God is moving.

 

A week or two before the end of the school year, I felt God tugging at my heart to start a new small group. One not associated with any church or organization, just a meeting of believers anxious to learn about God and hang out with others. A friend of mine echoed the same calling, and we began with five people. A good friend, the youth minister at our church, dropped by, worried about us being "unaffiliated." Now I wasn't asking him to start something, he was asking me to install the small group as a vital part of 412 Student Ministries. God directed us to say okay, and we even got an official name and logo - u-turn - and advertisement in Southwest Church Sunday morning's bulletin.

 

Our numbers grew in this ministry. Kids love it. For-students-by-students, it hits a whole new wave-length of living for God and running in the footsteps of Jesus. Powerful messages, good times, and awesome community make this small group, to quote several people, "Like nothing you've ever seen." This is not my ministry. It is not a friend's ministry. It is not Southwest's ministry, or 412's ministry. It is God's ministry.

 

We grew from five to eighteen. Awesome! Not many "small groups" grow so large. God is moving. And I don't think he's done.

 

Yesterday I went out to lunch with the youth minister of Clearcreek Christian Assembly. Members from the youth group there have come to the small group, and say it is "amazing," and want to become a vital part of it as well. Clearcreek Christian Assembly is anxious to spawn off a "sister small group," where there would be two opportunities to meet together, and every three weeks the two "small groups" will merge for a night of growing in community. Two of my friends, both going into careers in ministry, will probably be heading up the sister "small group." Because if we don't split, expect the numbers to jump into the thirties, maybe even forties.

 

You may wonder why I am putting "small groups" into quotation marks. The answer is simple. A friend told me yesterday, "I loved small group... It was more like a big group." It's time for us to divorce the idea of a small group. Small groups lose their effectiveness with growing size, and if God keeps moving the way he is now--as I am sure he will--then the effectiveness will drop. We have to revamp. This is a problem we're excited to have. We dream that in the future several more sister small churches will need to be spawned. Those who have tasted what this is all about have said with total conviction, "This could grow HUGE." Can't anything with God's hand? It is HIS hand we're seeing in HIS ministry. Those of as who are leaders are not so much leaders, but servants.

 

There will be no "small group," but instead, we're going for a house church and a sister house church, joining together once a month for a great night of fellowship and celebration and community. What is the essence of a house church? To most it makes them think of sermons and praise bands and offering. Forget all that. Everything you ever thought of as church, forget it. These house churches are radical. Revolutionary. The church is not an insitution, but a "Body of Christ." I really feel God leading me in this direction. Kids get sermons and messages an average of three times a week. What they're looking for is community: love and acceptance; and to meet and worship God the Creator.

 

I am not going to go into a long and drawn-out discussion of what I am dreaming these house churches to look like. Instead, I leave you with the blueprint, Acts 2:42-47 (italics added):

 

“They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers… And all the believers lived in wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.”