Historical View of Small Groups
07-01-2002

Over the last several years, the church and society have seen a distinct increase in the small group movement. Many agree the reason for this has been the societal changes of the past few decades. Our society has become an addicted societyaddicted to substances, behaviors and relationships. People in today's society struggle to cope with drug abuse, sexual abuse, family fragmentation, loneliness, lack of community closeness, high crime and numerous other difficult problems. A longing for meaningful relationships is prevalent. The Church can be the agent through which this longing can be filled. Small groups can provide a non-threatening environment where people can build trust in each other and help each other deal with his/her own struggles.

In the Church, small groups can be far more effective than in a secular setting. In Christ-centered small groups, which have a specific curriculum and focus, an atmosphere for spiritual healing and growth is prevalent because the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit and insight from the Scripture can be presented. Small groups can also be a tremendous evangelism tool as the Church presents the Gospel to those who are seeking help.

A group can have a significant influence, positive or negative, on its individual members. Social psychologists define a group as a collection of people who interact regularly in fairly structured and predictable ways, who are oriented toward one or more specific goals, which are aimed at satisfying certain shared needs and who have a feeling of group identity and solidarity. They feel themselves a part of the whole, sharing a common fate.

Small groups have a strong element of peer pressure because of regular interaction and orientation toward specific goals. However, when Christ is not the center, the peer power of the group can be negative. People can be lead to look to something, someone, or their own self as their higher power. One story that illustrates the negative power is about a young college student who was a political activist on her college campus. Being politically radical, she was even into trying to overthrow the system of government at the school. However, during this time, she joined a religious cult group on campus and shortly thereafter, to the surprise of her family, underwent a drastic personality change. The girl who had been so strong-willed and independent became meek and obedient. Within three months she was obeying everyone to the extreme, even to the point of giving herself to any guy who demanded she do so. For four years she lived under the influence of this group.

Although small group influence without proper direction can be abusive, there is a positive influence when Christ is the focus that can bring people to wholeness. I have heard many testimonies from people who have received Christ as Savior, had their marriage miraculously put back together, had suicides prevented, addictions broken, etc. as a result of the positive influence the Christ-centered small group had on their lives.

John Wesley (1703-1791) had a fervent ministry of evangelism, which addressed social concerns through small groups. Wesley had a highly organized system of group life including these groups; society, class meeting, Band, select society and pertinent band. These groups provided group experience at various levels, steps of group life. Although Wesley received much criticism about his emphasis on confession, Confess your faults to one another (Jas 5:16) continued to be one of his most quoted scripture verses. These were meetings of small groups of people for the purpose of prayer, reading and sharing.

Frank Buchman (1878-1961), a Lutheran minister, was the founder of the Oxford Group movement (later known as Moral Rearmament) which spread rapidly. Although very controversial, his impact on Christianity in the twentieth century cannot be denied. Buchman believed that the greatest hindrance in a person knowing God was the appetites of the flesh. His concept was that everyone was in need of change and people should meet together for confessions and prayer. His principles of change were instrumental in the starting of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement.

Garth Lean in his book. On the Tail of a Comet, writes extensively about the life of Frank Buchman. Lean notes, The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgment of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Groups and directly from Sam Shoemaker... and from no where else (152). Shoemaker experienced a change of life through Buchman's ministry, which started a twenty-year association. Shoemaker later had an effective ministry to alcoholics at Calvary Church.

Lean further quotes Paul Tournier, the Swiss psychiatrist regarding Buchman's effect on the church. Tournier states, Before Buchman, the church felt its job was to teach and preach, but not to find out what was happening in people's souls. The clergy never listened in church, they always talked (153). Many spin off movements dealing with social ills have found their roots in the AA movement where Buchman's ideas were so influential.

Sunday School became the dominant small group movement in the late 1800s. Because it was not limited to a single denomination it had a broader affect than did the Wesley group meetings. Lyman Coleman says, By 1950, 75% of church members were involved in Sunday school...by 1970 Sunday school with its emphasis on age category, on-site location and Sunday-only meetings was clearly in decline (Warren Bird, The Great Small-Group Takeover, Christianity Today .(7 February 1994: 27). However, the small group idea was moving to the forefront as a result of the emphasis on life issues, flexibility of meeting sites and days.

The small group has been through some dramatic changes over the past two decades and is hard to define, nonetheless, it is meeting a core need of today's society. Small groups are popular in many different denominations, areas, and classes of people, and therefore churches can be flexible in responding to the various needs of its community. In recent years we have seen Sunday schools become more small-group oriented addressing felt needs. John Vaughan, professor of church growth at Southwest Baptist Seminary, Bolivar, Missouri, asserts that even though small groups play a strategic role in the assimilation and equipping ministry and most large churches survive through effectively instituting small groups, Sunday School should still he emphasized. He notes that some churches emphasize home groups, some Sunday school, but only a few do both well (Warren Bird, The Great Small-Group Takeover, Christianity Today (7 February 1994: 28,29).

Overall, the small-group movement cannot be understood except in relation to the deep yearning for the sacred that characterized much of the American public. Indeed, a great deal of the momentum for the movement as a whole comes from the fact that people are interested in spirituality, on the one hand, and from the availability of vast resources from religious organizations, on the other. As a result, small groups are dramatically redefining how Americans think about God (Robert Wuthnow; How Small Groups Are Transforming Our Lives, Christianity Today (7 February 1994: 23-24). There is a spiritual vacuum and hunger for meaningful relationships in this addictive society. A church that is prepared for the future must have a healthy combination of corporate worship of God and small groups, which focus on relationships and felt needs.

Long before small groups were a popular trend Apostle Paul wrote about the church filling the role as a caring community (Eph 4). Gary Collins in his book Innovative Approaches to Counseling says: The church is an evangelizing, preaching, teaching, disciplining, sending community. It also must be a therapeutic community where people find love, acceptance, forgiveness, support, hope, encouragement, burden-bearing, caring, meaning, opportunities for service, challenge, and help in times of need. Within the church community, people can find others who share 'like precious faith' and who value the spiritual issues that secular therapists so often overlook (30).

With the breakdown of the family, many people are without mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Small groups provide family ties and assistance in developing one-another relationships. Breaking through the isolation and pain God sets the lonely in families (Ps 68:6).

Thanks to Louise Lee