Originally Posted by john
Originally Posted by Johan
Our church introduced small groups about two years ago. The way it was done upset me a lot at that time because Rick Warren's 40 days of PDL was followed. The choice of which small group you wanted to belong to was your own. In my opinion, the small groups were for the majority just closed circles of friends. And it is hard to get into these circles. The small groups were supposed to also reach out to other people, also within the church. Well, no one from any small group ever came to me to enquire about my or my wife's well being. In fact, I think we became more isolated after the introduction of small groups. I really doubt it that the introduction of small groups in our church REALLY made a difference. If it made a difference then I am blind to it.

Last year I did attend a couple of meetings of a group which is not a formal small group in the church. I was shocked to hear the opinions expressed there on what the Gospel is, that there is not much difference between the RCC and Reformed Churches etc. Okay, these people had these ideas whether or not small groups existed or not.

Johan,

I have experienced varying degrees of your experience with respect to small groups. I think #2 of Pilgrim's suggestions would go a long way towards solving the closed nature of many groups. I have also experienced having to study material that I found not very Biblically edifying. Recently, for example, The Didache, D. Bonhoeffer, and narrowly avoided an N.T. Wright study. Things like this would be helped by Pilgrim's suggestions #1 and #3.

John

John

Agree ... sorry for the short response. Things are a bit tight here.

Hmmmm........ many John's on this thread: Johan, John just the same. claphands