Three Characteristics of a good Small Group

(Taken from Em Griffin’s “Getting Together, A guide to Good Groups”

How is your small group?  Today, we thought we’d share some thoughts about Life Groups and what makes them work.

Cohesiveness:  If your group has managed to interconnect, then the first thing that will happen is that everyone will show up to each meeting!  Then, you’ll notice a sense of we-ness, making for a kind of relational bond that supports growth and constructive conflict. This sort of group not only serves its members, but is attractive to newcomers.  The bad news?  Groups like this are hard to get into and hard to leave; members need open arms and standards.

People know where they fit in the group: This takes time and until people find their roles, there will be anxiety. The leader’s goal is to facilitate this. Helping group members determine their spiritual gifts is one way to start.

Group Ownership: People join a small group for a variety of reasons and in order for the group not to bomb, the leader needs to help clarify the group’s goals, and then lead in a way allows the group to take ownership of these goals.

So, how’s your group doing?  Why not spend some time at your next meeting and talk about it? And for all you small group members please don’t be afraid to share your thoughts. Your small group needs everyone’s honest participation and evaluation to remain healthy and strong.  Think on these things:

• What do you hope to gain from the group?

• Have you ever been disappointed by a small group in the past?  How?

• What expectations do you have for this group?

• What do you feel your role is in this group? Would you describe your role as having a positive or negative impact?

Hopefully, this will get all of you, leaders, hosts and small group members, thinking about your own group and sharing your ideas with one another.

“It’s Arrogant to Believe Christ is the Only Route to God”

A common challenge faced by Christians in today’s pluralistic world is how to respond to the claim “it’s arrogant to believe Christ is the only route to God”.

What is Pluralism?

Pluralism essentially teaches that any belief system is legitimate.  It’s the view that all roads lead to God and we’re free to simply choose whichever belief system we want to follow.  In other words, God will accept any sincere attempt to reach him.

It sounds gracious on the surface, but there is no biblical authority for that view.  And when you think about the pluralistic world-view, it’s both self-refuting and just as “arrogant” as the Christian view that Jesus is the only legitimate route to God.

Actually, it’s surprisingly simple to expose the self refuting and arrogant nature of the pluralist’s position.

Introduction:

If Christianity is true, then its truth or foundation should stand on external, verifiable facts, not just an individual believer’s personal views, perceptions or experiences.

External authorities are important, because it takes personal experiences or subjectivity out of the equation.  For the Christian, there are two powerful external authorities the Christian can look to – one is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the other is the Bible.

While this article focuses on the divine origin of the Bible, the MyPark website also features the article “Did the Cross and Resurrection Really Happen” which documents the evidence for Christ’s death, resurrection and post-resurrection appearances

The Bible certainly makes its own claim for divine origin.  A concordance search on the phrase “thus saith the lord” will yield literally hundreds of results.

Yet there are so many religious and spiritual books – virtually everyone religion claims one for its own – how can we know that the Bible stands apart from other spiritual books and is indeed God’s book to mankind?  How can we be sure the Bible contains thoughts and ideas given by God to his prophets and apostles to record in the scriptures?

The answer is that if the Bible is truly a book from God to men then it ought to have evidence of that – it ought to have God’s fingerprints all over it.  And it does.

To help know and remember those evidences, we have the acronym FAITH – so believers can know their faith is grounded, “the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1)”, and not simply wishful thinking.

The acronym FAITH is presented as a mnemonic aid to guide us through five lines of solid reasoning that demonstrate the Bible is divine rather than human in origin.  Each letter in the acronym FAITH serves as a guide to each line of reasoning.

Introduction

Pluralism is probably the dominant spiritual view in today’s culture.  Essentially, it teaches that any belief system is legitimate.  It’s the view that all roads lead to God and we’re free to simply choose whichever belief system we want to follow.  In other words, God will accept any sincere attempt to reach him.

It sounds gracious on the surface, but it’s actually both a false and self-refuting statement.  The self-refuting nature of the statement is exposed in the MyPark article entitled “Responding to the Pluralist’s Claim: It’s Arrogant to Say Christ is the Only Route to God”.

In this article we address the false nature of the pluralist’s worldview by examining the core beliefs of the world’s major religions and demonstrating they cannot possibly be the same, because they teach opposite or irreconcilably contradictory things.