Grow Deep at GBC Through Fellowship
Series: Get on the Ship
Chuck Sligh
January 31, 2016
TEXT: Acts 2:46-47 – “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – The huge redwood trees in California are amazing. They’re the largest living things on earth and the tallest trees in the world. Some of them are 300 feet high and more than 2,500 years old.
You would think that trees that large would have a deep root system, reaching down hundreds of feet into the earth, but that is not the case. Redwoods actually have a very shallow root system—only about 4-6 feet deep.
However, the roots of these trees are intertwined; they’re tied in with each other; interlocked. Thus, when the storms come and the winds blow the redwoods still stand. With an interlocking root system they support and sustain each other. They need one another to survive—and so do we!
This is why we have homegroups at Grace Baptist Church. In the early days, we had a traditional Wednesday night service. We began meeting in homegroups during the week because we saw some important needs in our church and felt that homegroups would enable us to better address them than a traditional Wednesday service. It has become part of the DNA of Grace Baptist Church.
Three weeks ago we began a series titled, “Get on the Ship.
• First I challenged you to get on the StewardSHIP, and I challenged you to tithe to Grace Baptist to support its goals and its ministries.
• Last week I urged you to experience OwnerSHIP in GBC by finding a ministry to be involved in. You will feel ownership in a church where you are ministering and serving.
Today I want you to see the importance of being in a homegroup so you can grow deep in your faith through fellowship. First, let’s define them: Homegroups are “small groups of people who meet regularly in homes during the week to study and apply biblical truths, share about their lives, minister to and support one another, and be accountable to one another spiritually.”
I want to answer four questions about homegroups today. By the way, many of the things I’ll say apply to other small group studies as well, but I’ll use the word homegroups as a catchall for all the groups that meet as ministries of our church. So let me answer four critical questions about homegroups:
I. FIRST, ARE THEY BIBLICAL?
• Some traditional-minded believers who grew up with a Wednesday night prayer meeting oppose small groups and homegroups as novel inventions that are suspect at best.
• But strange as it may seem, nowhere does the New Testament record a Wednesday night service; but it is REPLETE with references to small groups and home groups.
For instance, the first New Testament small group was THE 12 APOSTLES.
For three years, this small group spent time with Jesus and with one another—learning together, ministering together, growing together, fellowshipping together.
William Beckham says “Jesus called out a core group to model His ecclesia or ‘called out ones’.…They formed His basic community through which He would prepare future leaders” [Beckham, William A., The Second Reformation (1995, Houston: Touch Publications), p. 153.]
Also, the BOOK OF ACTS shows a fascinating interplay between the “church large” (the larger church gathered together to worship and hear the Word), and the “church small,”—small groups that gathered and ministered in homes. You have to understand that the early church didn’t own church buildings. So where did they meet?—At times in the temple (“church large”); and at times in homes (“church small”).
For instance, Acts 2:46 says, “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”
In Acts 5:42 we read, “And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”
In Acts 20:20, recalling his ministry in Ephesus, Paul said, “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house.”
Persecution produced a change in the very character of the local church. Once persecution spread, the temple and synagogues became inhospitable places for Christians, and from then on homes became THE central localities where churches met.
Where were the disciples when Peter was imprisoned and then set free by an angel?—In a HOME, praying for Peter to be released (Acts 12).
When Paul and Silas were released from prison by the Philippian jailor, we read in Acts 16:40 that they “…went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed.”
Where else would they have met with the brethren than in a home? There were no church buildings in existence for them to meet in.
In the letters of the New Testament, we see several references to home churches.
In Romans 16:5, speaking of Aquila and Priscilla, Paul says, “Likewise greet the church that is in their house.”
Writing from Ephesus to the church in Corinth, Paul mentions Aquila and Priscilla again saying, “…Aquila and Priscilla salute [i.e., greet] you… with the church that is in their house.” (1 Corinthians 16:19).
In Colossians 4:15 Paul says, “[Greet] the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.”
Paul addresses his letter to Philemon thusly: “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ… unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlaborer, 2 …and to the church in thy house.” (Philemon 1:2).
So there is no doubt that organized groups of believers meeting in homes are biblical.
II. BUT SECOND, ARE THEY HISTORICAL?
Archeologists and church historians assure us that the early church did not have ANY permanent church buildings until at least 150 AD, and they didn’t become the norm until the time of Constantine in the 4th Century. All churches we know of before this time met in homes, or small gatherings in secret.
When Christianity was legalized by Constantine and later made the official religion of the Roman Empire, homes ceased to be the central locus of church life, coinciding with several developments that led to a doctrinal and spiritual decline in Christianity. This resulted in a loss of the relational aspect that was the hallmark of early churches and the growth of a hierarchy and depersonalization in the church. The word “church” ceased from being thought of as being THE BELIEVERS THEMSELVES living life together in local Christian community to being associated with an institution organized in a hierarchy and the buildings they met in being called “churches.”
In the 16th century came the Protestant Reformation, but because none of the Reformers ever went all the way back to the BIBLE as the source of their doctrine of the church, the result was always a sterile, impersonal form of cold, dead orthodoxy.
