Interview Report on CBC Community Group Ministry

About CBC Community Group Ministry

Chantilly Bible Church (CBC) started her home shepherding ministry (home groups) in 1990. When Pastor Shane Symolon joined CBC three years ago (2015), there were seven English-speaking home groups and ten Chinese-speaking home groups. Today, CBC has thirty community groups, including twenty English-speaking community groups and ten Chinese-speaking home groups.

The Vision

Small Group ministry has been a major part of CBC’s vision. In a recent published CBC mission statement, Christ-centered community is recognized as essential for spiritual growth. It says, “God created us to form intentional relationships that deepen our love for Christ and each other. We prioritize meeting together to encourage, serve, and submit to one another (Hebrews 10:23-25; 1 Peter 4:8-10).” The small group ministry as a CBC vision is reiterated and emphasized from time to time from the pulpit and through annual community group workshops.

Challenges in The Past

Although home shepherding ministry stayed a CBC vision and continued to grow over the past two decades, it didn’t start without difficulties. CBC faced many common challenges shared by other churches, and yet some challenges are very unique to CBC. In the beginning of the ministry, there were only a handful of home groups among English congregation and almost all of them were led by pastors or elders. Once they were couple years into their gathering, it became very hard for pastors to leave or to pass on to other leaders.

“Three years ago,” said Shane, “English congregation at CBC were not interested in going to small groups, for those who went, commitment was also an issue”. Geographic dispersion was a concern. People who were interested in hosting or leading a home group might not have enough church families living near-by. “Historically speaking, the Small Group ministry was not embraced by English congregation. However, Chinese brothers and sisters liked to go to home groups. It was a cultural thing here”, said Shane.

Recent Changes

Shane changed the name from “Home Shepherding” to “Community Group” to reflect the importance of being in a Biblical community, where people of God came to worship God, read the Scripture, and share their lives together. For people who were interested in starting a new community group, Shane gave them a 6-week training program, which was designed for the whole group, not just for the leaders. Through a constant announcement on the church bulletin and annual community group workshops, CBC members started to feel the necessity and enjoyed going to community groups which had reflected on an increase of attendance, especially among the English congregation.

According to the “be together” teaching in the book of Hebrews, community is essential for spiritual growth. Shane pointed out, “We are not just reading or studying Bible together like what we did in a book club, we want to grow together spiritually with God and with each other, that means we touch every corner of our lives like sin, repentance, struggles, prayers, healing, worshiping, crying, rejoicing, all that messy but good stuff.”, said Shane.

How Are Small Groups Started? How Are the Leaders Selected?

CBC uses a six-week starter program to launch a community group. A pastor or a church leader will spend six weeks with the entire group getting them ready for launching. For new groups with many potential leaders, a group leader is not needed before the six-week program starts. “We can naturally let the group decide their own leader at the end of this six-week period”, said Shane. For smaller groups or groups with no apparent leaders, however, Shane suggested to have a leader identified before starting of this six-week program. Usually the leaders were identified through referral or by knowing them in person from personal contacts.

The role of the small group leaders has changed. “They don’t have to be teachers or facilitators themselves, but they need to make sure someone will facilitate the discussions,” said Shane, “Also, leaders are different from host, leaders make sure things happening.” CBC has a sign-up sheet on the church website for people to sign up for small groups. Shane connects them to small group leaders and leaders will call and invite them to the meetings. When a group is full (reaches to 14-16 adults), then new people will be introduced to other groups.

Besides signing up on the church website, people may just call Shane to express their interests in either leading, hosting or participating in a community group. Through interviews and conversations, Shane helped them to form the core team in this new community group and Shane sent out emails to church members in that area asking if anyone was interested in joining this new community croup. Once seven people were committed, then it’s the signal to start a new group, which followed by the six-week starter program.

How are Small Group Leaders Trained?

