Write About Now

Small groups puzzle me.

I know the arguments for them—they make big churches seem smaller, provide accountability, encourage ministry of the group to its members rather than a few ministers to the whole church body, promote learning in safe environments, build community.

But therein lies the problem—I already HAVE my community, and groups often attract those who don’t. (A favorite was the group I joined—and quit—a few years ago; at our first meeting one of the women started sobbing 15 minutes into it and didn’t stop for the rest of the night.)

It’s not that I don’t care about other people’s hurts; the church should be where all of us find healing and acceptance. But “life groups” and “cell groups” always seem to have a touch of the sorority about them—“I’ve never met you before tonight, but let’s share our deepest feelings and be sisters.” So when my small group started back up last week, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

On one hand, I already have the friends I can call at 3 in the morning. I have single friends to prowl with on Saturday nights and married friends with small children to spoil on Sunday afternoon. I have friends in ministry, friends in business, friends who stay at home and friends who are never home, friends who share my faith, friends who challenge my faith, and friends who reject my faith. What I didn’t have were friends who hadn’t read The DaVinci Code but nevertheless declared that seeing the movie was “spiritual adultery.” Thanks to my small group, I now do.

On the other hand, and to be fair, I also didn’t have a lot of friends my own age at my very large church, and I now have those as well. These new friends attended my 30th birthday party, accepted me with all my own considerable faults, and pray for me regularly. Many of them are a lot of fun, and it’s nice to see some familiar faces each weekend.

But when I’m faced with a crisis, these probably won’t be the first people I call. Our weekly meetings, while enjoyable, do not challenge me.

So tell me what you think. How many good small groups have you been part of? What made them work? Is my experience typical, and is forming a few casual friendships reason enough to participate in a group? If not, how do we build real community, something more organic and less artificial?