is little follow up or continued investment in the process. There is a strong
emphasis on prayer at the church, but it is focused on individually praying for what is desired.
There is a class on spiritual gifts, but it ends up looking at what ministry works best for the gifts
of an individual, rather than looking at how to use those gifts to support the body as a whole. It is
similar with leadership and training. There are classes that focus on these, but the end result
seems to focus more on how these things benefit the operation of the church rather than you
these skills can be nurtured and put back out into the community to result in organic church
growth. After looking at what makes up the different styles of small groups, my church fits best
with the “of” model.
Bibliography
Bock Darrell L. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Acts (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic, 2007.
Comiskey, Joel. Biblical Foundations For The Cell-Based Church: New Testament Insights for
the 21st Century Church. Moreno Valley, CA: CCS Publishing, 2012.
Dempsey, Rod. Leading Healthy, Growing, Multiplying Small Groups, 1st Edition. [MBS
Direct]. 2015. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/MBS1867516/
Torrance, Thomas F. The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons (Edinburgh,
Scotland: T&T Clark, 1996.
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