Why Small Groups?/The Art of Care and Correction
From Gospel Translations
Contents |
Chapter Five: The Art of Care and Correction
M I C K E Y C O N N O L L Y
As we read in Chapter One of this book, a primary goal of small-group ministry is sanctification. God has called us each to be conformed to the image of Christ. In God’s wisdom, he has made us so that we cannot accomplish this without the involvement of others. Wayne Grudem has said, “Sanctification is usually a corporate process in the New Testament. It is something that happens in community.” [1] Another has well said, “One can acquire anything in solitude except character.”
The primary roadblock to both personal maturity and biblical relationships is sin: sin in our own life; sin in others’ lives; a world fallen because of sin. In each of these areas we can find great help and hope in the committed relationships that can grow out of small groups. To assist us in our ongoing quest to become more like Christ, God uses people in three ways—to reveal our sin, to help us to take action against our sin, and to walk with us in our struggle against sin.
First, God uses people to help reveal our sin. As friends observe our life “up close and personal,” they can point out areas of sin and weakness and/or simply areas where we might need to grow. Also, interaction with others reveals our sins as situations reveal what is in our hearts.
Once sin is exposed, God gives us others who help us deal with our sin through confrontation, counseling, encouragement, accountability, and prayer. Finally, he gives us others to help and support us as we face the effects of living in a sinful world—pain, discouragement, confusion, weakness—while we “wait to be liberated from the bondage of decay and brought into the glorious freedom
of the children of God” (Ro 8:21).
Let’s take a look at this last aspect first.
Caring for One Another
There are many ways we can express care for others in our small group. Let me suggest five proven methods.
Comfort. To comfort means to cheer or to ease the grief and troubles of life. Life can be hard. We can face serious trials and tragedy—the death of a family member or close friend, loss of a job, a broken relationship we struggle to reconcile. We also face daily disappointments and hardships that can trouble and burden us. Sometimes we just have a bad day. How wonderful it is at times like these to have committed friends who will gather around us, bring comfort, and help ease our burdens.
The New Testament instructs us to “mourn with those who mourn” (Ro 12:15) and to “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2Co 1:4). I regularly meet with a group of men in our church for accountability and support. I can think of many times over the years when we have helped each other through trials at work or at home, through difficult and discouraging struggles with sin, or simply through life’s ups and downs. The comfort received and given in these times has been an invaluable help in our walk with God through a fallen world.
Counsel. By this I don’t mean formal counseling, but sharing with those in need the wisdom, insight, and experience we have gained. Paul told the Romans, “I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another” (Ro 15:14). My wife and her friends excel at this. In an hour of chatting on the phone they can solve all the problems of the world (at least their worlds) in an informal yet extremely biblical, practical, and effective way. They provide a listening ear. They share what God has been teaching them, or what has worked for them in practical and spiritual matters.
Warning to men: Don’t try this! You are not genetically constituted to just chat for an hour. For men, something resembling chatting is only beneficial when done in the context of an activity such as fishing, eating, or watching football. Here is an actual transcript (well, more or less) of a close male-bonding experience:
Gettin’ any bites?
Yep.
(Pause) What bait you usin’?
Uh…minnows.
(Long pause) Do you think I should become a missionary in Tibet?
Nope.
(Medium pause) Think I should switch to artificial lures?
(Reflective pause) Well…Firetigers always work for me this time of year.
Huh.
Yeah…they’re good.
Huh.
Among other things, this conversation demonstrates the natural male tendency to focus more on peripheral issues (such as fishing lures) than on far more significant personal matters (such as a possible call to evangelism). So heads up, guys—you probably need to pay especially close attention to this chapter.
Encourage. To encourage means to inspire with courage, spirit, and hope; to hearten; to urge forward. Everyone occasionally gets discouraged. We face times when life seems difficult, progress slow, or challenges insurmountable. How important it is at these times to have someone give us a pep-talk based not on positive thinking or blind optimism but on the manifold promises and hope held out to us in the Scriptures.
At other times, when we let our priorities get out of line, our zest for pressing ahead begins to slip away. We give in to the temptation to settle down and take it easy, and our pursuit of God shifts into neutral. At such times, we need someone to come alongside and exhort us onward. I believe this is what the writer of Hebrews refers to when he says, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Heb 10:24).
Lastly, encouragement can come from expressions of appreciation and thanks. “You’ve done a good job,” “I’ve noticed the way you have persevered in faith and joy through your trial,” “Thanks for the way you served,” and similar expressions of affirmation are all deeply encouraging to hear. I can’t tell you how often I have been buoyed in spirit and freshly motivated to mature and serve through this kind of encouragement from others.
Help. All of the above are important expressions of care for one another, but not the only expressions. There are many ways we can also physically and materially help those in our small group. James reminds us, “If one of you says…‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” (Jas 2:16). He said this not to discount the importance of our words but to point out that in many situations words alone can’t meet the need. Meals for families with a newborn, helping someone put a new roof on his house, providing financial help to someone temporarily out of work, giving someone a ride to a meeting—in all these and many more practical ways we are to serve those in our small group.
My family and I are preparing to move, and a week before my house was to go on the market I still had several major fix-up projectsto complete. I would never have been able to get everything done in time myself, but a dozen friends gave up a Saturday to come help me. In no time at all, the jobs were done. This was not only a huge practical blessing to me and my family, but a great time of building my friendships with these men.
Correct. Most people don’t think of correcting or being corrected as part of our care for one another, but in fact it is one of the most vital ways we serve our friends. Remember, sin is the primary enemy of both personal maturity and our relationships with others. To correct means literally “to straighten up again”; to intervene and help when someone is going off course. What could be more valuable to a friend than this? The Scriptures counsel us to love correction, going so far as to say that those who hate correction are stupid (Pr 12:1).
Let’s spend the rest of this chapter looking at this vital area of ministry to one another. As we do so, let our heart attitude be one of tryingto see how we can be more effective in helping one another both to grow personally and to work through the difficulties our sin causes in our relationships. The main skills of correction can be summarized as conflict resolution, confrontation, and confession.
Resolving Conflicts
Conflict and offense are inevitable. When we mix with people who are sinful and selfish (that is, people who are just like us), we expose ourselves to the possibility of conflict and offense. Where might this happen? How about any place on earth! But it’s especially likely where we are relating closely to others—at home, at church, in school, at work, in our neighborhood…or in our small group.
Disagreement is inevitable because people are different from one another. Conflict and offense are likely (in any given circumstance) because we are sinful. But disagreement need not always lead to conflict, nor conflict to offense. You can disagree with someone without sinning and you can be sinned against without taking offense. Sometimes, you might perceive an offense even when no one has sinnedagainst you—in which case the only thing that was “offended” was your own pride, self-centeredness, or some other idol in your heart. There are also other possibilities, some of them discussed later in this chapter. Discernment, honest inquiry, and wise application of the Scriptures are critical.
This much is certain. While our goal is to love one another genuinely and fully, we will have disagreements. And we will have conflicts during which we sin against others and are sinned against. Jesus himself said, “Temptations to sin are sure to come” (Lk 17:1, RSV). However, just because they are sure to come doesn’t mean that, when they do come, we aren’t responsible for resolving them in a godly and redemptive manner.
