Beth Kolar | CCC Yorkville Small Groups Director
I like to ask questions. I am big on principles that guide decisions rather than rules guiding them. I enjoy free thinking people; Christ-followers testing and proving the Word of God and the weekend message for themselves. I love community as it best represents God’s being. (you know, Father, Son, Spirit…that stuff)
So for me, Small Groups are definitely the place to be, but even more specifically, a small group that uses the Big Idea. No, I don't mean one that only uses the curriculum and questions laid out in the CCC Big Idea Discussion Guides, but a group that dares to discover and integrate the essence of the teaching at a weekend Celebration service.
Most people –maybe not you, have forgotten by Monday whatever it was they heard on Sunday. We often treat the message like it has special properties of osmosis – just be ‘around’ it and it will sink in. I really don’t see that happening a whole lot. Living a life of Christ, allowing the word of God, spoken or read, to sink in and bring about life change requires intentionality. Even then I still regard the life change as a miracle!
When your church is full of people who have just found their way back to God, you will find that many of them don’t really know how to “chew” on the message and aren't even aware that it’s a welcome option! The Big Idea Discussion Guide is a tool created to spur conversation, to help start the message digestion process.
Here is what preparation for my group time looks like:
Sunday morning –Attend service, take notes on my Blackberry (You thought I was texting my friends, didn’t you!?) Add questions about what I didn’t get, tangents in my own mind and quotes of interest.
Sunday afternoon – Read my notes, pray, review the Big Idea Guide in the light of who is in my group, recent conversations, or what I really want them to ‘get’. I use an online Bible and search the concordance for related verses, chapters, stories, etc…I copy and paste them to a Word doc and print to take with me to group, for reference. Try to think of any visual aid or activity that may supplement the learning. (Most often the Big Idea Guide has something)
Monday morning – pray, go to work 9-6, pray
Monday afternoon – Call my apprentice to share my heart about tonight’s lesson and review where I think God is taking us – being sure to share the essence of the teaching and empowering him/her to help the conversation move in that direction, asking for input.
This week we talked about Contributing, and last week about Community and it occurred to me that if we are the “Body” of Christ, how on earth can we accomplish things according to His greatness, if we are all moving in different directions? It’s not about legalistically following dogma, but about each person, according to their giftings, playing a part in who we are, as this body. As smaller parts of the body align themselves with the rest of the body, Christ now has a functioning, focused person that can truly impact the surrounding community--and even the world.