I wrote a post in May about experiencing community and I wanted to do a follow up. Several weeks ago, we began our LIFEGroup ministry at Revolution Church, which is an extension of the local church meeting in homes for the purposes of fellowship, accountability, Bible study, and prayer.

I am simply blown away.

In our corporate gathering, we are going through the book of Acts and you can’t help but notice the amazing sense of community experienced by the early church. There were amazing displays of God’s power, huge gestures of generosity, and harsh consequences for anything or anyone who threatened that community.

So Revolution Church is experiencing a paradigm shift in the way we think about discipleship. Most people are familiar with a church model (whether you know it or not) that has a church who meets and offers small groups as a discipleship option.

We like this. It makes us feel normal. It makes us feel comfortable. We know others to do this and consequently, we don’t mind falling right in line. To say you’re a church who offers small groups, really doesn’t distinguish you from any other church in any other town or any other city.

It is an entirely different thing to be a church OF small groups. Where what happens in the corporate gathering is an extension and celebration of what is happening in the context of many smaller gatherings.

This is unfamiliar territory for many of us. This forces us to change the way we look at church. When we experience community, accountability, and are challenged in the small group setting of our LIFEGroup families, it alters our approach to corporate worship. We are no longer putting our best foot forward and trying to show people only what we want them to see. We are more likely to express our needs through transparency because we are already walking in relationships that require that in a smaller context. And that can make us uncomfortable.

So either we run from that or we lean into the tension created by authentic and transparent relationships.

I am blown away by the difference this has made in our people in the few short weeks we’ve been meeting in small groups. We don’t have it all figured out – not nearly all figured out! We will continue to tweak, adjust, and realign our approach as the Holy Spirit leads. For now, I am eager to see where this takes us as a church.

What about you? Who are you in community with? Who has access into the areas of your life that you don’t like to talk about? If you don’t have that, I would invite you to plug into a church that facilitates this in smaller group settings.