Allan Taylor: Nine reasons why we must have care groups

Each Sunday morning adults come to church needing to experience three different dynamics.  They need to be influenced by worship, instructed in the Word, and impacted by friends.  These three needs are met by our time of worship, the Sunday School lesson, and time shared in a Care Group.  Care Groups, therefore, need to be viewed as a vital part of the Sunday morning experience and not something that is optional.

Care Groups play a major role in the total Sunday morning experience for adults, but they also play a major role in the Sunday School's "work of the ministry": reaching people, teaching people, and ministering to people.  Care Groups are the principal means of accomplishing the third task of Sunday School – ministering to people.  By structuring our adult classes into Care Groups, we provide a mechanism to minister to people.  Other plans have failed in their attempt to meet people at the point of their need because they are structured around an organization or program.  Care Groups are organized and may be considered a program.  However, they operate, first and foremost, on the premise of relationships.

At First Baptist Woodstock, our adult classes break into Care Groups each Sunday for twenty minutes (see Class Structure, chapter eight).  During this time, the Care Group Leader takes the roll, so he will know who is absent and needs a contact that week.  In addition, he leads the group to pray for each others’ prayer requests, makes assignments for hospital or ministry visits, and makes them aware of small group discipleship opportunities.

Corrie Ten Boom once said, “The measure of a life is not its duration but its donation.”  Care Groups help us “donate” to each other and minister to those who are hurting.  Here are nine reasons I believe ministering is so vital today.

1. Pain and hurt are part of the human experience.

“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22).

When Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world, they ushered in pain and hurt.  Pain comes in the form of physical hurt, but it also comes in the form of emotional hurt.  Since that time in the Garden of Eden, man has been inflicted with suffering.  However, I am of the opinion that as we draw closer and closer to the world’s greatest time of suffering – The Great Tribulation – mankind will experience the acceleration of agony.  We cannot deny the increase of murder, abortion, pornography, hatred, divorce, child abuse, drugs, violence, etc. in our society.  Sin has been turned loose and is cutting a destructive path through our heartland.  Because pain and suffering are at an all-time high, the need for genuine, loving ministry has never been so vital.  Our sin-filled society has jeopardized our families and, consequently, our society; but it also gives the Church of Jesus Christ a tremendous opportunity to step into people’s lives with the love of Christ and do vital, life-saving ministry.

2. Every believer needs the association of other believers.

“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Romans 12:5, emphasis mine).

Dr. Ray Orland stated it well when he said, “The Christian who is not committed to a group of other believers for praying, sharing, and serving so that he is known, as he knows others, is not an obedient Christian.  He is not in the will of God.  However vocal he may be in his theology, he is not obeying the Lord.”

3. Everyone needs encouragement to grow spiritually.

“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.  For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.  Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?  And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).

There is no such thing as a “Lone Ranger” Christian.  The Bible is clear that we need each other.  If not, why the command to assemble with other Christians?  Those who say they can be just as good a Christian without the association and encouragement of other believers is either deceived or a liar!

4. Everyone learns from others.

“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend” (Proverbs 27:17).

I have heard people describe themselves as “self-made men.”  In response, I always say to myself, “I pity that poor man.”  I don’t want to be a self-made man.  I want to be a better man because of all the input I have received from others.  I want to be a composite of other’s deposits.  Don’t allow your pride to blind you from the value that others will bring to your life.  To be a self-made man is to be a prideful or ignorant person.

5. It is what Jesus would have us to do.

Jesus was confronted by “a certain lawyer” who wanted to know who his neighbor was.  Jesus then told the story of the Good Samaritan.  He concluded this story with the following:

“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?  And he said, He that showed mercy on him.  Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise” (Luke 10:36-37, emphasis mine).

Jesus taught we are to minister to others -- even to the point of inconveniencing ourselves.  He gave us the supreme example by dying on the cross for us.  The Apostle Paul illustrated Jesus as the ultimate example of thinking of others in Philippians 2.

“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.  Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

6. There is power when we pray together.

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1 John 5:14-15).

The prayer ministry that goes on each week in our Care Groups may be the greatest ministry the church offers.  It may exceed the sermon, the Sunday School lesson, and the choir special in ministering to the hearts of needy people.  Do not underestimate the prayer ministry of your Care Groups.

7. It gives strong witness to the world.

“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.…I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:21, 23).

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35).

Through the love we have for one another, the world will see Christ in us.  Thus, our love and support to others give a strong testimony to the lost world of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ that transformed us.

8. I am responsible to other believers.

“As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10).

We are responsible for the spiritual welfare of others.  We are to help each other and minister to each other.  It is not only our privilege; it is our duty.

9. We need to hold each other accountable.

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1-2).

Who should go to a brother that is slipping?  Who would even know he was slipping but those who know him and have a relationship with him?  Ministry best takes place within the arena of established relationships.  Because two people have a relationship, they have the right to say things to each other that no one else does.  Because they have a relationship, they are able to know how to minister to one another.  For example, it is the person who has loved me and prayed with me and supported me that has earned the right to contact me when I have been unfaithful to attend like I should.

When you observe these nine ministry reasons, you will quickly notice all of them operate best in the confines of a small group.  A mother who just found out her teenage daughter is pregnant out of wedlock may not share that in a class of twenty-five people.  However, she may share that in a Care Group setting of eight people who she has met with and prayed with often.  Care Groups are a great way to get people involved in each other’s lives.

Allan Taylor is the author of Sunday School in HD and The Six Key Values of Sunday School. He will will be doing an All Star Sunday School Training event July 26 - 27 in Oxford Mississippi. He also scheduled to do an All Star Training in Ohio April 11, 12, 2014

To schedule an All Star Sunday School Training event, see http://allstarsundayschool.com/ or contact Josh Hunt at josh@joshhunt.com 575.650.4564