Over the years there were several reform and renewal movements within Protestantism, and interestingly small groups, usually in homes, played a key role in many of them.
• A man named MARTIN BUCER started a movement of home groups that brought renewal to Lutheranism that was already stagnating in Luther’s day.
• The PIETIST movement was largely a small group movement within the largely dead Lutheran church of the 17th century.
• The MORAVIANS, led by the famous Count Zinzendorf, were a zealous movement of renewal that was largely a small group movement.
• The “method” John Wesley devised that caused his group to be known as “METHODists” consisted of weekly small group meetings of Bible study, soul searching, mutual accountability and prayer—exactly what we’re striving for in our own homegroups.
So the idea that somehow homegroups and small groups are some kind of novel innovation to tickle contemporary peoples’ fancy is sheer nonsense. They’re rooted in the very fabric of the New Testament; and they were foundational to many of the reformation and renewal movements in Christian history.
III. THIRD, ARE HOMEGROUPS BAPTISTIC?
Some people believe that biblical Christianity died out after Constantine, only to be rediscovered and recovered by the Reformers of the Protestant Reformation. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, in EVERY generation various dissenting groups rose up reflecting a purer, more biblical form of Christianity than Roman Catholicism.
Who were these groups? In 1524, Cardinal Stanilaus Hosius, at the Council of Trent said, “Were it not that the baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1200 years, they would swarm in greater numbers today than all the reformers.” [Jack Hoad, The Baptist, (London: Grace Publications Trust, 1987), p. 4.]
This Roman Catholic cardinal clearly identified “baptists” and, in doing so, asserted their existence for at least 1200 years, which dates baptists to at least the time of Constantine—1,100 years before the Reformation began. They were known by many designations, but here’s the amazing thing about them all—they were churches that met almost exclusively in HOMES.
Joel Comiskey says, “Like the early church under persecution, these groups were forced to meet in small groups in order to survive.” [Joel Comiskey, History of the Cell Movement found at http://members.tripod.com/celycecomiskey/new_page_2.htm.]
We don’t have time to discuss every baptistic entity from the time of Constantine (there are scores of them), but a couple of the well-known baptistic groups deserve mention:
One of the most influential were the WALDENSIANS, who proliferated in the 12th century throughout the Alps region, especially in northern Italy. Small group meetings played an important part among the Waldensians.
David Tan writes, “…the Waldensians met for simplified worship and fellowship in their homes.” [David Tan, The Transition From A Program Based Design Church To A Cell Church. (D.Min. dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1994), p. 483.]
The best known baptists were the ANABAPTISTS of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Anabaptist movement began when certain leaders saw that the Reformers refused to go back to the Bible for doctrine and practice of the church. The Reformation was INFORMED by the Bible, but the lens through which the Reformers saw the Bible was St. Augustine, who, it turns out, was a poor guiding light, leading the Reformers into many errors, some as egregious as those taught by the Roman Catholic Church. So the Anabaptists, the forerunners of the modern Baptists (as well as the Brethren, the Amish, the Quakers, and the Mennonites) had the distinction of being persecuted by not only Catholics, but also Protestants!
Joel Comiskey says, “Small groups played a vital part among of the Anabaptist movement throughout the sixteenth century.” [Comiskey.]
There’s nothing unbaptistic about homegroups; in fact, they’re part of baptists’ DNA.
IV. NOW MY LAST QUESTION: ARE HOMEGROUPS NEEDFUL?
Do you need to attend a homegroup or small group?—YES! Let me share with you six reasons YOU should be in one:
First, homegroups allow you to feel like a personal part of God’s family.
Church services are absolutely vital to the life of the Christian, where we worship God and where the Word of God is preached for our edification. But God wants you to have more than casual relationships with other believers.
It’s easy to come to all the services week after week and never have to commit yourself to another Christian; never be challenged or inspired personally by another believer besides the pastor; never have to serve another Christian; and never have to KNOW any other Christian more than casually.
But that’s not the way God meant church to be. It’s in homegroups that you can “connect” with believers on a personal level. It’s there that you go from being, “The guy or lady who sits on row 3 over by the baptistery,” to someone with a name, who has kids with names, who has needs and questions and fears and strengths and wisdom all wrapped in one.
Some of you are “lone ranger” Christians. You’ve bought into the American “rugged individualism” concept so much that you’ve forgotten you’re not alone on the planet. You don’t want others to get closer to you because you don’t want them to know you don’t have it all together. Well guess what?—We already know you don’t have it all together! None of us does, which is why we need one another to fight the battle.
Illus. – One of the most incredible stories I ever read was that of Hiroo Nada, the last World War II Japanese soldier to surrender. He had been told NEVER to surrender; to fight to the death. For years he lived off the land and raided fields, and carried on a lonely battle, even though the war had been long over. He was not captured until March 10, 1974. ¡Twenty-nine years fighting ALONE! He said, “Nothing pleasant happened in 29 years in the jungle.”
Brethren, don’t try to fight the Christian life alone. Become a part of a group where you can fight the good fight with reinforcements.
• Second, homegroups allow you to find answers to YOUR spiritual questions.
