Community That Is Christian

A. Gorman Julie

Description

Over the past thirty years there has been a boom in small groups, both in society at large and within the church. From Bible studies to MOPS to Alcoholics Anonymous, it is estimated that four out of ten Americans belong to a small group that meets regularly for the care and support of its members. But are these groups creating true, biblical community, or do they settle for self-focus and personal gain? Julie Gorman has studied small groups for decades and presents her analysis, insights, and suggestions in Community That Is Christian, an essential resource for building community in church-based small groups. This comprehensive book serves both as a text for those who equip leaders or lead small groups and as an interactive manual for small-group members, helping them transform their relationships into Christ-centered community. The book begins with biblical support for coming together, contrasting it with our often individualistic mind-set that undermines community. Gorman then sets forth the goals of community and describes the process of transformation. She draws from extensive research to address the why and the how of small-group ministry, giving special attention to gender and cultural distinctions. Community That Is Christian provides readers with charts, discussion questions, and inventories to further help them establish community within their small groups.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585585533
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 1993, 2002 by Julie Gorman
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Previously published in 1993 by Victor Books
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-5855-8553-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
For Dianne, who has lived out God’s gift of community by being spiritual companion and friend to me.
And for my students, whose presence continually encourages me to teach and live community.
C ONTENTS
Foreword
Close Encounters of the Human Kind
Part I: The Big Picture of Community
1. Biblical Foundations of Community
2. Challenge to Community: Individualism
3. The Today Show: Twenty-First-Century Community
Part II: True Community
4. The Real Thing: True Community
5. And Now for a Change: Transformation in Groups
Part III: Group Development
6. The Genesis of a Group
7. Getting to Know You: Self-Disclosure
8. Terms of Endearment: Communication
9. Too Close for Comfort: Conflict in Groups
10. Turning Points: Passages and Cycles of Growth
Part IV: The Ministry of Groups
11. Leadership Power
12. Transforming the Church: The Ministry of Small Groups
Conclusion: We Are Destined for Community!
References
Index
F OREWORD

Small groups emerged clearly in the latter part of the twentieth century as one of the most potent instruments available to the Christian church for growth, renewal, service, and outreach both in the United States and throughout the world. From the cell groups energizing the growth of the largest congregation in the world in Seoul, Korea, to the discipleship and Bible study groups of an inner city church in Philadelphia, Christian small groups provide important opportunities for evangelism and new member assimilation, for involvement with contemporary needs such as homelessness or world hunger, and for building relationships in an individualistic and often lonely culture. Over a decade ago, a national study led by Princeton University sociologist Robert Wuthnow documented the astonishing fact that approximately one in four adult Americans is involved in a small group that includes spiritual purposes. These trends have continued, and the largest percentage of these groups are church based.
Yet for all the importance of the small group movement, little of substance has been written for Christian leaders, whether lay or clergy, to help them better understand the sometimes complex dynamics and critical issues at work whenever people gather together in Christian small groups. This book performs that useful function from a solidly Christian, biblically grounded framework that will provide encouragement and insight for Christians seeking to begin or develop small groups in their church.
Author Julie Gorman brings solid qualifications to provide such a resource. As a pastor in several congregations and as a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, she has taught thousands of Christians the art and science of building Christian community through small groups. She has not only studied the relevant research literature on small groups, but she has also visited, examined, and probed hundreds of church programs to gain increased knowledge of what makes groups work. She is a gifted teacher who demonstrates her commitment to equipping the people of God to know and do the will of God in the world. With her biblical understanding of discipleship, she provides practical help to beginners and experienced leaders alike. I have been privileged to work alongside her as a colleague and friend for many years. I am grateful for the work she has done to make her experience and learning available to an ever larger audience.
Roberta Hestenes international minister, World Vision
C LOSE E NCOUNTERS OF THE H UMAN K IND

