So you want to be a small group leader? You've been preparing yourself. You've been studying. You've been attending training meetings. The church staff has arranged all kinds of experiences for you in the area of biblical literacy. You've become a student of the Word of God. You've examined your life carefully, and you've made sure that you are fully committed to being a blessing to other people. And no one has yet opened to you the secret of the expansion of the Christian movement as it relates to your role as a small group leader. 

But I'm going to talk to you about something that has made Christianity the most important religious influence in the history of the world. And that is its ability to touch people who are not born within the context of the Christian faith and allow them the full privileges of the Gospel - the death of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, the love of God, and the companionship of other believers along the way. The work of evangelists, the work of winning of souls is not only a mark of wisdom, it's one of the privileges of being the leader of a small group. But when you first think about calling together a group of people who can learn to love one another and to obey the Christian Gospel, you don't necessarily have the winning of people to Jesus Christ and his truth as one of your objectives. And yet what we've been discovering is this. It's one of your great privileges.

Now in this eighth facet of the effective small group leader’s ministry role, I want to share with you what I believe is a new era for evangelistic opportunity in the churches that we've been working with. 

I stumbled across this finding. I really was not looking for it. I had been working in evangelism and in church growth kind of topics for a number of years. And I was in a meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And while I was in the meeting, there were about 200, 225 people in that meeting. The attendance in the meeting was radically higher than the meeting promoters had said that it would be. They had said, "We're going to give you a workshop for about 75 people," and there were 225 people in the room. So I was puzzled and they were puzzled. And I was curious to know who was here that was unanticipated, and uninvited, and unexpected. 

And so I asked, "How many of you are members of the staff of churches." And there were a good number of hands. And I said, "Well how many of you are laypersons in the churches?" A huge number of hands. I said, "How many of you are currently serving as the leaders of small groups or Sunday school classes?" And we had 75 or so of those people raise their hands. I said, "How interesting. Huh. Seventy-five people in this room or about one in three that were actually currently leading small groups." 

Now I was off my outlines. We were just kind of curious about why everybody was here in this room and what they were doing. But I lost my way because I got curious about something. I said, "Wow, with all these laypeople in this one place and I can talk to them and not to the church professionals for a moment, and I'd like to ask them some questions." Now, what are some of the questions I'd like to ask them? And it just popped into my head. 

Somebody would say, "That was a divine inspiration. God gave you an idea that you needed." I look back on it and I believe it must've been one of those nudges of the Lord. And the question that came to my mind was, how many of you have seen conversions - adults coming to faith in Christ in your groups within the last, let's say, 12 months? And I was amazed by what I learned. I learned that in one group in four, in one-fourth of those groups, people were known to have come to faith in Christ in those groups.

And I further asked, "Well how many of you have seen this happen two or more times," and I still had 11 people who had seen this happen two or more times. And more than half the groups that had seen conversions had seen it happen more than once. Wow! And I had a flashback. Because this idea of people coming to faith in groups had been advanced to me in rather unusual circumstances a year earlier.

I'd been in South Africa. And in South Africa, I was there to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Church Growth Institute for South Africa. The 10 nations are covered by a Church Growth Institute there. And the director of the Institute is a dear, personal friend, and he and his family have lived through all the hardship times there in Africa. He's a South African National and very effectively carried on the ministry of the leadership development in those nations. And so he asked us to come over and to be with him on his 10th anniversary. And so we did. We were a part of a party of people. There was a black bishop from New York City - Bishop McKinley, a wonderful man of God. So well received by the black community especially, but the whites enjoyed him enormously. Dr. Robert Schuller from the United States went over there and from there broadcast into the Soviet Union while he was there. And Paul Cho, now called David Cho, the pastor of the world's largest church, was also one of those people on the program. 