If you’ve ever listened to a pastor preaching about something in the Bible and wanted to stop him and say, “Could you explain that more clearly?” or “I don't understand!”—then a homegroup is for you!
Preaching and teaching are very important methodologies in the local church, but in the context of church services, it works like this: I speak; you listen. That’s VERY important in its place, but NO context is as effective in helping make a PERSONAL application of a truth than in homegroups. In a homegroup, you can ask questions, participate in discussion if you wish, and hear others share insights and illustrations of a truth under discussion.
• Third, homegroups are where you can best receive encouragement.
Who in this church really knows your needs, struggles, fears, and failures? I bet if you’re not a homegroup member, no one does. (PAUSE) How could they?—There’s no context for any closer relationships.
But if you attend a homegroup, there are many opportunities for you to share your special needs and for others to jump in to encourage you.
Illus. – A couple of years ago when the 2SCR was downrange, the Netzaberg homegroup was meeting one night One of our members had almost not come that night because she was under a great amount of stress. She had just had a baby—alone, while her husband was deployed; she was trying to keep up with two other young, rambunctious children—alone, without her husband; and she was just STRUGGLING.
In our discussion time that night, she just unburdened her heart. Immediately, our whole group just started to share affirming and encouraging words with her—each in their unique way.
The discussion I had planned came to a screeching halt so we could just minister to a very lonely, very tired, very struggling sister in Christ. In all my years of ministry, I never saw the giving of hope and encouragement so wonderfully displayed so spontaneously and lovingly.
Dear friend, that kind of encouragement is best found in a homegroup where you’re “doing life together.”
• Fourth, homegroups is where you can minister and be ministered TO in love.
Illus. – Our church in Wiesbaden that ran about 200 was always known to take care of those in the hospital and in other special needs. Here’s how we did it: When I received word, I would visit the person in the hospital. The next day he or she would get a visit from the ladies ministry and a bouquet of flowers. Eventually, they’d get a visit from a deacon or a staff member. Now, our people appreciated it, but it was somewhat…“official.” It was well planned out, but not spontaneous.
Here at Grace, this type of caregiving comes mostly from within the homegroups. It’s not planned out: it’s spontaneous and more personal.
Illus. – I remember when a lady named Carmita, who’s husband was in Iraq, went into the hospital, I went to visit her as her pastor. What was so exciting was how every night I went to visit her, there were one or two with people from her homegroup. These were people she had been “living life together” with; people she had ministered to herself; people who knew her well; who loved her; whom she was connected to; who were her FAMILY.
Folks, if you’re not in a homegroup, when you go into the hospital, if I know about it, I promise you, I’LL be there to visit you. But I may be the only one! You need a homegroup to “be there” for you in hard times You see, at Grace Baptist Church, there is no “Plan B”. Our “staff” is our homegroups; our “ministers” are homegroup people; it’s LAY PEOPLE who do the work of the ministry in GBC. To me, that’s New Testament Christianity in action!
• Number 5, homegroups are places of accountability.
The larger a church gets, the easier it is to live a life of anonymous sin and mediocrity and laziness—and NOBODY KNOWING THE WISER. I might go one or two weeks before I realize some of you have not been in church.
Not so in a homegroup. If you’re in a homegroup, your homegroup members know who you are. And if you’re not doing right, they’ll notice and pray for you and check on you, and lovingly confront you to follow the Lord.
We all need that—EVERY ONE OF US! It’s good to have people in our lives who know where we are spiritually and can call us out when we’re failing, or can be a source of encouragement or inspiration when we’re weak and struggling.
CONCLUSION
These are the reasons we have homegroups. Homegroups are biblical, historical and faithful to baptistic practice. And they’ll meet some of your spiritual needs in ways that the “church large” never can.
If you’re not in a homegroup, may I challenge you to GET CONNECTD THIS WEEK? If you’ve attended in the past, but became lax in coming and participating and ministering, let me challenge you to renew your commitment to this vital ministry of Grace Baptist Church.
I close with this: We get spiritually cold and lose our passion for the Lord when we don’t have the fellowship, encouragement, ministry and accountability of a homegroup. We become lone embers and lone embers always die out and grow cold.
Illus. – A pastor was deeply concerned about a member who shunned fellowship. He encouraged him by many words of encouragement to fellowship with other believers, but always to no avail.
One day the pastor visited the man where a warm fire was burning in the fireplace. The pastor didn’t say a word, but just grabbed a poker, separated an ember from the rest of the burning embers, and sat down. Silently the man watched the ember slowly extinguish. Then the pastor pushed the ember back into the fire, where quickly it reignited. Then the pastor put on his coat and walked out the door.
Never again did this man forsake the assembling together with other believers, whether at church or in a home—in the “church large” or the “church small.”
I hope you never will either. It’s time to connect. Today each family was given a handout titled “Why Have Homegroups/Small Groups?” I want to ask each of you to take it home and read it through from start to finish. On the back are all the homegroups and small groups going on at GBC. Say to God this morning, “Lord, help me to grow deep in faith at GBC by getting involved in a homegroup or a small group.”
