Christian Living

Small Groups—Anything Goes

by J.W. Phillips
01/17/25
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Small Groups—Anything Goes

Getting together for social events is fine, but the way we assume that fellowship is likely to occur is not fine. We elasticize the definition of fellowship too much if we link it to food, fun, and festivity. Just getting people together assures nothing—except perhaps a higher calorie count!

The Babylon Bee recently lampooned the small group movement with humor that exposes its absurd claims. Too easily impressed with slogans, many small group enthusiasts talk about “doing life together.” That sounds good, I suppose, but how good is it really?

According to the Babylon Bee “… if you’re ever in doubt that what you’re doing counts as fellowship,” then there’s a need to check out these answers to the question, does it qualify as “Doing Life Together?”

Watching Sports       Yes

Texas Hold’em
Tournament             Definitely doing life together

Chillin in Azeroth with 
your World of
Warcraft Clan          Oh, heck, yeah       


Ladies bunco night  You’d better believe it, sisters!

Bible study             Dangerously close to authentic                                 
                              connection—stay clear

Commenting on this checklist, The Babylon Bee said: “Looks just like doing whatever you want while getting spiritual points in the process, doesn’t it?

Yes, it does! So getting carnal Christians to sign up for these groups is easy.

This spoof of a very serious point does call into question the loose thinking accepted by some small group enthusiasts. Definitions do matter. If we define fellowship too broadly, saying little more than “connecting” and “authentic community,” we really haven’t said very much. These words may be fine for church websites; but at some point, a greater precision is needed.

What must be set forth are specific characteristics that present a clear delineation between what the world calls friendliness and what the Bible calls fellowship.

It is true that broadmindedness and flexibility are virtues in some situations. But if I’m an astronaut about to be launched into space, I don’t want to hear how the people who planned this trip were “broadminded” and “flexible” in their planning. After all, one degree off—in one direction or another—means that I spin out of orbit or burn on reentry.

Critics of the “broadminded” view of fellowship—the view that accepts almost any small group format as legitimate—have rightly observed: “If you don’t know where you are going, any ole way will get you there.”

This is one reason many paradigms for small group ministry exist in the church. Of concern to me, is the lack of intentionality, the lack of precision, to activate the “one another” principles in so many of these paradigms.

One suspects that something sinister is going on here and that behind the scenes the slick serpent is still trying to confuse.

By sleight-of-hand, the magician wants to change your focus and get you to look in the wrong direction. If the biblical vision for fellowship gets swapped out for “small groups,” the format won’t matter much, and therefore all kinds of groups will qualify: affinity groups, addiction groups, ministry groups, mission groups, special needs groups. Just pick one; a group is a group!

The relationship of small groups to fellowship can be likened to the relationship of a zoo with animals. The logic here is this: If you want to see an animal, go to the zoo. And if you want to see fellowship, go to a small group. Of course, the zoo has a lot of animals, just as a church has a lot of small groups.

But here’s the critical point: A zoo doesn’t contain every animal. In fact, there are very popular animals not found in any zoo; and this may really be the animal you want—a playful dog, for example, or a cuddly cat.

Now, if I likened fellowship to one of these pets, the theological problem about small groups becomes a little clearer. Yes, a pet is an animal, and, yes, the zoo hosts a great number of animals. But that doesn’t mean I’ll find the pet I’m looking for by going to a zoo. I won’t.

Let’s say that I want is a ministry that follows all the “one another principles.” The small group movement, though, like the zoo, doesn't offer what I really want.

Does this shock you? It should. Church leadership has paid no attention to the fellowship-to-small-group switch that allowed biblical fellowship to be excluded, sidelined, and in most churches to become a non-option.

Fellowship is a major area of church life, so allowing this to happen is a big deal.

This carelessness in defining fellowship has hurt a lot of people. Because to be so close to needed healing—with Christians present, the Bible opened, and prayers to the Lord offered—and yet go home week after week with major needs unattended and unsolved is nothing short of tragic.

The reason this tragedy so frequently occurs is directly traceable to how a church defines fellowship. When it comes to targeting the flesh and those specific solutions needed for holiness, the effort made in many small groups is almost zero.

In too many instances, “connections” between the Word and what is actually transacting in one’s life is loose and ineffective. Therefore, the dynamics exhibited in many small group fellowships aren’t really all that “authentic.”

Church leaders need to evaluate, not just perpetuate, what's going on. Most leaders haven't done this. They just go along with what they have in place. Que sera sera!

One church that resisted this approach was the Willow Creek Church in Chicago. This megachurch was famous for their small groups! Indeed, many books and many conferences were used to export their model to other churches.

But then they did a multi-year-quality study of their ministry and discovered that even with high participation in these groups, they didn’t work. Pastor Bill Hybels confessed, “We made a mistake.” He called the findings of this study “earth shaking,” “groundbreaking,” and “mind blowing.”

A prominent Willow Creek spokesman acknowledged that high participation in church activities (of which their small groups were most prominent) “does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.”

As Willow Creek discovered, wrong small group formats based on wrong assumptions do have consequences. These consequences are avoidable, however, if we follow the maxim: If it’s worth doing, the Bible will tell us how to do it.

And it has done so in all those “one another” statements.