How to Go Deeper in a Small Group

So let me just ask a question we got with the Girons and with the Ojis. I want to ask them a question. You guys are listening to us because we’re let’s talk night. And we hope. We hope we’re just helping. You have great discussions in your in your in your house churches. That’s really what it is. And, and we’re going to talk a little bit in just a minute about just building the house, church and some principles you can look at. I’m building the house church. And remember, even though we may sometimes sound like we know what we’re talking about, we’re learning along with you. And so we’re going off some research and work we’ve done, but we’re learning along with you. And, and there are many things that we’re going to talk about that don’t relate to you. And some do. It’s not meant to be an answer. All we kind of have to get our minds out of sermons and all that kind of stuff and get our minds on on Let’s Talk Night and talking. And the key thing I want to just highlight is that it’s important for the foundation of our relationships to be the scriptures. In Ephesians two nineteen through twenty two, it says really that the church and the relationships there are built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Uh, and that’s a reference to the fact that the Old Testament, the New Testament, these scriptures are the foundation and we have to be very, very careful to stick with that. And that when we build the kind of relationships we need to build, it’s what’s going to keep us unified. You may remember from our first episode, we talked about the fact that the world won’t be changed by a disunified church. The world’s going to ignore a Disunified church. In Romans fifteen five through six it says, May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s ask a question. If you’re sitting in your house church right now, building spiritual relationships keeps us unified, unified so we can change the world. So tell me what the biggest thing is. You’re learning as you think about as we discuss, as we go through this, uh, this sort of thinking about how to get let’s talk knights going. Just what’s the first thing, the big thing that sort of sticks out to you? I think, uh, a deep curiosity about people. Don’t don’t settle for what you think, you know. Really get into people’s world and get people’s mind. Uh, that’s probably the biggest thing I’m learning. Man, you better you better write a devotional or something on that and teach that boy. I like that deep, deep curiosity getting into other people’s world. Whoa. We just need to sit on that for a minute. I just gotta I just gotta let that resonate. Are you letting that resonate out there, folks? Let’s let’s talk here for a few minutes about going deep, rebuilding the spiritual culture of the house church. Now, we alluded to some of that last time. We talked about spiritual relationships, prayer partners, being involved in coaching relationships, really mentoring relationships. And I think sometimes people want to want to reject the idea of mentoring. Like that’s worldly. No, it’s not mentoring is saying, I want to help another person develop a skill that I may possess through the training I’ve received. Coaching is about, I want to make somebody many times be as good or better than I ever was in the sport. And in some cases, you have people who coach who never even actually participated at a high level in the sport. They’re just great at making other people better at the sport. I think we’ve got to get some new models in our head for how we help each other, instead of that old archaic dead model that’s been religion, church ified. You know, we got to take all that fide out so we can eat some non fide foods, all right, and be able to get going. All right. So I’m going deep in rebuilding the spiritual culture of house churches. I want to talk first about deep spirituality, really that making certain we’re all experiencing God in at least four ways peace, power, purpose, presence. Do any of you, when you look at that concept about creating spirituality in the house church, can any of you tell me maybe what one of the obstacles to spirituality in the House church is? No, I mean, it goes along with what we talked about earlier, but I think it’s breaking the tradition of what we’re used to. Yeah. Like I, I show up here because this is where I show up on Wednesday night, you know, so I think it’s breaking through like the, again, it’s having the heart there and being like, okay, what am I bringing? Versus I’m just here because this is what I’ve done for the past ten years. Yeah. And so let me, let me throw this at you and see what you guys think. And then we’ll move to the next one. We’ll read the scripture and move to the next one. But I think one of the obstacles to deep spirituality in the house church is that when people don’t read their Bible and pray every day, you’re never going to be able to get anywhere. And I think reading the Bible and praying every day is essential to making certain we’re spiritual. And I think when we read the Bible in prayer every day, we’re searching for four things. One