The six-week launching program is the first and the fundamental training, not only for leaders, but also for every participant. CBC also conducts an annual “Community Groups Summit” planned for current and potential group leaders. Through the teaching, workshop, and break-out sessions, this annual summit provides opportunities for leaders to share experiences, obtain visions, and take partnership with other leaders. Between the launching and the Summit, training materials are widely available for any training need. Sometimes, the training can be on a personal, one-on-one level. When a group leader identifies a unique situation or need, Share keeps a close contact with the group leaders through frequent visitations and consultations.

Shane identified three things that are quite different now. First, the way that people get connected has changed. New technologies are involved. For example, the rolling out of the Realm software, an online church-wide communication system, gave group leaders a new venue to communicate with their group members in addition to the traditional social medias. Second, the leadership in small groups has changed. Church pastors are no longer leading the community groups. Third, new course materials are added. People used to obtain or develop their own teaching materials, now sermon guides are made available for every community group. With these new changes, leaders are presented to different training needs.

Challenges

While Chinese Pastor Isaac Huang still oversees Chinese-speaking home groups, Shane oversees CBC’s community group ministry within the English congregation. Each ministry faces a different set of challenges, but both ministries are seeing certain common issues. Lack of sufficient training among group leaders still amounts to the number one challenge. The need to equip leaders is to make them disciples, which is drastically different from training them to lead effective Bible studies or to share more Bible knowledge. What leaders need is to live out a Godly life for others to follow – a devoted heart to love God, love each other, and love neighbors. “We need to train our leaders to bring the groups together and to lead the groups by example, that’s how we grow in our spiritual maturity toward a Christ-like life”, said Shane.

High turn-over rate is another problem. Although only one group was completed dissolved since the community group ministry started three years ago, people had difficulties committing to the small group gathering. It seems that busyness is the major contributing factor to the high turn-over rate, especially in the Northern Virginia region. Priorities, conflicting schedules, and competing activities drew people’s attentions from faithfully attending community groups. However, “it is still coming back to the heart issue,” commented Shane.

Cross-cultural interaction between community groups remains a difficult challenge. Each cultural group (English, Chinese, Spanish, Indian) has its own unique activities within its own cultural settings in their own time frames. For example, more than 200 Chinese brothers and sisters gathered together every year to attend a summer Chinese retreat. Their shared experiences stay within their own space. As a result, the “be together” teaching in Hebrews 3 remains superficial and occasional. The vision of “going deeper” and “growing together spiritually” is still a long way to go across the cultural line. “Should I send a new English-speaking person to a Chinese home group? maybe not a good idea,” said Shane.

Advice to Small Group Ministry

“Don’t follow a specific model, follow what fits in your own small group ministry in your church”, said Shane. He added, “No two small group ministries are the same, so following a specific model may not meet the needs of your ministry.” Another advice was given regarding the starting of a small group ministry. “Don’t start a small group ministry without a good buy-in,” said Shane, “Get consensus, get inputs from everyone before making any changes. A good approach and a prayerful preparation before launching a small group ministry with everyone involved is always a good idea.”

Additional Questions to Ask

When asked if he has a preference on an open or close group for CBC’s community ministry, Pastor Shane responded firmly, “Close groups! so we can go deeper.” Another question was brought up about whether CBC would launch Interest Groups. Shane also replied with a firm negation. The third question to Shane was about the relationship between the church and the small groups regarding which one a new church member should go first. “Did you think people should go to community groups first, then go to church? or go to church first and then go to community groups?” “I guess it’s both”, said Shane. “Chinese brothers and sisters tend to go to small groups first before they go to church, but English brothers and sisters like to join the church worship first before going to small groups. Maybe that’s cultural thing as well,” smiled Shane.

2nd Journal for Effective Small Groups (Summer, 2018)

Day 11 (June 1st) - Spiritual Fellowship

“Have I had experienced a spiritual fellowship with other believers?”, which was a question raised in the classroom. I must admit that I couldn’t find a home group in my church with the same level of spiritual fellowship with what I had experienced in my college years. In college years, I lived with nine other brothers in a CRU-sponsored fellowship house, where we grew strong bounds through daily prayers, constant meal sharing, and weekly Bible studies.

