Home Groups, Life Groups, Community Groups, whatever you call your small groups have a dangerous side. They are not the fixall endall for church revitalization. Moving people from worship services into circles is not the nitrous oxide of turbo boosting church growth and health

.You may have heard the montra, small groups are the key to…

* Movilizing people into service

* Developing missional communities

* Helping people stick

* Closing the back door

* Caring for needs

Those are nice things, but they miss the mark. Small groups are wineskins, structures that are beneficial, but they never replace the most important thing, the wine, the experience of the presence of Jesus. If we are missing Jesus in the midst of connecting people to the organization, then the church has become little more than a social organization.

We often talk about small groups as if they will solve every problem the church faces. However, sometimes small groups cause more problems, because they surface problems that were already simmering below the surface in lives. Some would rather keep things shallow, because they don’t want to be bothered by other’s problems. Yet in reality, problems are an opportunity to point people to the problem solver, the one who does all things well, the one who is “with us”, even when we are going through the “valley of the shadow of death.”

Small groups can be a tool to help people grow their faith BIG by trusting Jesus in the midst of the crisis. Faith, like muscles grow bigger under pressure. Without Jesus at the center, the wine, community will always come up short. Rich community must have Jesus at the center or it doesn’t work, because humans don’t have what it takes, in the flesh. Like the saying, “two ticks and no dog.” We are trying to get from one another, something that is impossible for us to provide.

I don’t find anywhere in Scripture where Paul mentions the priority of attending a weekly small group, yet he does call us to community.

Colossians 3:12–17 (ESV) Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Rich community is a by-product of “putting on Jesus,” walking with Jesus with others while living out the “one anothers.” Authentic Christian community is the goal, not simple participation in a small group.

Structure is important, wineskins hold the wine, but a wineskin without the wine is pointless. God has called us to live in community and that may not be a small group which meets in a home. Small groups are only a tool, wineskins, structure for leading people into the most important thing, a life changing relationship with God.