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 3rd) – 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 11th) – 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 16th) – 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 17th) – 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 20th) – 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 24th) – 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 7th) – 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.
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