We shared our lives together. We shared joyfulness over a new understanding of the Bible. When someone struggled in a relationship, we listened and prayed for him. When someone had doubts, we accompanied him while he searched for answers. We also served together in choir, traveled on the same mission trips, and shared witnesses at Christian camps. Through our shared experience, we learned how to love God, love others and love our neighbors

Day 12 (June 3^rd) – Seize the Right Moment

We had a coffee gathering at Starbuck’s the other night[1]. One student opened up and said, “I am not sure if my faith is mine or is the one that my family and my church implanted in me.” Although we were still discussing the book “Counter Culture” by Platt, I seized the moment and asked, “why made you think of that?” He shared his testimony. I realized that he is one of the “church kids” who grew up entirely in a Christian environment and never actually stepped out of the “faith zone”.

Many people might consider him lucky because he didn’t have to go through the struggle in finding the truth, but eventually, he might need a life changing experience as much as other non-Christians do. Faith is not about conformation, it’s not about being a “good kid”. Faith is about transformation. Dallas Willard once said, “The main thing God gets out of your life is not the achievements you accomplish. It's the person you become, because that’s what you take with you to the eternity.” It’s time to revisit our faith.

Day 13 (June 11^th) – Tyre Woman

One night at my home group, we were studying the Tyre woman who pleaded Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter[2]. When learned that Jesus was calling her a dog[3], someone protested and said, “Why Jesus was so mean to her? was Jesus a racist?” Great questions. I don’t think Jesus was a racist, but, why Jesus said that to her.

Coincidentally, I just learned that Ezekiel prophesied the destruction of Tyre because of their growing proud out of their wealth, even to the point that they called themselves gods[4]. It seemed that the Canaanites in Tyre area were still more prosperous economically compared to the mountainous people (Jews) in Jerusalem at Jesus’ time. Jesus might have used a common slang to test her faith and see if she was willing to humble herself and put her trust totally on Jesus. She passed His test. Jesus said to her “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.”

Day 14 (June 16^th) – Tour Guide or Trip Advisor?

What is small group leader’s role? O’Neal used a Safari tour guide story to tell us that a small group leader is not a Bible teacher, a facilitator, or a host. Instead, a small group leader “prepares for small group meetings and leads group members through the essential activities of those meetings in submission to the Holy Spirit.”[5] He pointed out that a tour guide walked along side with group members in the field, and a tour agent just passed out brochures and arranged logistics from an air-conditioned office.

I like what O’Neal said, “Your job is not to help people memorize interesting facts about God, the Bible, or church history. Your job is not to get people to debate those interesting facts. Your job is not to provide a comfortable place for people to do the debating.” We felt more comfortable staying on the safe side of the house through learning and debating the Biblical facts. Seldom did we venture into the messy side of the house – a direct encounter with the life-changing truths like sin, faith, temptation, and love. Indeed, an effective small group is not just a successful execution of a Bible knowledge transfer, we want to have the first-hand encounter with the Holy Spirit in every corner of our lives.

Day 15 (June 17^th) – Is Learning Style Important?

O’Neal highlighted the importance of understanding and applying learning styles for an effective small group, which I do not fully appreciate. Understand that we may adjust our teaching style and create group experience based on the group members’ learning styles to help them learn and process information better.[6] However, where is the Holy Spirit coming to play if we run small groups (or churches) like we run corporate America?

Grouping people into five styles (visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinesthetic and multi-model learners) makes managing them easier, because we can apply the packaged solutions to everyone in the same style. However, as Zempel pointed out, “community is not linear.”[7] Everybody is different, every group is unique, and every messiness presents a challenge to the whole group, and that’s where the Holy Spirit comes in and that’s how we experience God’s provision of the spiritual gifts to the group – people received different gifts to help others, so that we will become more like Jesus. If the focus is on the learning style, I think we are confined to a fixed opportunity.