is peace, the freedom from controlling anxieties of life. Number two is power. The ability to change. We could say, when you have the power of God working in your life and you believe it does, then you become more receptive to change because you know you have the power to change. Number three is purpose. Our reason for being here. I think one of the most important things that we have to understand about house, church, and about getting together, is it once you become a Christian, the only reason that God would need you to stay alive is for other people. If the whole goal is just to go to heaven, then once you become a Christian, God should take you. But he doesn’t because he wants you to change other lives. So there’s peace, power, and purpose that need to be in relationship with God. And that all comes from the presence of God. I know one of the things that was hard for me initially was to believe that God was with me in my life every step of the way, every day, all the time. Like to have a sense of his physical presence. Now, I know that’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because God is not fleshly physical, but he is spiritually physical because he directs you, right? That’s what you’re saying. Like, well, he’s he, I think he makes you feel his presence. The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit enters us, and if the Holy Spirit is in us and the Holy Spirit is as divine as Jesus and God are, there is not an inequality between God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus. There is a, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a unity of, of, of being in those three that we can’t understand because we’re one dimensional. If we’re even one dimensional from a spiritual point of view. And so we can’t even conceptualize of a, of, of a, of a entity that’s that dynamic and that unified. But so when the Holy Spirit is in us, it’s present with us. There should be a physical and emotional, uh, a mental, uh, sense of God’s presence in our lives. And you know, how you sometimes have a, a déja vu? Yes. You ever have a deja vu? Yes. That is how it ought to feel to be in your relationship with God. And if you’re not feeling that sense of, whoa, going back to what you said, how did I end up in this situation? How did how did I end up, you know, knowing this individual, that is the presence of God putting you in places where you interact with people. And so deep spirituality is about getting to that point of peace, power, purpose, and presence. And that’s about making it more than just ritually reading your Bible and praying. It’s about experiencing God. I got a scripture. Ephesians four eleven So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. He’s saying the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers have been put here to make us more spiritual. And part of the job is not to make it organizational. It’s not to say, let’s make sure we run the buses, the, you know, the trains run on time, but it’s about making us more spiritual. So if we’re going to build a great house church, the first question we have to ask is how spiritual is our house church? How much do we experience peace, power, purpose and presence of God? How about deep character? Because that gets down to the leadership of the house, church house, church leadership pursue and create a culture of character. So if you’re going to build a great house church, I mean, that’s the pressure on any of us who are leaders. You got to be in pursuit of a certain kind of character. What do you think, Martin, when you think about character and about leadership and about the house churches, what are your thoughts on that? Now, when I think of that, I think I mean, a challenge for myself in leading is, am I going to have the character? AM I going to have a deep enough character to put my interest and desires to the side and actually care for other people? AM I going to be unselfish enough? AM I going to make other people a priority? AM I going to make other people great versus trying to make myself great? So I think of leadership to the core. It makes me think of Mark chapter ten, where it says in verse forty three, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. I grew up wanting. My dad would tell me, you’re going to be a great world leader. He told me that all the time. I’m going to be great. I’m going to be the man. He’s a good dad, I like him. As I became a Christian, I’m like, it’s not about it’s not about me being great. I’ve got to make other greatness is making other people great. So I think I think that’s what when I hear a deep character in the house church culture and the leadership, that’s what I think. It made me think of the whole coaching mentor ship thing, because that’s what you do like as a coach. When I coached, I had practice at certain times and, you know, recruited, but I spent time in my office at my desk working on plans that were going to help the athletes get better and finding ways to just help them connect relationally, too, because you can’t just put people out there to run. They have to like like each other. So it’s a house is a leader