And as I went, I was questioning why I would be going. I knew I was going to support my friend who is the director of the Institute, Johann. But I was not clear as to why I should be carving out two weeks and spending all that money and doing this work at this particular time. But I prayed about it. I said, "Lord, please make this a very rich time and a growth time for me as I go. May I have some time to see and hear the heart of Robert Schuller, and may I have some time with David Cho? But we got to the time to leave and the Schullers left, and Cho was getting ready to leave that day and I hadn't had but about a three or four or five-minute conversation with David Cho. And I felt like there was something that I ought to hear him tell me while I was there. And I got up that last morning and realized that he was only going to be there breakfast and lunch and then he was going to be gone. 

And inside of me, I had this overwhelming impulse of joy, which doesn't hit me very often. But this was one of those mornings. I got up and I was just ready to sing. And I said, "Why am I so happy? Why am I singing?" Because I'm going to have breakfast with Cho. I said, "That's ridiculous." I started this little conversation that I was losing with myself - this argument I had with myself. "It's ridiculous for you to think you're going to have breakfast with Cho, but you're going to have fun while you're having breakfast. But he doesn't even have an appointment with me. But the things you're going to learn are going to be phenomenal." I'm going back and forth. And it would take a Pentecostal to understand what was going on. My rational process just didn't admit this.

And I said, "All right." I said, "On the impulse of whatever this is that I'm experiencing here, I'll get dressed and I'll go down there. But this is really dumb because I'll go down there and he'll have 60 people around him," or "He won't be there at all, and it'll be a useless trip. But I've got to eat breakfast anyway. Okay. I'll go." So I'm going down the elevator and I'm doubting and constraining my joy all at once. And I walk in there and sure enough, no Cho. Oh wow. The place is empty. If anybody looks like they're from the Pacific except on guy and that was David Cho. And he was sitting at a table by himself with one vacant chair across from him. 

And I said, "Hmm. Wonder where his breakfast partner is?" And I'm looking around. He waves over and motions for me to sit down. 

And I sat down. And he said, "This is my last chance to be with you. And I wanted to spend a few minutes with you."

And I said, "That was my thought exactly. Thank you for being open to this." And he acted as if we had an appointment, which I guess we did in retrospect, thinking about it. You’d have to be a Presbyterian to appreciate that. 

So I asked him some questions and after he had answered a couple of my questions, then he said, "You know, we don't do evangelism in Korea the way you do evangelism in the United States."

Please understand who was saying this to me. A man who saw regularly 10,000 adult converts from Buddhism a month into his congregation. And I thought to myself, cynically-- I was too respectful to say it out loud, "Yeah, that's right. You do it and we don't." That's what I wanted to say. But I said, "Oh, I would be very interested to know how you do it. Would you be willing to talk about that?"

And he said, "Yes." He said, "We're going to win 100,000 more people to Christ and into the membership of the church in the next year. We're going to move from 700,000 to 800,000."

Oh. Now he has a track record, so he can say this. And nobody's not going to take this man seriously. Because at 700,000, he's already the largest church in the history of Christianity. Do you understand what I'm saying? In one place. 

He says, "We have many cell groups in our church."

"Yes. Okay."

"These cell groups are between 55 and 60,000 cell groups."

And I thought, "Isn't it interesting that in their ministry in the largest church in the world that the margin of error on the number of cell group leaders is larger than most of our largest churches - 55 to 60,000 - on any given week.

So he said, "What I have asked is I've asked that these cell group leaders do the work of an evangelist."

I said, "Well how are you going to win them?"

He said, "One at a time. Here's what we do. Every cell group leader does the work of an evangelist by first of all winning a hearing for the Gospel. They don't want to witness. They want to win a hearing for the Gospel. And they do this by acts of love, and service, and kindness.”

"I instruct my cell group leaders to look around, and in their workplace or in their neighborhood, to find someone who is not a believer, not a Christian, someone who is struggling at some point in their life." He said, "The struggle can be as modest as not being able to get their groceries into the elevator of their apartment building without some struggle and you just offer to help them and carry the stuff down to their apartment for them. Or the struggle can be a shopkeeper who can't keep the windows clean or can't keep the floor swept, because they're just kind of overwhelmed by what's facing them." 

