My pastor, Scott Smith, is a huge proponent of home groups (some churches refer to them as life groups, home Bible study, etc.) and often says, “Life happens in circles, not rows,” and I think that statement is completely true. It is entirely possible for a person, or a family, to attend the same church for twenty years or more and not truly know anyone there, and that can easily happen when people just show up for the service and immediately leave at its conclusion. Life is not meant to be a solo sport, and when we are not willing to engage and be part of a community we are really missing out on an important part of life and the worship experience, as well as the opportunity for a support structure. It is difficult for people to care about us if we never allow them the opportunity to get to know us.

Being in a home group has been one of the greatest blessings in my life, and if I, or anyone in my home group, were to need help the rest of the group would gladly help. If there is ever a Sunday that I don’t show up to church and didn’t previously tell anyone that I wouldn’t be there, someone will always call or text to check on me to make sure that I am OK. Everyone in my home group cares about everyone in the group and the same is true of all of the home groups in my church, and hopefully true in all other churches as well.

Before I started attending Wellspring Church I never regularly attended a small group Bible study, and now I see that I had been missing out on a great opportunity. I’m not sure if it says more about the quality of home group or the sad state of my social life, but there have been a lot of times when home group was the highlight of my week. I have never been sorry for joining a home group and being actively involved in the community here at church, nor do I think I ever will be. People need people, and regardless of how good your life is now, it will be better with good people in it, and there will come a time when you will need help of some kind, and unless you let people into your life before you need them they won’t be there when you do need them.

The very first time I attended a service at Wellspring I was invited to home group by two different people, and both happened to be in the same group. I started going to home group that Sunday, and it was good for me and I really loved the group, but eventually I felt the need to belong to a group that had more people my own age in it instead of the average age being over 60, and I switched home groups. I have always enjoyed home group, but when I switched home groups, Sunday evenings were always the highlight of my week and I truly looked forward to attending every week and felt that not only was it where I belonged but I felt that I was being filled spiritually and was getting what I needed, and that continued for a while and was awesome, but then I was asked to facilitate a new group for “older” singles. At first I thought, “I’m not even quite 40 yet, do I really count as an ‘older’ single?”Of course, when you consider that the average age of single adults is somewhere in the 20s I firmly fell into the bracket of an older single, though I like to think I was at the lower end of that bracket, even if it isn’t exactly true.

When I was asked to lead the new group I was initially hesitant, but then I remembered that I had told my pastor years previous that I would be willing to lead a home group if ever they needed me to, so I felt like I could not say no to the new assignment. I accepted the new assignment, not with enthusiasm but with a sense of duty, and at first I wondered if I had done the right thing by agreeing to lead the new group and if I truly had anything to offer, but I have come to love everyone in the group, and them me, and we have become good friends and I know that I am supposed to be here.

I hate to admit this, but in the early days of the new group, even though I saw an abundance of evidence that I was touching the lives of those in the group and, at least in some small part, making their lives better and filling a need they had in their lives, I missed my old group and would have liked to go back. I felt selfish for even considering leaving the new group to return to my old group because I knew there was a distinct and real possibility that the group would suffer with my absence. At first, because I was more worried about myself than others, I didn’t feel like I was getting what I needed in the group, and I felt like I should feel like it was my fault, like I was not contributing enough, that I didn’t have enough faith, etc. It only took me a few weeks to realize that I was where I was supposed to be and I asked myself, “If God put me in this group, who am I to question that?” Once I dedicated myself to the group and cared more about everyone else than I cared about myself I realized I had exactly what I needed in the group, and I thoroughly enjoyed attending and leading the group every Week.

At first when I was asked to lead the group I felt woefully under qualified and was worried that I would not be adequate, but I was selling myself short, and God does not call us to a task because we are qualified, he calls us because he wants us to do it, and if we are not qualified when we are calls he qualifies us. I heard someone say one time that “God gets his work done through his people and his people done through his work,” and there is some truth to that. God did not call Gideon to lead the army because he was some great military genius, but precisely the opposite. God called Gideon to lead the army because he wanted to get credit for the victory and not the man who led the troops and had a recognized military man led the campaign than he and not God would have gotten the credit. Despite the fact that I have been able to help a few people, I have no illusion that I am some great spiritual leader and I am fully aware that anything I have been able to do is only because God chose to allow me to help him, and all glory belongs to God.

Going to Church every week and hearing the pastor talk about the Bible is a good thing, but small groups lead to transformation, builds intimate friendships, increases Biblical learning and understanding, helps to strengthen our faith, and helps us become a people of prayer and study and helps us connect to God. When we meet together in small groups it increases our participation and connection with one another, and instead of having perhaps hundreds of people we kind of know, we develop true friendship with a small group of people.

When we know people on a personal level we hold each other accountable and we help each other to grow spiritually. Friendships grow as we begin to speak love and truths to one another, and the more we know and trust each other the more honest and vulnerable we can be with each other, and thus become true friends, and true friends are an important part of life. Regularly attending a home group and making friends also increases attendance at church service because you start to look forward to worshiping in a large group even more when you do it with the friends you’ve made in a small group.

Being involved in church and getting plugged into a small group can also create an outlet for ministry, planning and serving the community together, and it teaches us how to be unselfish people and leads to a more generous life modeled through transformation with the help of your small group friendships. A lot of times, even when we are not getting together for anything church related, my home group and I get together as a group of friends to watch a movie or something on a different night than out Bible study, and it is wonderful.

As I recently discovered, a small group can sometimes also have the benefit of putting someone special in your life, even if not directly through the group itself. I may have mentioned this in a previous episode, but one of my friends from home group who is around my mother’s age had been harassing me since probably April of last year to go to line dancing class with her, and to be honest, I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in going. Finally, last fall I decided to go to the line dancing class so she would leave me alone, well, that and she conspired with my mother and they came and kidnapped me and drug me along with them to line dancing. When I went the first time I immediately realized that it was an obvious set up, but when I met her I didn’t mind.

I have personally thanked my friend for setting us up, as has my girlfriend, and both of us are convinced that we want to spend the rest of our lives together. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would meet someone who I had this much in common with; I am somewhat of an odd person and our strange perfectly coincides, which is great for us, but perhaps not so much for everyone else. Some people I know have already said, “good grief, there are two of you now!” I did not think I needed anyone in my life, and she did not think she needed anyone in hers, and neither of us were looking. Sometimes other people actually do know better what is good for us than we know ourselves.

I have also had a few late-night conversations with people in my home group who were having a rough go at life, and while I can’t say that I gave them any earth shattering advice, it meant the world to them that I was willing to drop what I was doing to spend some time with them and listen to their problems, despite the fact that I could not exactly fix the problems. If you are not in a small group I would highly recommend that you find a small group as soon as possible. Not only will it enrich your life, but you will also enrich someone else’s life.