as a person, as a leader. Christian. Sometimes leaders can feel pressure because they can feel the pressure to be the best they can be. The pressure to feel perfect, I have to have the perfect marriage. I have to have the perfect job. I have the perfect kids. I have to be the most disciplined, I’d be the most organized. And that pressure, and you alluded to this in an earlier episode, the pressure of the pandemic. But that pressure can make us crumble. Um, and what I think that deep character does is it’s developing the capacity to not crumble. It’s not about being perfect. And when you look at second, when you look at deep character, and I think if you’re a house church leader out there and you’re trying to figure out, you know, who do I need to be? Check out first Timothy three one to five, Titus one five to nine and first Peter five one to four. Uh, because that talks about the character of an elder. And sometimes we throw out those characteristics because they go, well, I’m not an elder. I don’t want to be an elder. Well, if you look at Titus two and you read about older men, you’ll find that there’s a connection between just aging and developing a stronger character. And so I don’t think an elder is something you set as a goal necessarily. You can, but you don’t set it as goal necessarily. I think character is the goal you set. And so what I’m wondering, Christian, because I know you’ll talk about, you know, the pressure and how hard it is. What do you think might be the temptation for some people to do when they face the difficulty and the pressure of leading ten people, leading six people, leading twelve people, having a job, having kids or going to school, trying to get their bachelor’s or master’s or PhD. And how might that how might that be difficult for them and make them want to respond maybe with saying, hey, I don’t want to lead as opposed to maybe understanding that it’s the leadership that will help them develop the character that eventually in their life will allow them to carry loads and accomplish things greater than they’re even doing now. I hope that doesn’t confuse, but do you know what I’m talking about? Yeah, I think the temptation could be, I mean, I know from my life is to want to settle. Um, to want to quit. I’m like, okay, you know, look at my circumstances and I’m totally guilty of this throughout my life, you know, and as a Christian, I think wanting to settle, being okay, like, oh, this is okay. Like, I’ll do that. I’ll do better next week, or I don’t really have to try that hard. I love that person. Someone else can do it. Um, and instead of having God’s goal and God’s vision in mind, it becomes just trying to survive, um, trying to get by instead of like building. And I think that’s the definitely what I can feel now. I think my, the temptation is to want things to be easier, to want things to be more comfortable instead of like understanding, having the discipline, the focus, and really the spirituality to, to understand like, no, this is part of life. Things are difficult. Um, there’s there going to be pressure, uh, there’s going to be anxieties, but like knowing that like this is, I think a second Corinthians, uh, for the scripture I’ve been holding on to about, you know, the troubles we have now. They’re going to pass on. And I think about that. And like the things I was anxious about three weeks ago, you know, I don’t think about them right now or even last week. I probably forgot what I was stressed about, you know, but in the moment they’re just so big. But then, um, but for me, what gets pushed aside is, which is what the thing I really love, which is like purpose, you know, and, and friends and, and helping people. And so those problems become bigger. Wanting comfort, uh, becomes more tempting. I want to build on that by going to Michelle, because you’ve dealt with kids in school as a counselor and a school counselor, and you’ve seen how they operate in the classrooms, how some classrooms, kids do better, some classrooms, kids do worse or perform more poorly. I hesitate to use the word perform, but they they are able to achieve less easily is probably a way to to put that better. But it seems to me that there’s some connections between the classroom and house churches. Yeah. And so I think a lot of house church leaders can feel like a teacher. I have to make this group successful. And I know when I was in school back in the dark Ages, uh, I found that I was pretty individualistic and it was like, hey, I know what grade I want to get and everybody else don’t copy off my paper and stay away from me. That was about how I interacted with people. And I had some teachers, particularly coaches, who tried to change that mentality and say, you know, it is about we, not just me, Russ and, and, and helping other people. Um, but, but I’d like you to speak from an educator point of view, a little bit about how as a house church, we ought to be reacting to the house church leader because sometimes I think house church leaders feel pressure on their character, but the rest of the house church doesn’t feel any pressure on their character. And instead of