And he said, "I tell my small group leaders, please go in alongside of these people and help them. You make yourself available to them. You structure your life so that you carve out some time and you just go by, and be with that person, and you be there, and you offer them help. If the children need tutoring, tutor them. If the store needs cleaning, clean it. If you can be of any help to them in whatever way you can imagine and God leads you to, just offer to help them. 

And do this on a consistent and repeated basis until they turn to you and say, 'Why are you treating me like you're treating me? Because no one has ever treated me this well before. What's going on here?'"

And he says, "At that point, it's appropriate to say, 'I'm a servant of Jesus Christ and he's told me that I should be good to all people. And I saw you were struggling and I thought if Jesus were here, he would help you. So I just thought you could use some help.'"

He said, "What this does is this eliminates all resistance to the Gospel." He said, "Because from that point on, they will ask questions and you can share with them your personal faith, you can invite them to your cell group, you can invite them to the worship services of your church." He said, "What we have learned is from the time that you have someone on your heart that you begin to serve until they are in the church as a baptized member is only four months typically." And he said, "That means that each group leader can this with room to spare twice a year. And so we could have 100,000 people won one-by-one even if every group member doesn't manage to do that." Isn't that amazing?

You see, you don't have to be a high-powered evangelist. Because when a heart is ready to receive the Word, as long as the Word is plain and clear, they can receive it. Because they've been prepared soil if you please. 

After he told me that, he went on his way, and I came back to the US pondering what that meant. And every few days after that, I would keep thinking about what a marvelous thing it was to have an appointment arranged with a man who knew so much about these things and who shared what was so obviously such a simple, simple program. But I didn't know what to do with the information. I just carried it around. And then I was in Edmonton with this group of people, and suddenly I discovered that in one-fourth of the cases in the city of Edmonton - where small group leaders were surveyed in this case. In one-fourth of the cases, this was going on here too. And I simply didn't know it. 

And so I went down to Denver and I surveyed another group of a similar size. And I found the same numbers were true. And I went over to the Detroit area and did another survey - or the Chicago area - and found the same numbers were true. Everywhere I was going, I was discovering that already spontaneously without our knowledge, about one-fourth of the groups were seeing changes in people at the level of conversion. Wow. 

So I said to the group in Edmonton, I said, "Look." I said, "This is the kind of thing that Dr. Cho told me when I was in South Africa last year. He said this is how people come to faith in Christ." Because I had them tell some of their stories and how these people had come to faith. And it all had a very similar ring to it, a very familiar sound to it. 

There had been contact, there had been love shown, there had been concern and interest, bridges had been built at the social level. The next thing we knew, the Gospel was being witnessed to and people were open to receive Christ. And I thought, "Wow!" 

Then I had all those people that had had this experience stand up, and I asked the crowd in Edmonton, "Would you please tell me whether there are any Korean ethnics in this line-up of group leaders who have seen new converts?" And they scrutinized the group very carefully - about 20 people. And no, there was not a single Asian in the group. It was an entirely Anglo group. Well, there were Anglo and Africans. But no Asians.

And I said, "Do you suppose that what we are learning here today is the evidence of first fruits and that the Holy Spirit has begun to do the same thing in North America that he's already been doing for the last 20 or 30 years in Korea? Do you suppose it's possible that God is beginning to move through small groups to bring people to faith in Christ." And they said, yes, they thought that was possible. 

I said, "All right. How would you like to intentionally join what the Holy Spirit is already doing?" I've learned that God does not seek very much advice from me on the conduct of his kingdom. Given my track record of life, he's wise not to do so. I've also learned that if I want to be blessed, I should do something that God is a blessing rather than do something that I want God to bless. And so what I do is I say, "Lord, what are you up to?" And then, "I would like to join that."

So I said to the group in Edmonton, "How do you feel about that? Would you be willing to participate in what the Holy Spirit is already obviously doing?" It seems to me that the human agency side of this thing is you have to ask for discernment as to who can be served, and search out that person, and then structure time in your life so that you can go and be available to them to serve them. And in doing so, win a hearing for the Gospel.

