COMMENTARY: Small groups are quietly emerging as communities of faith

c. 1997 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com) UNDATED _ Where is the new heartbeat of American religion? Try the den or dining room table. I know, for example, of six friends who gather weekly in a […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com)

UNDATED _ Where is the new heartbeat of American religion? Try the den or dining room table.


I know, for example, of six friends who gather weekly in a home. They talk, they laugh, they share pain, they name their needs, and they pray. It’s nothing dramatic. No learned theologies, no liturgies, a minimum of structure. Just six friends, six Bibles, six lives.

While corporate worship and Sunday School classes still dominate public faith, small groups are quietly emerging as the primary communities where congregants do their faith work. In these home-based and determinedly informal settings, people meet at the intersection of faith and life, and give each other personal support.

When a pastor starting a new church in Durham, N.C., explains his dream of emulating Willow Creek Community Church, the suburban Chicago megachurch, he doesn’t cite Willow Creek’s massive Sunday crowds or huge staff. He says,”They have 1,500 small groups!” A pastor trying to revitalize a staid Episcopal parish decides to leave Sunday worship as is:”Why buy conflict with long-time members?”he asks. Instead, he sends a few key people to Oregon for training in how to nurture cell groups. From those groups, he believes, will come new life.

Their names vary: cell groups, sharing groups, prayer groups, households. But small groups, of four to a dozen members, tend to have five common characteristics.

_ They are led by laity. There is no deferring to the training or authority of clergy.

_ They have little formal structure. Unlike traditional groups, small groups exist without officers, budgets or agendas. Some study the Bible, some read books, some share concerns, some bracket prayer time with chat and dessert.

_ They show minimal concern for doctrine or church politics. In fact, part of small groups’ success is their distance from the conflicts that fracture congregations and denominations.


_ They stress participation and interaction. Sunday morning, people sit in rows. In small groups, they sit in circles.

_ They don’t seem to be a combative presence. Unlike renewal movements, they don’t aim to reshape the larger community by offering peak experiences and a”better way.” Small groups aren’t exactly a new idea, of course. Christianity began with small groups meeting in homes. But for much of its history, institutions have dominated church life. From monastic communities to the neighborhood parish, the emphasis has been on formal structure, hierarchies of power, and experts guiding non-experts.

While structures still exist, the balance is shifting. Churchgoers show dwindling enthusiasm for conventions or congregational meetings, where issues of power tend to dominate and the atmosphere is adversarial. Denominational work is populated by the older and longer-standing, while the young and new focus on participatory experiences like small groups.

Although forming groups has been a key church-growth strategy for years, the groups tended to be work groups, like choirs and feeding crews. Nowadays many churches find it difficult to staff work groups, whereas people flock to the personal feel of sharing groups.

Small groups don’t seem to have undone people’s loyalty for their congregations, but they are transforming the place of laity.”Lay ministry,”a buzzword for years, has tended to mean clergy sharing duties with specially trained laity. In small groups, however, laity do it all _ teach, pastor, lead prayer _ with no need for training. Laity are discovering their own authority.

What is the likely impact of small groups? I doubt that anyone knows. That, to me, is the fascination of small groups. They exist outside the normal squabbling over control and doctrine. They don’t seem to represent a reaction against anything, but a place where people’s yearning to know God can be dealt with directly.


My guess is that small groups will help congregations be more stable and less fractious, for the public life of the church, especially worship, won’t have to bear all the weight of people’s expectations. Clergy may find themselves adapting to new roles, perhaps having ministries that are more targeted and less generalist.

But who knows? When this much uncontrolled energy emerges in an institution, anything can happen.

END EHRICH

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