all of us growing together, it’s like, okay, you’re the dude who’s supposed to be the leader. Lead the way and we’ll watch. And if you don’t get shot, then we know it’s safe to go there, you know, and, and, and instead of instead of saying, no, no, no, it’s about us all doing it together. I know in basketball, when I was playing, if anybody threatened one of our players, everybody was ready to rush the floor. And we weren’t. I was a little suburban team. We were not. Believe me, we were not dangerous. But we had that kind of care for each other. And so can you just talk to us like we’re kids about how to overcome some of the problems we have in house churches with treating it like we’re here to learn together. And it’s not just the house church leader who ought to be exceptional, but we ought to all grow together. And if we do that, everybody’s going to do better. Can you just speak to that for a little bit? Yeah. I mean, I’m thinking about just even like teaching styles. I mean, Jeannette would know even more be able to speak to this. But I think about in a group, you know, when you’re teaching, you want to put different strengths, like together with like the students, right? Maybe one student might be really artistic or one might be better at writing. Um, but they thrive right together. And I think about that where if you just have that one person and that no one wants to be in that, that group, that group project where it’s that one person that’s doing all the work. And I mean, that’s, you know, essentially that happens a lot in school where it’s like the group project, you have the one person that does the work, you have, you know, the person that maybe they get better, the person that they get better though, right? They get mad. And then the person on the last day shows up, what do I need to do? And it’s already done. Um, but I think about, oh yeah, that’s, that’s the person you don’t like. That’s true. Um, but yeah, so I, I think about it more, I guess in that sense of like a group project, it’s going to be successful when everybody is sharing the load. Um, and everyone’s doing it together. I also was thinking even with like the let’s talk. Speaking even to that with the smaller groups and meeting together, I think that is going to be more manageable in the sense of. I’m thinking about when I was in a public school and you have teachers that are teach eight different sections with thirty different kids and they’re just pumping, you know, you’re just essentially just being pushed through. And I remember just being pushed through high school. I didn’t learn what I needed to learn. I got to college and I was like, what am I doing? I got to start from scratch. Um, but I think about it and, you know, being at the school I’m at now, there’s smaller class sizes and there’s more teachers and they’re able to work more on one on one with each other. And we do a lot of group work. Um, and how much more it helps, uh, the kids thrive and grow. Um, but it makes me think about that with the let’s talk and being able to, it’s more manageable being able to have the smaller groups as well. You know, one of the things they talk about in education is character education. And so, um, you know, I think that, Jeanette, you could probably pick up on this and talk about character education and tie that in because that’s what we’re really talking about. We’re saying that in the church. Let’s talk nights are about coming together for great spiritual conversation, to build deeper relationships, uh, to, to fulfill our purpose better, but that we should grow in character together so that we don’t end up having that one kid who did all the work on the project, the house church leaders say at the end of a couple of years, I’m done. I don’t even want to do this anymore because I’m sick of this. This doesn’t work. And I think everybody needs to understand there are people who have quit leading house churches because they’re tired of doing the whole project, and instead of just putting it on them, we have to say, let’s get some character education. And it might be a good thing for the for let’s talk night tonight for everybody to just say, let’s take five or ten minutes and just ask the House church leader of our group, do you feel like you have to do everything on your own, or do you feel like we’re giving you some help? I know that may make everybody uncomfortable, but don’t start drinking. Start drinking. Don’t start drinking now. That’s drinking. That’s an easy answer. Uh, there the house is going to say, yeah, uh, it’s on me. Unfortunately, there are there are like select groups that that is not the case where everyone is like, no, this is our group and we are all going to do something. Mhm. And I think on the character level, um, I don’t know, I think something that worked, um, in my classroom was pairing, like what Michelle said, pairing people up like this is your strength. This is something you are working on. Let’s do it together. And then for me, um, I would, I would like set up my classroom so that my students could, the whole goal was to get them to connect with each other. We, we learned