If you're willing to do that part, then you can leave conversion to Christ as long as you’re willing to tell your story. So I asked them, "Would you be willing to do this?" And immediately 55 people were willing to come. And they came to an altar, and they filled out a card, and they made a commitment publicly that they would do this for the next year, and they would like to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit in building bridges to people that God would be drawing to himself. And that same thing happened in Denver, and the same thing happened over in the Midwest, and up in Canada. And I have hundreds of names of small group leaders who have said,” I'm willing to be used of God to prepare a heart for the Gospel.” 

Now I'm just eager to be in touch with those people and hear the stories that are going to come as God begins to actually open to them an understanding of who it is that they should be working with. 

You see, we have a special task here in the business of doing the work of evangelism. Let me tell you what that task is. We all think we know something about how people come to faith in Christ. But we have generally separated that from the processes that lead people to join with our group as a social group, as a cell group, or as a church membership. And so I want us to look at those two events, two processes.

One of those processes, we should call the conviction process that brings us from our current condition where we are lost to the cross of Jesus Christ because he is God's provision for our sins. If Jesus did not come to this world as a human being and offered to bear our sins and take upon him our debts in God's sight, we would've had to die and be apart from God for eternity. And so coming to the cross, this is the great work of salvation. It's the great work of conviction. Because Jesus died for us. And the Holy Spirit then will bring us, as we're exposed to the truth, step by step, from non-awareness to a full realization, "Jesus died for me. He is my Savior."

Now that's a great work. And that's the initiating point for the Christian life. But what we have not often understood is so how does that relate to a church, or how does that relate to Christian people, or whatever? Because this is focusing on our hearing the Gospel, and responding, and being drawn, and finally coming to a point of realization, "God is willing to save me. Jesus died to save me. God is doing this thing in me." And the point of faith comes, and our forgiveness is received, and our conversion is affected. 

But where is the acquaintance stuff? You see, this is the conviction path where the truth of the Word, what convicts us of our need for a Savior and the fact that Christ is our Savior. But what we've got to see is the acquaintance path that brings us into the Christian fold and is a part of the body of Jesus Christ. How do we move from being a loner out here through a process that takes us within, for want of a better term, either a cell group or a church? How do we go through this process? Now we know there are some entry rituals that churches require in order to be acknowledged as Christians. 

But how does one go from being a lone ranger to being among the family of God? How does that work? You see, there are steps in this process too. And they go from not knowing any Christians to knowing a Christian, to hearing the Christian Gospel, to finding that as we're accepted by these Christians, this stuff becomes clear to us. You see?

We can do this work of acquaintance, and in the process of acquaintance, when the heart is open and ready, we can offer pieces of this truth. Conversion is truly the work of God. But our part in it is loving people. Because then we put them in a frame of heart and mind to be able to hear what we're trying to say. 

So the first task we have is we build the bridges, we win a hearing in the acquaintance process. Somewhere in this acquaintance process, usually as they become comfortably seated among us, this conviction process is hugely accelerated for the most part. 

Now, what do you need to be ready to do when you've won a hearing? There are basically two things that we have to do once you've won a hearing. One, you'd better be able to tell your story of how you came to faith in Jesus Christ in a way that doesn't confuse them. The story of your journey. Doesn't the bible say, "Be ready to give a reason for the hope that lies within you?" There's a scriptural injunction to that effect. All right. Can you tell your faith story? Can you tell the story of how you came among Christian people, and how you came to understand your need for a Savior and to understand that Christ was indeed that Savior? Can you tell that story?

You say, "Well, I've never done that before." Well, then that becomes your first stage assignment is to learn to tell your own story of coming to faith in Christ. For some of you, it happened quite young. For some of you, you don't remember some of the episodes in it and you have to say, "Wait a minute. Where am I today?" And you have to clarify that. 

But you need to prepare yourself to do the work of an evangelist by having something to say when somebody says to you, "So how does this work?"

You say, "Well I can tell you how I came to faith in Christ." And as you explain it, you have a chance to tell them what parts of scriptural truth came to your attention in what way and you came to bow to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Now once you've told them that, you've given them one path. 

Now the second thing that you need to learn to be ready for this witness is you need to have a biblical basis for the claims that you're making. You need to know something of the passages of scripture that are involved. And the longer you're in the business of leading a group, the more you should know about how to be a witness and explain the bible. 