Community is what people say they are seeking when they join small groups. Yet the kind of community they create is quite different from the communities in which people have lived in the past. These communities are more fluid and more concerned with the emotional states of the individual.
Wuthnow, 1994, p. 3
Small groups have come of age! They have found unprecedented acceptance and endorsement. Big business has come to recognize them as an essential component of good business. The world of education has realized it must produce graduates who are fluent in the skills of group dynamics and who have learned how to work in teams. Studies have shown the priority of small group experiences in enhancing the process of learning: Small groups increase involvement, improve achievement, and promote persistence and positive attitudes toward learning.
The population at large confirms this fascination with groups by their widespread participation in them. Research completed just before the turn of the century claims that approximately seventy-five million adult Americans are meeting regularly for some kind of small-group interaction and support that’s 40 percent of the adult population of the United States.
But while groups have become prolific, experiencing true community often remains the elusive gold ring. We say we want community, but we want it on the terms we create. “Having it our way” frequently means God’s gift of community is skillfully adjusted to harmonize with cultural values. The rewards of individual freedoms, the power surge that comes from being self-improved and self-sufficient compete to reshape the gift into “lite” community that doesn’t require too much nor add much weight to our lives. And thus the search for “being connected” goes on.
Wake Up!
This book is a call to believers to recognize and claim a community that is distinctively theirs by covenant and calling. If we are ever to think and act Christianly, we must take into account the heritage that is a part of our uniqueness as children of God. That heritage includes community. It is a gift from the One who created us and called us to be in his likeness. Such community can never be created by human devices but has already been designed by God and given to us. Our role, like that of the Israeli crossing into the Promised Land, is the taking of the land by choosing to plant the soles of our feet on the “given ground” to possess it.
This is a call to wake up to the fact that we can never realize the likeness of Christ by ourselves alone; we will never transform the world as individuals; we will never discover fullness of life in Christ if we stay solo. We are distinct as people of God because we were made to live in dependence on the head and interdependently with the diverse parts of the body. Community that is distinctively Christian will have group dynamic elements that are healthy. But it will embrace more. Community that is distinctively Christian will host the presence of God in the midst of it! It is God himself who makes community possible. His presence is catalytic to the experiencing of togetherness beyond human endeavor. As Palmer asserts, “Community is finally a religious phenomenon. There is nothing capable of binding together willful, broken human selves except some transcendent power” (Palmer, 1977, p. 18). This is why true community is experienced as “holy ground.” Scott Peck writes,
The wisdom of a true community often seems miraculous . . . and is more a matter of divine spirit and possible divine intervention. This is one of the reasons why the feeling of joy is such a frequent concomitant of the spirit of community. The members feel they have been temporarily at least partially transported out of a mundane world of ordinary preoccupations. For the moment it is as if heaven and earth had somehow met.
Peck, 1987, p. 76
Community as Counterculture
Autonomy
As Americans we are proud that we can take care of ourselves. The Declaration of Independence is more than a political document. It is a personal manifesto. From our youth we have been taught such axioms as “Don’t depend on anyone else,” “Decide on your own,” “If you don’t look out for yourself, nobody will,” “Stand on your own two feet.” We have embraced freedom of choice as the highest virtue. We prize the license to move in and out of relationships based on our own decisions. The choice to have children, to stay married, and a host of other choices common today underscore this freedom. If the relationship does not fulfill us whether friendship, group, church, marriage, or other we can opt out.
Self-focus
“Rights language” is our native tongue. We make decisions based on our personal rights rather than on absolutes and virtues. People quit jobs, break rules, and abdicate responsibilities with no other explanation than “I felt (or didn’t feel) like doing it.” The drive for self-fulfillment reveals our preoccupation with personal autonomy and separateness. In our culture individualism is king and generates pride. Our heroes are those who made it on their own or survived to make it to the top of the heap by standing on others.
Personal Gain
We evaluate each relationship by “What can I get out of it?” “In general, Americans do not join groups for what they can contribute, but for what they can get out of them” (Dyrness, 1989, pp. 98–99). Even groups have “become for us a collection of individuals created by individuals for their own individual advantages” (Kraus, 1979, pp. 76–77).
As a result, the small group movement today is frequently seen as something to be used to anot