everything we needed to learn. But I was like, these guys socially, they need to learn this. They need to learn how to get along. They need to learn how to value each other. They need to learn how to work together. I think those are I think it’s awesome to consider these things. And, you know, one of the things that can happen is we can end up not learning from other fields, meaning you can take from education, you can take from teaching a lot of principles. I follow a lot of teachers on Twitter, and they have ideas that teach me about learning simplicity, which is not my strength. But we’ve talked a lot about that. Deep conversations. I feel like all through the episodes, we’ve been talking about having deep conversations. So I just want to make a point that deep spirituality, deep character, deep conversations, it’s the spirituality of the culture is determined by the conversations that are had. And so just remember that folks, if you’re sitting there, if we’re not having good conversations, if we’re reacting to, to, to everything, and sometimes the, the sort of, the thing I’d like to caution everybody on is that the conversations are all without the Bible. If the conversations are all minus God, and if the conversations are all about politics, the environment, basketball, football, you know, house decor. You know where we’re going to go on our next adventure. If that’s all the conversations are, then your house church is not going to be built well, because those are generally not deep conversations. If you’re talking about, we’re going to go on this adventure because we’ve been on the brink of divorce, and here’s the reasons why. And we’ve got to rebuild our relationship. That’s a deep conversation. But just getting on the internet and saying, hey, which where do I want to get my five dollar tickets? The ones Christian was talking about that you could get with the Golden State Warriors? Where do I get my five dollar tickets? And there are people who will spend like three hours talking about how to get the five dollar ticket and God never enters in. So that’s deep conversation, deep relationships. I feel like, again, we’ve talked about having deep relationships and that, that, that some of the tips we’ve already given on relationships in previous episodes. And finally, deep compassion or purpose. I do want to talk about that in closing a little bit, because oftentimes we will talk about deep spirituality. We will talk about deep character. We will talk about deep conversations, we will talk about deep relationships, but we don’t often talk about deep compassion or purpose. And when you embrace deep spirituality, deep character, deep conversations, and deep relationships, it’s going to produce a level of satisfaction and strength such that we’re not only willing, but capable of living our purpose with compassion. And the way I think about evangelism is it’s an expression of love, devotion, faith, trust, and a desire to please God. And for a long time in my Christian life, I didn’t like it because I felt pressure. I felt pressure to get people to believe in God. And then I had to make a change. And I realized that it wasn’t the pressure that I should have been focused on which I was. It was God. And my relationship with God was so weak and so inconsistent that I didn’t have a desire to tell anybody about God. And there’s lots of ways to do that. You can tell people about God by how you build your marriage and them looking and saying, I like what I see by how you love your kids, not necessarily how well your kids perform, but how you love your kids. They can tell by the way you carry yourself by your interest in others. The deep curiosity that Martin talked about a while back. But when you guys are thinking about doing and evangelizing good, loving and evangelizing God, before we leave, I just want you to give them a sort of an insight to the way you’ve gotten yourself to think about loving people. I’m going to start with you, Martin. The way you got yourself to think about loving people enough to let God express himself through you, and not to be focused just on yourself. Go ahead Martin. You know, when I think about that, you know, I think of I think of the Spurs, right? If you’re around me, at some point you’re going to hear me talk about Popovich. Tim Duncan, that’s for sure. You’re going to see my jersey on my shirt. I’ve seen it. It’s going to come out. I try and convince Erica to be a Spurs fan and I try and convince her to be a Warriors fan. How can you do that when I think of that? Oh, no. And when I’m that connected with God, man, it’s just going to come out. Oh, boy. It’s not going to be awkward. It’s not going to be forced. It’s going to come out and and I’ll and by the way, I talk to you. But I’ve had people say, man, something different about you than like, why? And then it’s an opportunity to tell, tell, you know, what’s the difference? Yeah. The difference. They sense it coming from somewhere. So I think about it that way and that way that it’s not a it’s no longer pressure. Yeah. I don’t feel pressure watching any Spurs games. There’s no pressure. Well I feel sad