Now as you go to the bible, you should know that there are basically three major image systems that explain salvation in the bible. There is a tribal system that leads to a kingdom where God dealt with the Jewish nation. And he did so by bringing the Jewish nation into existence and then bringing Christ to the Jewish nation and from him to the whole world. You need to know the story of the bible. You need to know the story about how God, back in Genesis, took care of Adam and Eve and even though they had sinned, he made a covering for them. And then how that Abraham, at a later point, when he was called and given by God a son, was told to take the son and sacrifice to God and then God stopped him and said, "No. It's not your son that I want. It's that ram that I want in his place." And God let off the son and brought on the animal.

And then when Moses came, God says, "Here is the lamb that will bear the sins for Israel." When this lamb dies, the guilty go free and the innocent lamb dies. And then Jesus shows up what happens when Jesus shows up?

John the Baptist says, "This is the lamb of God that was sent to take away the sins of the whole world."

And then Jesus said, "This is the day of God's acceptance. This is the day of God's mercy. There is yet to come a day of God's judgment." And Jesus died for us. 

Now that's the bible story. We need to be able to take somebody to the bible and walk through that. There are simpler pictures that are not as grand as that. But that's the grand picture of salvation. 

The simpler pictures are pictures of a courtroom such as are found in Romans where the notion of justification has advanced and how God is seen as judge of the world and you're seen as guilty sinner and yet Jesus Christ has served as the person who took your guilt, and paid your penalty, and makes it possible for you to have your sins forgiven. 

Or you can go to the Gospel of John and the first letter of John where a family or relational picture of Jesus Christ is offered. And for those who believe are made to be children of God. Those who don't believe are left outside of the family of God. And so you have a clear picture there. And so you can go to the Gospel of John. So you should be able to go to the book of Romans and do a Romans road, showing people how to deal with God, the Judge. Or you can go to John and show people how to have God as Father. Or you can show them the whole picture of the Jewish race. 

But if you have those pictures that clearly bring the salvation of Christ within the reach of people so they can see what God's intentions for them are, then you are biblically prepared to do this work of evangelization.

Now please understand that you can do the work of an evangelist. Most of your training probably has been in this area of sharing the Bible, sharing your story. But what the group leader has that the average witness doesn't have is you have a group that you're bringing people to that's a safe place for them to receive love. And when they have come among you, and your group is already going to worship, and they're seeing the larger Christian community, and they're watching the baptismal rituals and the entry levels that are appropriate to people who make confessions of faith, they see that happening. 

You interpret those to them. You say, "When people have come to faith in Christ,” -- the usual way that they announce this to the Christian community is that they come and they ask to be candidates for baptism or they ask to be candidates for whatever the next step is appropriate for them in your particular denominational context.

And so you say, "Here is the step, the pastor's class, or the membership orientation class," or whatever, "and what I'm interested to know is when it is that you would like to be involved in that. We're starting another pastor's class in another month," or, "There's another baptism scheduled for such and such a time and the baptismal preparation class is--" 

And as you discuss this with the person in your group that has come to faith in Christ, what are they going to do? They're going to understand, "Oh. So this is how Christians declare their faith." And the next thing you know, you've seen a person who started completely outside the community of fellowship with the church. Not only a part of your cell group, they're part of the larger Christian community and they're recognized as Christians by others. And you have put them in a mode that makes it the most natural thing in the world for them to turn around, become your apprentice, look around and find somebody that's struggling like they were, they walk right alongside that person and what have you just done? You have just created a means by which many can come to faith in Christ. Because you have shown them how to be an instrument of God reaching toward mankind as his Holy Spirit nudges, and draws, and calls people into the grace of God.

What a privilege you have to be a small group leader, a cell group leader, Sunday school class teacher. And may God help you as you make that commitment and you search out that first person to begin serving. May he walk with you, and may you be aware of his Holy Spirit's presence, and may you see much fruit. God bless you.


Last modified: Wednesday, July 8, 2020, 12:53 PM