Day 16 (June 20^th) – Is Lacking Hospitality a Sin?

O’Neal argued that the first step of a Biblical and robust hospitality is repentance,[8] but I just couldn’t comprehend it. Is lacking hospitality a sin? I understand that he may be trying to make a point on the importance of the hospitality, but suggesting a repentance seems to imply that lacking hospitality is a sin, but is it? Before I attempt an answer to this question, I want to find out what O’Neal defined hospitality.

First, O’Neal distinguished between the physical interactions with the guests and a deeper level of affection with the guests within the context of a shared home or a common meal[9]. From the surface, both may display the same level of activities, including the cleaning of the house, sharing the meal, and displaying signs of welcoming, but at a much deeper level, a Biblical hospitality shows “an attitude of service and self-sacrifice.” He continued to say, “It’s a willingness to offer our time, money, energy, food and even our home in an effort to love our neighbors as ourselves.”[10] Now I realized that O’Neal was talking about the natural extension of loving God. If we don’t have that level of affection, hospitality becomes a mechanical and selfish-motivated social norm. I agreed we do need to repent.

Day 17 (June 24^th) – Myth or Merit?

How do we promote unity in a church while small groups don’t mix people from different cultural backgrounds? It has been a challenge at our church for decades. With more than 30 small groups, they are largely separated by languages and people groups. Rarely did I see a small group comprising people from different cultural backgrounds. Although we all attend the same Sunday services, but everyone snatches back to his or her own culturally-distinguished small groups. As a result, we have no interactions across the cultural line.

From Luke’s account in Acts, we’ve seen racial issues within the early churches. The Greek-speaking widows were neglected on their daily provision. The Apostles had to choose seven deacons to take care of their needs. It seemed that they had a predominately Jewish church mixed with people with Hellenic background, where the Judean tradition and culture might have made other non-Jewish believers feeling alienated. We can see that tension from Paul’s arguing with Jewish Christians from Jerusalem over observing the Mosaic laws. What I see here is a potentially self-righteous small group (or church) if we don’t mix people with different cultures. We may not have a chance to practice tolerance, acceptance, and love with people who are not like me.

Day 18 (July 7^th) – Shared Experience Improves or Impairs Unity?

Our church’s Chinese Retreat is one of the biggest events in our church calendar every Summer. Over 200 Chinese-speaking brothers and sisters, along with their children and teenagers, gathered in a retreat camp listening to big-name speakers to preach heart-felt messages. Over the past 20 years, it creates a strong bounding within the Chinese congregation, but at the same time, it also challenges the unity within the church, since there is no same level of shard experience with the English-speaking congregation.

Shared experience can be a great catalyst within a group, but at the same time, it can become a huge huddle in the overall small group ministry. For example, through festivals like Passover, Jewish people developed a strong identity, a corporate bounding, and a common memory, but at the same time, it created a huge dividing wall with other people. To achieve the church unity, we need a shared experience outside of the regular Sunday services and we will need every church body, people group, and age group to participate in this shared experience. What can be a church-wide shared experience? I think a church-wide retreat may be a good candidate to provide such an opportunity to create this common memory.

[1] I served as a leader to the Senior High School group in our church’s Youth ministry.

[2] Matthew 16

[3] Matthew 15:26, Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

[4] Ezekiel 26

[5] O’Neal, Sam, “Field Guide for Small Leaders” (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 32.

[6] O’Neal, Sam, “Field Guide for Small Leaders” (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 57.

[7] Zempel, Heather, “Community is Messy” (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 107.

[8] O’Neal, Sam, “Field Guide for Small Leaders” (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 42.

[9] O’Neal, Sam, “Field Guide for Small Leaders” (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 40.

[10] O’Neal, Sam, “Field Guide for Small Leaders” (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 42.

Jerry's Theological Journey