because they’re out of the playoffs. I didn’t even make the playoffs. But you certainly don’t feel pressure talking about Erica right. You just you’ve you’ve interjected her into the conversation because it’s an expression of your love. That’s right. Jeanette didn’t tell you ahead of time. Make sure you you share about Erica three times. No. And and and, you know, and I think a lot of us don’t. We want to go, oh, it’s difficult. It’s difficult to reach out to people. And you don’t always have to tell somebody, come follow God. Sometimes you can just be nice to people because sometimes niceness is an advertisement. There’s something different to you. Uh, Michelle, what’s your thought about, you know, the same subject matter? I mean, I think for, like I said, for myself, I think I saw the love when I came out because I saw people really interested in building my life. I think that’s something. And again, I think that was because that was unique to me. Um, I didn’t have, I was not someone that was like, I’m ambitious. That was not my thing. I’m like, settle, let me figure out how to, you know, I have, you know, some learning challenges. So I didn’t have a lot of vision. So I think when it’s uniquely to that person, kind of like we were talking about, you know, the robotics with Martin, you know, getting interest in that person’s life. I think for myself personally and with other people. I want to get to know their interests. I want to know what they like because I want to know how to to reach them. I love what you’re saying about building a person’s life, because I got to tell you, when I was early in my life in my twenties, I was not taught to do that. And some people who are older in my generation, all of you are much younger than me. They may go, yeah, I’m done with trying to reach out to people because it’s just terrible. But the issue is we, many of us were not taught, go build a person’s life. And part of evangelizing good and doing good and evangelizing good is saying, I will help you build your life regardless of whether you believe in God. And that’s a real turn we have to make of saying, I don’t need to get anything out of it other than you’re a happier person. And we don’t always have to walk away from people saying, well, they’re only happy now because eventually they’re going to go to hell. Like that’s how people think. And I’m like, you know, even thinking those thoughts is unhealthy. All right. So like, let’s get out of this checkers game we’re playing and start living a life of chess instead of a life of checkers and black and white and start seeing people not as here’s your eternal destination, but being present in the moment. What did Jesus say in Matthew six? You have enough trouble for today. Don’t worry about tomorrow. It’s not our job to be calculating out people’s eternal destiny every second. It’s our job to say, hey, can I make that person better? Christian, thanks for your that that that insight. Michel. Christian, what are you thinking when it comes to purpose? I think, um, that’s honestly, you know, we talked about in previous episodes, you know, me being religious and growing up and spending most of my life in church and seeing different things. And I think the thing that, um, seeing different things, meaning like church and rules and stuff like that, I think the thing that stood out, um, kind of similar to Michelle. Well, I have the learning disability also not really ambitious, but I think, um, the thing that stood out about God the most was purpose. And like I could actually use my life to like, help somebody and to like to do good. Um, and, you know, ultimately change someone’s life. And I think the Scripture acts twenty twenty four, um, it’s my favorite scripture on like purpose and it says, but my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus, the work of telling others the good news about the wonderful grace of God. Um, I love that scripture because I’m like, okay, like that’s why I’m here. Like I’m here. Like there’s nothing more important. You know, I have to, you know, pay the bills or, you know, there’s different life things you do, you know, but there’s nothing more important. No job, there’s no, um, career or school or education. Like those are important things. But the most important thing is like really making a difference in someone’s life. And that’s what attracted to me about God. I was like, I want to do that. I don’t know how, and I don’t think I can on my own because I’m not. I was like, that’s what I really want to do with my life is to make a difference. So, um, that’s what inspired me about God is purpose. That’s awesome. My producer is telling me that we are, over time that I’ve let it run too long. So we’ll crack it down, grab a chocolate chip cookie at your house and try to have some more discussion. This is the end of our series. I want to thank Christian and Michelle, John Martin and Jeannette OG for participating in five of these. We’ve learned as we went, and we hope you’re closer and more excited about. Let’s talk nights after five episodes of our podcast, audio, new media content. Thanks a lot. Thank you, thank you.